HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-03-20 Public Comment - D. Pickard - Parking Benefit Zones Parking_ProblemDale Pickard
527 North Montana
Bozeman MT 59715
Re: Parking Benefit Zones
Commissioners,
I was one of many who commented on the City Parking Plans before the
Commission.
The proposed plan is based entirely on the single book by Richard Shoup with the
misleading title, “The High Cost of Free Parking.”. This book promotes pernicious
rent seeking economic solutions to parking issues. These parking issues, especially
in Bozeman, are brought on by this same rent seeking economic manipulation of
public policy by powerful business interests.
To seek rent is to appropriate ownership of a usually publicly owned resource and
then extract payments for use of the public good. The rent seeker grifts off
investments made by others, i.e. residential taxpayers. Perhaps more importantly,
rent seeking does nothing to actually address resource management or access,
In this context, to seek rent is for these business interests and the City itself to
grift off of the relatively low income taxpaying residents in the areas that will be
blighted by the so called “benefit zones.” These residents, who are already well
aware of the cost of the streets on which they live, will need to pay for the
privilege of using the resource they already own. It is likely that we will also enjoy
increased taxes to fund the proposed parking police surveillance, fining and
permitting program.
Shoupian followers refer to this grifting process, as “management” of a parking
problem that is of their own creation. In classic rent seeking fashion, because the
cost of parking infrastructure is high, Shoup insists that developers not be required
to provide sufficient parking for their developments and instead depend on public
infrastructure. Apparently that is where we find ourselves in Bozeman.
Shoup and his followers promote the idea that the taxpaying residents in the
designated neighborhoods will receive some unnamed and unspecified “benefit”
for living in the zone that is to be funded by the profits generated by the permits
and fines imposed. These “profits” cited are those in excess of the costs of
administering what appears to be a burgeoning parking policing program.
Of course, this is nonsense – just a fraudulent inducement intended to disguise
the fact that the City has unjustly appropriated our taxpayer contribution to our
neighborhoods and seeks to sell it back to us and to others at a profit.
It should be beneath those on the City Commission to lie and condescend to us
using this argument. There are no benefits to the victims – just a transfer of wealth
from those who need it most to those who intentionally grift on public policy.
To add insult to injury, low and middle income taxpaying property owners in
afflicted areas are to receive a discount over those of lower income who rent
their homes in the area and those who commute to the downtown area to fill low
wage jobs.
Another falsehood of rent seeking behavior is that nothing is done to actually
address issues related to crass over-development, i.e. new parking infrastructure is
not created, rather the infrastructure that exists is reserved only for those willing
and able to pay - property ownership or residency in the area notwithstanding. In
this way, over-developers and the City obviate and disenfranchise taxpaying
citizens and otherwise legitimate stakeholders. None of this is good for the
community.
What the City proposes is nothing short of Orwellian. The parking commission
proposes that a parking police force be formed and maintained that will use
vehicles equipped with cameras that scan license plates to troll neighborhoods
and build databases that identify those most afflicted by over-development. These
markets distressed by over-development are most susceptible to grifting, (rent
seeking).
Once designated, these parking police, license plate readers, and compiled
databases are used to patrol these neighborhoods so as to enforce permitting fees
and fines for non-compliance. The revenue resulting from such fees and fines on
taxpayers and other civic stakeholders both support and grow the parking police
and subsidize over-development at the expense of the citizenry at large.
Finally, these solutions to over-development are not sustainable. The City and the
parking commission can expect significant resistance to such draconian measures
taken at the expense of the property owners and legitimate stakeholders on
behalf of powerful moneyed interests that seek only to displace the costs of
development onto others.