Dear Editor:
In this brave new century, watch out when politicians start talking about “reform.” Mayor Roberts’ slick new newsletter, mailed at considerable expense to Hoboken’s Democratic Party, devotes nearly a third of its space to plans for “reforming” the Parking Authority. In this case, Roberts’ solution to that agency’s many problems is to privatize it — that is, to sell it to a private contractor. His newsletter cites three U.S cities that have increased revenue by privatizing their parking.
These days, it is fashionable to revere “free market competition” as the solution for all problems. Thorough analysis, however, will show that it works better in some areas than in others. Will it really do the job for our city’s municipal parking mess? If privatizing parking were so great as the mayor says, there would be hundreds of examples, not just three, cited in his brochure.
Hobokenites should consider that there are negative aspects of privatizing government services. They include (1) enabling private operators to earn profits (some of which may be returned by grateful entrepreneurs in the form of campaign contributions — or possibly less visible payments); (2) weakening or removing workers’ civil service or collectively bargained protections; and (3) eliminating politicians’ accountability for degradation of service driven by operators’ bottom-lines.
Let’s hope that the Mayor and Council are careful to build in safeguards against such negative aspects so that their parking privatization scheme doesn’t turn out to be just another boondoggle.
John Glasel