Dear Editor:
The HPA has never been the City’s best agency, but it is also not the worst. It is an easy political whipping boy that raises a lot of revenue for the City. Its presence allows the politicians to stay arms length from the parking problem and toss some blame around when politically advantageous. That’s ok if it works. A few facts:
•All parking ticket revenues are split between the state and the City. The HPA gets ZERO. All street enforcement is done at a loss.
•The HPA has given over $15 million to the City of Hoboken over the last 12 years in lieu of property taxes on the municipal garages.
•The 916 Garage project and the Midtown Garage were funded by bond issue and are repaid completely from HPA operations. No tax revenue was ever used for construction or operations.
However, the HPA has a war chest of cash that the Mayor can’t resist. Filling the HPA board with commissioners who are expected to show blind loyalty is an attempt to guarantee his access to the funds to plug revenue short falls in a terribly bloated budget. With $43,000,000 worth of total assets at stake, including an irresistible cash position of $21,000,000, the HPA life expectation shrinks as the projected City deficit grows.
The Mayor will tell you that the HPA needs to be reformed; he will tell you that it is misguided and incompetent. That is not true; this is political spin to justify the dissolution of the HPA so he can grab the assets. Attempts by the first HPA board of the Roberts administration to improve the management of the HPA and its structure were stonewalled and chastised. There is still no parking agenda from the Mayors office.
When the HPA is dissolved, Hoboken taxpayers should earmark all funds of the Authority to improve parking and create open space. If we don’t, the money will disappear into new government jobs, fat-cat contracts, political favors, and other fiscal folly. I’ll start the accounting:
$1,000,000 in unrestricted cash
$22,000,000 in restricted cash that secures the bonds (the restriction is lifted if the City owns the bonds)
$43,000,000 in Total assets that can be sold to private concerns.
(numbers are as of 12/21/2001 as calculated in the certified audit) Sounds like 43,000,000 reasons to dissolve the HPA.
Daniel deCavaignac
Former HPA Commissioner