On the first day of summer school, I used the roundabout like we were asked. It was a bit slow, but to the school's credit they kept it flowing as best they could. The main issue was that a traffic light on a neighboring street went out and caused a jam that backed up all the way to the school. That's just an unfortunate one-off event. It's not the school's fault, and it's not something that happens regularly.
On the next day, however, I decided to test out street parking. I pulled up right in front of the guy monitoring the streets, parked, got Lil' S1 out, and started to walk toward the school. He politely confronted me and told me I couldn't park there. I said I'd just be a minute and took Lil' S1 inside. On the way back I went up to him and hashed out the parking issue. It was mostly a friendly conversation. I was probably a bit overly contentious at first because I felt like he was bullshitting me, but once he realized I wasn't going to let it fly, the conversation took a turn for the better. Here's a pharaphrased excerpt.
Me: The thing that bothers me is that that's not how parking works anywhere else. I can't tell people not to park on my street Sunday afternoon for church. It's a city street. Anybody can park there within the laws of the city.
Him: It's part of our zoning agreement with the neighborhood. I can show your the clause in the paperwork. It's something we agreed to with the neighborhood association.
Me: But there are no signs anywhere stating this. If this neighborhood is zoned different for parking at this time, why hasn't the city changed the signage?
Him: It's not an agreement with the city. It's our agreement neighborhood association.
Me: OK, then what streets are specified in the agreement?
Him: We don't have specific streets laid out. It's just that we have an agreement that you won't park on the street to drop your kid off.
Me: I don't see how you can possibly enforce that. I don't see how that's legally binding.
Him: [This is where his tone changed] Well, it's not legally binding. I'll be honest, if you continue to park there, there's nothing I can really do about it. I'm not going to, like, call the cops or anything.
Me: Then what's the point? Why not just let me park here without bothering me?
Him: I wish I could, honestly. I'm the director of finance. I'm the third highest paid employee at the school, and I'm out here doing this every morning, because if I don't people in the neighborhood complain. It's really only two or three families, but they have a lot of pull, and they can make it hard on us. I agree with you, actually. I wish we could push back on this. But we have to play nice.
Me: And these people with a lot a pull, if they go out to eat in DuPont Circle, and they park on the street in front of a bunch row houses, do you think they even consider how it affects the residents of that neighborhood?
Him: Of course not. I'm sure they don't. You're right.
And I figured there wasn't going to be a better note to leave on than that. He could have just been telling me what I wanted to hear, but I took him at his word, in part because I didn't want to get to work too late.
So now I have to decide what to do. I don't think I'm going to park on the street in plain view again, especially if this guy is out on patrol. Then I would be directly defying him, and that's not something I want to do. I'm not going to get on the bad side of a school administrator over this. But I might park on the side streets out of view. Or I might just breakdown and use the roundabout. It's actually faster than parking. But it's also more annoying. So I dunno.
In other news, the Senate is posed to vote on their "repeal and replace" Obamacare bill. It actually neither repeals nor replaces Obamacare; it just takes away a lot of its funding to pay for tax cuts for rich people. It's an awful, cruel bill, and one that will probably disproportionately hurt people who vote for Republicans. But I still think it will pass in some form (Jonathan Chait explains why nicely in this article), and I think the political blow back from the right will be less severe than one would hope. I suspect a disturbingly high percentage of rank-and-file Republican voters would trade away health insurance for white nationalism. Then you toss in the people who don't actually know how legislation works (the "KEEP GOVMENT OUT OF MEDICADE DAMMIT" people), the tribalists who would rather die than help a "libertard" win an election, and the affluent people who actually like the new law because it cuts their taxes, and you've got almost the entirety of the Republican electorate. Man, what a loathsome party.
But if you want to end on bit optimism it's this: The Republican margin of error in elections does appear to be waning (slowly waning, painfully slowly waning, but waning nonetheless). It often seems things will never change, but they always do. And if this disastrous healthcare bill shaves off a sliver of the GOP advantage, it will help things change -- for the better. It's not much of a silver lining, but it's something.
Until next time...
On the next day, however, I decided to test out street parking. I pulled up right in front of the guy monitoring the streets, parked, got Lil' S1 out, and started to walk toward the school. He politely confronted me and told me I couldn't park there. I said I'd just be a minute and took Lil' S1 inside. On the way back I went up to him and hashed out the parking issue. It was mostly a friendly conversation. I was probably a bit overly contentious at first because I felt like he was bullshitting me, but once he realized I wasn't going to let it fly, the conversation took a turn for the better. Here's a pharaphrased excerpt.
Me: The thing that bothers me is that that's not how parking works anywhere else. I can't tell people not to park on my street Sunday afternoon for church. It's a city street. Anybody can park there within the laws of the city.
Him: It's part of our zoning agreement with the neighborhood. I can show your the clause in the paperwork. It's something we agreed to with the neighborhood association.
Me: But there are no signs anywhere stating this. If this neighborhood is zoned different for parking at this time, why hasn't the city changed the signage?
Him: It's not an agreement with the city. It's our agreement neighborhood association.
Me: OK, then what streets are specified in the agreement?
Him: We don't have specific streets laid out. It's just that we have an agreement that you won't park on the street to drop your kid off.
Me: I don't see how you can possibly enforce that. I don't see how that's legally binding.
Him: [This is where his tone changed] Well, it's not legally binding. I'll be honest, if you continue to park there, there's nothing I can really do about it. I'm not going to, like, call the cops or anything.
Me: Then what's the point? Why not just let me park here without bothering me?
Him: I wish I could, honestly. I'm the director of finance. I'm the third highest paid employee at the school, and I'm out here doing this every morning, because if I don't people in the neighborhood complain. It's really only two or three families, but they have a lot of pull, and they can make it hard on us. I agree with you, actually. I wish we could push back on this. But we have to play nice.
Me: And these people with a lot a pull, if they go out to eat in DuPont Circle, and they park on the street in front of a bunch row houses, do you think they even consider how it affects the residents of that neighborhood?
Him: Of course not. I'm sure they don't. You're right.
And I figured there wasn't going to be a better note to leave on than that. He could have just been telling me what I wanted to hear, but I took him at his word, in part because I didn't want to get to work too late.
So now I have to decide what to do. I don't think I'm going to park on the street in plain view again, especially if this guy is out on patrol. Then I would be directly defying him, and that's not something I want to do. I'm not going to get on the bad side of a school administrator over this. But I might park on the side streets out of view. Or I might just breakdown and use the roundabout. It's actually faster than parking. But it's also more annoying. So I dunno.
In other news, the Senate is posed to vote on their "repeal and replace" Obamacare bill. It actually neither repeals nor replaces Obamacare; it just takes away a lot of its funding to pay for tax cuts for rich people. It's an awful, cruel bill, and one that will probably disproportionately hurt people who vote for Republicans. But I still think it will pass in some form (Jonathan Chait explains why nicely in this article), and I think the political blow back from the right will be less severe than one would hope. I suspect a disturbingly high percentage of rank-and-file Republican voters would trade away health insurance for white nationalism. Then you toss in the people who don't actually know how legislation works (the "KEEP GOVMENT OUT OF MEDICADE DAMMIT" people), the tribalists who would rather die than help a "libertard" win an election, and the affluent people who actually like the new law because it cuts their taxes, and you've got almost the entirety of the Republican electorate. Man, what a loathsome party.
But if you want to end on bit optimism it's this: The Republican margin of error in elections does appear to be waning (slowly waning, painfully slowly waning, but waning nonetheless). It often seems things will never change, but they always do. And if this disastrous healthcare bill shaves off a sliver of the GOP advantage, it will help things change -- for the better. It's not much of a silver lining, but it's something.
Until next time...
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