jersey-city-boot.JPG

A boot on a car in Jersey City. The Jersey City Parking Authority, which boots about 6,000 vehicles a year, has removed them for free for JCPA workers, city employees and their family members.

(Ashlee Espinal/The Jersey Journal)

The Jersey City Parking Authority, which puts about 6,000 “boots” on improperly parked cars annually, has removed them at no charge for dozens of JCPA workers, city employees and high-ranking officials in the last three years, records show.

The JCPA’s noblesse oblige often extends to relatives of public workers, friends of public officials like ex-Freeholder Eliu Rivera and even for former hoops star and failed mayoral candidate Jerry Walker, the records show.

The documents are known as “boot void sheets,” and they are filled out each time the JCPA refunds some or all of the $110 it costs a motorist to have a boot removed, or when the boot is removed before the motorist pays.

The Jersey Journal requested copies of the sheets after a source delivered a handful that indicate JCPA officials are removing boots at no charge as favors for insiders.

Indeed, while most of the 600 boot void sheets reviewed by the newspaper were granted because of a court order, largely because the driver had been found not guilty of the offense that led to the booting, at least 88 were given as “courtesies,” and 56 of those were given to or on behalf of public workers, from Secret Service agents down to a city elevator inspector.

The practice has attracted the attention of the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating, according to city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill.

Mary Paretti, the JCPA’s executive director and former councilwoman, said the agency routinely refunds boot fees not just for the politically connected, but for anyone who has a legitimate gripe about why they were booted.

“The courtesy, again, depends on the circumstance,” Paretti said. “I’m more than willing to work with people. I’m not here to hurt the residents.”

But a JCPA employee, who asked not to be identified criticizing high-level agency officials, said that’s not true. Someone like Rivera can call and have a boot removed for a friend, but if you don’t know someone powerful, you’re probably out of luck, the employee said.

"That is select enforcement to the fullest," the employee said. "That's where the injustice lies."

Jersey City Parking Authority Executive Director Mary Paretti, seen here in 2006, says the agency has revamped its policies since The Jersey Journal began investigating.

COURTESIES

The JCPA, which operates with a $7.2 million budget, has been booting illegal parkers for longer than officials can remember, putting 20,496 of the distinctive yellow locks on cars in the last three years for three reasons: failing to appear in court for parking issues three or more times; parking in a reserved space; and parking in a resident-only zone.

But only since 2011 has the city agency used boot void sheets to keep track of when and why it refunds booting fees or removes boots at no charge, according to its executive director.

“We actually instituted these for accountability and auditing purposes, so that there was a true way to trace what was being done,” said Paretti, who has run the JCPA since she left the council in 2009.

A sheet includes the date of the violation, the license plate number of the car, the reason for the boot’s removal, the name of the JCPA official who gave authorization for the action (Paretti and Acting Enforcement Director Pat DiTore approved most of them), plus the signature of the agency worker who submitted the sheet.

In theory.

In reality, many of the sheets are missing some of this information. And those that do include reasons such as: "Courtesy JCPD" (Jersey City Police Department), "as per Gail Ellerson" (who works in JCPA's permit office), "retired employee of PA."

More than two dozen boots were removed as JCPA employee courtesies, nine supposedly for family members of agency workers. At least 21 “employee courtesies” were given to people whose names don’t show up on city or JCPA payroll records, including someone associated with a tavern in the Heights that’s popular with local pols. Paretti said that person is a family member of a JCPA worker, though the boot void sheet identifies her as an agency employee.

Fifteen sheets have no reason listed for the boot removal, other than “courtesy.”

Paretti noted courtesies account for just one-half of 1 percent of all boot removals since 2011. She said since The Jersey Journal began its inquiry, she has implemented stricter protocols for free boot removals or boot fee refunds.

"I am paying much stricter attention," she said. "Everything will have something attached to it as to why (the boot was moved) and if there's a legitimate reason."

According to Paretti, a motorist whose boot fee is refunded or who has a boot removed at no charge must still pay all fines for the original parking violation, and any other unpaid fines.

The JCPA has brought in $677,856 in booting revenue this year through November, Paretti said. Last year, the total was $762,085, and it was $814,629 in 2011, she said.

The agency keeps 100 percent of the revenue, according to Paretti.

Eliu Rivera, formerly a Hudson County freeholder, had at least two boots removed for friends, JCPA records show.

‘ABUSING POWER

’

Though the majority of courtesies handed out by the JCPA were given to low-level workers, some high-ranking officials, as well as former and hopeful politicos, received them, too.

Jerry Walker, who came in third place in May’s mayoral race, had half of his boot fee refunded when records show he illegally parked a car registered to his Team Walker nonprofit on Culver Avenue on Oct. 18, 2013 at about 5 p.m.

A handwritten note included with that boot void sheet says Walker was in that area, on the city’s West Side near New Jersey City University, for a party honoring his mother. Walker claimed “university officials didn’t tell him he couldn’t park on the street,” the note reads.

The former Seton Hall University basketball star told The Jersey Journal he parked on Culver that day to bring food to the party and he hadn’t noticed the signs warning that it is a permit parking zone during certain hours. When he returned to his car, there was a worker putting a boot on it, he said.

"I said, 'Argh, I was only upstairs for 30 seconds!'" Walker said. "The boot wasn't all the way on."

Walker said the worker called the JCPA, which agreed to accept only $55 to remove the boot instead of the customary $110.

Rivera, who stepped down from the freeholder board earlier this year, was able to get boots removed for two of his friends, according to the records. One from June 13, 2013 has "Freeholder Rivera courtesy" written as the reason for the boot’s removal.

Rivera could not be reached to comment.

Anthony Cruz, who runs the city Department Housing, Economic Development and Commerce for $114,753 annually, had a boot removed on Aug. 14. The reason given on the sheet: “HEDC.” A request for comment from Cruz was not returned.

Jennifer Morrill, the city spokeswoman, called this “abusing power” in an email statement to The Jersey Journal. And county prosecutors are investigating, she said.

"Three months ago, when we first learned that people were abusing power … we immediately met with the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office (HCPO) and gave them all the information we had,” Morrill said. “They are investigating the matter and we are working with them in any way they ask."

HCPO spokesman Gene Rubino declined to comment.

Mayor Steve Fulop hopes to dissolve the 64-year-old JCPA. Law firm Weiner Lesniak is investigating the agency and will soon issue a report recommending whether it should remain in place or be folded into city government.

DENIED

After receiving about 10 boot void sheets from a source, The Jersey Journal filed an Open Public Records Act request on Oct. 24 seeking all sheets the JCPA has on record for the last three years.

On Nov. 6, JCPA attorney Aurelio Vincitore denied the newspaper's request, saying that releasing the sheets would "substantially interfere with the state or federal government's ability to protect and defend its citizens against acts of sabotage or terrorism if disclosed.”

In a letter, Vincitore explained a “substantial” number of the sheets resulted from Department of Homeland Security personnel or other law enforcement officials on work detail.

In fact, only a handful of the 600 sheets examined by The Jersey Journal appear to have been given to law enforcement agents on duty.

Pressed by The Jersey Journal, Vincitore said he hadn’t initially examined the sheets. After doing so, he relented and allowed a reporter with the newspaper to examine the hundreds of sheets at the JCPA’s Central Avenue office.