Word count: 949 | Reading time: 4 min read
Pretzel Logic
Parking problems? Fix it yourself.
A lot has happened since the day Brian Altman (no relation, really, I swear) tried to get the city to replace a no-parking sign that was stolen from its post in front of his house.
The Russians invaded Chechnya.
The Republicans took over Congress.
O.J. went Bronco-busting on the freeway.
But here it is, 15 months later, and Altman, a Temple psychology grad student, is still battling the bureaucracy.
Needlessly, as I learned, in one phone call this week to a guy who knows the score.
Because the city don’t do no-parking signs like the one Altman has griped about. Not for 15 years.
But did anyone tell him?
Nope.
He called the Streets Department. He called the mayor’s office. He wrote the mayor’s office. He wrote the mayor’s campaign office. He told Ed that “this fall, I will be teaching at Temple University and I will have to attend many early morning classes. It would be a great injustice to both myself and to my students if I were late for classes due to this problem.”
But nobody had a clue that the city don’t do signs.
The faceless voices of bureaucracy on the other end of the phone lines just promised him that, oh, any minute now, we will be out there to replace it. And, like a good citizen, Altman waited. And waited. And waited some more.
“Somebody should have told me,” says Altman, who complains that without a sign, motorists park their vehicles with total disregard for the fact that they are blocking Altman into his driveway. “I don’t care if the city stopped replacing the signs. I’m willing to pay for it myself. I just want to stop people from parking in front of the driveway.”
Altman says that he even called 911 and was told by an operator that the cops don’t ticket cars when a sign is missing. He adds that, of the 25 times he has called 911 in the past year, only one call resulted in a car being ticketed.
The last straw, says Altman, came earlier this week, when, fed up with the run-around, he took matters into his own hands.
First, he went to Home Depot, plunked down $7 for three “No Parking” signs and placed the metal one on the post where the old city sign was torn down lo those many months ago. He also placed two plastic “No Parking” signs on his driveway gate.
“I just hope motorists respect my homemade signs. Or at least that police will begin writing parking tickets,” says Altman. “The whole operation, including driving to the store, took an hour. Why has it taken the city so long?”.
But the next step was even better.
He mailed yet another letter to the mayor.
Only this one was different.
This letter had a check.
For $100.
Made out to Ed Rendell.
With the memo line reading: “Bribe for ‘No Parking’ sign at 2nd and Carpenter.”
“Hopefully I won’t get in trouble for that one,” Altman tells me sheepishly. “I hope the mayor doesn’t really consider it a bribe. It’s a real check, but I did it sarcastically. I want the mayor to use that money to replace the sign in front of my house.”
That’s not likely to happen, according to Rendell spokesman Kevin Feeley, who says “I never heard of anyone doing that before.”
Oh, the mayor gets lots of checks, says Feeley. For this charity or that cause.
“The mayor usually turns over these checks to some charitable purpose,” Feeley says with a chuckle. “I do not know what is going to happen in this case.”
Feeley tells me to call Larry Moy, commissioner of the Streets Department. Moy is vacationing, but Kathy McKenna, truly one of the nicer assistants in the city, told me she would get on the case and find someone who could help end the mystery of the missing sign pronto.
True to her word, about a half-hour later, I get a call from Streets Department employee, Charlie Trainer. Trainer tells me that, 15 years ago, the city stopped replacing signs for state traffic regulations.
Like the one regarding Altman’s place at 2nd and Carpenter.
There is no parking there because, says Trainer, state law says you cannot park within 20 feet of a corner.
“But how do people know that without a sign?” I ask.
“They got driver’s licenses, don’t they?” he says. “It is illegal to park within 30 feet of a stop sign and 15 feet from a fire hydrant, but we don’t post either of those two. We are not going to post this either.”
Trainer says he doesn’t know why no one in the city could offer Altman that simple explanation. And he doesn’t know why, 10 months ago, other Streets Department personnel told Altman that they would go out to the neighborhood and see which sign was appropriate.
There is one solution to Altman’s angst, says Trainer.
“We can provide him with a permit to paint an ‘x-in-the-box’ which will remind drivers not to block the driveway. But he needs a permit. It’s a simple matter.”
Well, maybe not so simple, says Altman.
“Why should I have to bother with filling out a permit and then spending money on the paint and do the job myself?” he says. “I don’t care what the city says. I still want the sign, even if I have to pay for it and do it myself.”
Hmmm.
He doesn’t want to pay for the paint or paint the box. But he is willing to pay for the sign and install it himself.
Talk about pretzel logic.
Maybe this guy is a long-lost relative after all.
