www.uncivilservants.org

most restaurants have 'staff meals'. I've definitely seen many of the staff of Tom's (and I think Mr. Carnivore was there once when I viewed this) sitting down to meals of Tom's food. I know the staff at restaurants around the neighborhood are given, as part of their pay, a shift meal. that's one thing. that's legal. that's a part of employment offered as a supplement to payment. parking on the sidewalk is illegal unless responding to an emergency. parking on the sidewalk without reason is just plain illegal. it's not part of payment. it might be an implied oversight by other police seeing this illegality. but frankly, I've kicked cop cars blocking snowed-in intersections, so I don't grant cops (or firefighters) any leeway on this issue. just like I bitch out bicycle riders who are on the sidewalk. and kick cabs that are blocking intersections in midtown. I'm not very patient with people who fuck with traffic flow - whether pedestrian or vehicular.

Good for Joe I'm on your side. I don't have a car but if i did I woulld not be jealous if what you guys can do . Be safe.

Society that makes war with its police had better learn to make friends with its Criminals...

King without a crown wrote: Society that makes war with its police had better learn to make friends with its Criminals...

KWAC:

I worked for the NYPD for 11 years and still have a lot of friends there. I have tremendous respect for the department and most of the people who work there. I do not think that it is disrespectful or "making war" to ask that the police adhere to rules. I agree that some of the anti-NYPD comments in this thread have crossed the line, but the basic concept of expecting that cops not abuse their parking permits seems perfectly reasonable.

Respect goes both ways.

While I don't condone the "perks" of illegal parking - I just wanted to add that please, as a friend and relative of officers who work undercover - posting their private plates (not cars but plates) can lead to criminals finding their families and homes so please think twice before posting the plate numbers in your photos.

stacey wrote: While I don't condone the "perks" of illegal parking - I just wanted to add that please, as a friend and relative of officers who work undercover - posting their private plates (not cars but plates) can lead to criminals finding their families and homes so please think twice before posting the plate numbers in your photos.

If a criminal is going to seek out plates from cars parked right in front of a precinct they don't need this guy's web site to do it.

vanilla wrote: i was thinking of this post last night after midnight in the pouring rain as a police car blew through a red light without sirens or anything - i think the police should be setting good examples for the rest of society.

but what about 9/11!?

you don't want the terrorists to WIN DO YOU!?

too bad terrorists are the new aliens - that whole abduction thing just sounds way more romantic than double parked terrorists.

Now you've done it: NY times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/nyregion/22parking.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Debate Over a Web Site About Parking and Permits

Article Tools Sponsored By
By ANTHONY RAMIREZ
Published: March 22, 2007

When a Web site called “Uncivil Servants” went live last week, the site’s operator didn’t know there was a “bklyncop1” out there, the screen name of someone who identifies himself as a police officer and who questions the site’s methods as a danger to the police.

The site, nyc.uncivilservants.org, is run by Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group that argues that municipal employees, especially the police, abuse their city-issued parking permits.

The group estimates that at least 150,000 drivers have such permits, which allow free street parking.

The rules for using government-issued parking permits are complex. But the permits are intended for specific locations, like blocks around courthouses or precinct stations, and not as a way to avoid paying parking meters or as an excuse to block fire hydrants and bus stops.

Critics, like Transportation Alternatives, say lax enforcement has, in essence, transformed the permit into a salary bonus, a perquisite for holding certain city jobs. An uncounted number of permits are counterfeit, the group says.

The Web site allows anyone to anonymously post photographs of cars that seem to be parked illegally and include as much information as possible to identify the offender. In just a few days, the site also has become a popular forum for impassioned exchanges in the city’s survival-of-the-swiftest struggles over one of its scarce resources.

“All I’m saying is that maybe, just maybe there is reason why certain cars are parked illegally,” wrote “bklyncop1” on Monday. “I don’t agree with parking at bus stops or hydrants, and handicapped parking is a great reason to draw and quarter someone.

“But,” “bklyncop1” continued, “to take pictures of cops’ cars with the license plate visible for every skell to see is dangerous.” Skell is police slang for a criminal.

City agencies issue parking permits to select employees, like City Hall workers or court officers, to allow them to do their official duties. But critics say the permits are widely abused.

The illegal parking is hazardous, critics add, because it blocks hydrants and bus stops, and forces drivers without permits to double-park and slow or stop other traffic.

Transportation Alternatives plans to use information from the Web site to file state Freedom of Information requests to see how government agencies regulate parking permits, especially how expired permits are returned; how agencies educate permit holders on what they may and may not do; and other matters.

On Tuesday, someone with the screen name “1985bianchi” posted a photograph of what he said was a police officer’s “new, $70,000 Corvette” under a tarpaulin and parked in Battery Park City. A police permit is visible through the windshield.

“He has parked in the exact same spot for over a year. He uses his unmarked police car,” which the poster described as a gray Impala, “to hold his parking spot when he takes his Vette out.” The poster identified the Impala’s license plate and the parking permit.

“At one point,” “1985bianchi” wrote, the officer had two Corvettes. “As you can see from this photo, a Vette with a car cover that hasn’t been moved since before last week’s storm clearly can’t be on ‘official police duty.’ ”

Using information on the Web site, the Police Department said that the Corvette was not a police vehicle, and that it did not display an N.Y.P.D. placard, but one issued by New York State.

The Corvette, parked under a tarpaulin not far from the Hudson River, was there at 4 p.m. yesterday.

Such details incense “bklyncop1” and others, including “musha,” who identifies himself as a police officer.

“It’s bad enough,” “musha” wrote on Monday, “I have people I have arrested recognizing and approaching me on vacation in Atlantic City (among other places). I have no desire to have one find my doorstep or my family.”

Others, presumably those who are not police officers, disagree. Someone with the screen name “oiseau” wrote on Monday: “Are you saying the cops are very upset? They are upset that people are standing up to their arrogance.”

For its part, Transportation Alternatives said it was sympathetic to the officers’ concerns. “This site is not meant to be pro-cop or anti-cop,” said Matthew Roth, a Transportation Alternatives official who helps administer the site. No one, he said, wants to endanger the police.

But, Mr. Roth said, the site is “user-driven,” meaning posters can sometimes submit a problematic photo or post before a site administrator can block it. The site now urges posters not to submit photographs with visible license plates.

Unfortunately, he said, Transportation Alternatives lacks the money or manpower to alter, after the fact, the photographs already on the site. The site now has more than 200 photographs of cars and their locations.

Since the site began on March 15, it has had more than 11,000 visitors and 10,000 page views daily.

Responding to the Web site’s complaints, Paul J. Browne, a Police Department spokesman, said: “Official parking placards allow parking in some, but not all spaces that would otherwise be illegal. Placards do not exempt police or other vehicles parked in bus stops or in front of fire hydrants, for example.

“Last week, the Police Department towed 12 vehicles displaying police and court placards that were parked illegally in Chinatown in the First Precinct.”

At any rate, the site has become, unexpectedly, a place for the Police Department to blow off steam.

“Bklyncop1” wrote on Monday: “I understand you all feel like we take advantage, but look past the parking issue and look at the bright side.
“You wouldn’t be on this site without the N.Y.P.D. protecting your lives and property. God bless America and God bless the N.Y.P.D.!!!”

Carnivore wrote: [quote=SevenOneEighty]“Bklyncop1” wrote on Monday: “I understand you all feel like we take advantage, but look past the parking issue and look at the bright side.
“You wouldn’t be on this site without the N.Y.P.D. protecting your lives and property. God bless America and God bless the N.Y.P.D.!!!”

That is such a crock!
You wouldn't be on this site without ConEd either, and you wouldn't be on it if you didn't have all the farmers providing food for you, and you wouldn't be on it if you had died of polio as a child, and you wouldn't be on it without the good people at BestBuy who sold you your computer. I guess that ConEd employees and farmers and doctors and scientists and BestBuy workers should be able to park wherever they want in their private cars while not on duty also.

I contribute nothing to society at all (I just help fuel litigation!) but I wanna park illegally, too. can I?