At present, the State Legislature has not formally introduced any legislation for the City Council to review. Therefore, unless that changes by Monday’s hearing, the City Council will have to make a recommendation completely ignorant of what the actual legislation authorizing the Congestion Tax says, which is like signing a piece of paper agreeing to a contract without ever seeing what the contract says.
However, according to the Daily News’ Daily Politics blog, which has uploaded a draft bill circulating from the Bloomberg administration that is dated March 17th, the language is highly problematic if this bill is in fact introduced. In addition to all the other bad ideas espoused for the Congestion Tax by the Commission’s final report, there are a few features that are equally problematic.
(1) It makes all Congestion Tax revenues the “property of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority”. If you have problems with the MTA’s accounting, its penchant for fare and toll hikes, and how several comptrollers have pointed to miscalculations in their financial statements, you can feel comfortable knowing that they would be handling even more of your money.
(2) In addition to revoking parking tax exemptions for residents in the Tax Zone, it allows residents throughout the City of New York to petition their local community boards to create parking-permit-only zones that will privatize 50% of any side of a taxpayer-funded street for the exclusive parking privilege of resident permit holders within that zone. It says nothing about which streets are eligible, meaning streets with mixed-use buildings as well as strictly residential may be off-limits to the public, nor how to distribute permits equitably where two-family homes and apartment buildings share the same street. It also says the permit-only parking zone can freeze parking for at least 90 minutes; it sets no maximum.
(3) It keeps the 48-hour deadline for paying the Tax. Those who fail to pay in 48 hours can be fined up to $65!
More as I delve deeper into the 41-page bill.