Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Meet the New Parking Plan, Worse Than the Old Parking Plan

As if you could possibly expect anything different from John Cranley, we get his plan or plan with options to "fix" the parking problem. It is a plan that looks and sounds like the plan the previous administration put forth last year, but it doesn't do as much and costs the city more. What he puts forth a plan that does the following:
  1. Increase Debt by issuing bonds
  2. Raise parking prices everyone but Downtown and OTR (how's that knife in the back feel Mr. Witte?)
  3. Adds upgraded meters that WILL NOT interact online, meaning no payment via cell phone.
  4. Adds more city employees to enforce parking without detail on how he will fund their full expense.
What did John Cranley Not Do:
  1. Explain how issuing bonds creates annual revenue.  Is this a fancy way of saying they will just issue new bonds each year? Or is this an investment gimmick where he gets a big 'loan', invests it and calls the earnings on that investment revenue, while not talking about paying back the principle.
  2. Who will pay back the bonds?  This seems like a rather big point.  Trying to pay for upgrades to garages and meters, adding new staff to bring in new revenue, raising parking rates that Cranley and his supports said would hurt the business community, thus lowering tax revenue, how does he plan on paying for this?  Is is going to just buy some Twitter Stock and pray it doubles in value every year until he leaves office?
Once again Cranley is, shall we be blunt, full of shit. He puts forth a worse version of the plan set forth previously one that does far less and costs the City far more, and he thinks he's doing something better?  A large portion of the Media lets him off the hook and more importantly we get SILENCE from those who fought the parking plan, the conservatives.  That prior plan basically privatized parking in the city, and conservatives were against it.  This new plan would increase the size of government and we haven't heard a peep.  Council member Murray, have you lost the will to speak out on parking?  Have you abandoned Hyde Park Square business owners?

Also, more importantly, is Cranley going to offer this plan up to a vote to the citizens? He was so eager for that before, will he do it now? I don't see that as part of his plan, and instead he wants to ram it through council. Hope the people on Council don't chicken out and rubber stamp this turkey.  I'm look at you Mr. Mann, don't be a chicken or a turkey, push back on Cranley.

2 comments:

  1. Doesn't feel good at all. Nope not at all.

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  2. Lol Brian either you're just looking for yet another excuse to trash Cranley (likely) or you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and apparently didn't even read the details of the proposal (also likely). The port issues the bonds (just as they would have under the privatized plan, well over $100 million in that case, versus $26 million here) and gets a revenue stream from the fountain square south garage and some yet to be identified amount of meter revenues in return. Furthermore, unlike the previous plan, which forfeited all but $3 million in annual payments and a lump sum of $85 million ($15 million of which immediately went back to the port for a new garage, mind you) they get to keep the $7 million in revenue they already get annually, $3 million in extra revenue, all of that stays in the city rather than going to a private company, and our democratically elected council sets rates as opposed to an unaccountable panel of four port representatives and one appointed city rep. You can poke fun at Pete Witte, act shocked that politicians occasionally reverse course on things (though in all fairness you cheered Sittenfeld, Mann and Flynn on when they flip flipped on the streetcar) and act like you're suddenly concerned about the city's budget (which nobody with half a brain would actually believe) but this deal is a good deal for the city--certainly more so than the abomination Dahoney, Mallory, Qualms, et al advocated.

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