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The Jersey City Parking Authority would be dissolved and its operations folded into the city's budget under a proposal by Mayor Steve Fulop.

(Jersey Journal file photo)

The Jersey City Parking Authority, a 64-year-old autonomous agency that enforces the city’s parking rules, is on its way out, Mayor Steve Fulop announced this week.

Jersey City is set next week to commission a study intended to be the first step in the dissolution of the much-maligned agency, whose duties would be folded into the new public-safety department. Fulop has recommended the City Council award a no-bid, $20,000 contract to powerful law firm Weiner Lesniak to write the study.

“Generally speaking, autonomous agencies create unnecessary layers of bureaucracy and duplicative services,” Fulop said in a statement from the city. “This will be a win for the taxpayers and residents.”

The agency, which was created in 1949 and employs about 90, cost about $7.2 million to run last year and brought in about $7.4 million in revenue. According a report created during Fulop’s transition this summer, the JCPA has about $6 million in debt.

The report says the agency is sitting on $20 million in uncollected fines, but an agency source said that figure includes all of the city's unpaid traffic fines, including those issued by police officers. JCPA Executive Director Mary Paretti said the agency issues the tickets but does not collect the fines.

Fulop hasn't been shy about his feelings for the JCPA. Earlier this year, city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill called it "a cesspool of political patronage."

Paretti, a former councilwoman who has run the JCPA since 2009, today declined to comment on Fulop’s move, aside from saying she met with the mayor and discussed it with him.

"We’ll see what the study reveals and take it from there,” said Paretti, who worked behind the scenes for Fulop’s opposition during the most recent municipal election.

Dissolving the JCPA was one of the recommendations of Fulop’s transition team, which also suggested raising parking fees as high as 42 percent.

Fulop’s statement said a parking division under the new public-safety department would have additional ticketing abilities to enforce quality-of-life issues.

"The Jersey City Parking Authority will continue to partner with the administration in any way that improves services, increases accountability and reduces redundancy," said JCPA Chair Dana Eisenberg. "No operation is flawless and there are certainly areas for improvement. I believe it is our responsibility to identify ways we can better our operations internally as well as search for synergies that could be achieved externally."

The mayor, who was elected in May, promised during his campaign to review the city’s seven autonomous agencies to determine which should be dissolved brought under the city's control.

He has also pledged to get rid of the Jersey City Incinerator Authority, a prospect that may be more daunting than his plans for the JCPA. The JCIA, a politically powerful agency that handles the city's waste disposal and recycling, has a much larger staff (about 160) that was very vocal last year when Fulop suggested folding its operations into the city's budget.

Weiner Lesniak’s report, if the city's contract with the firm is approved by the council next week, would provide details on the operations and finances of the JCPA, its outstanding debt and assets and more. The report is required if Fulop is to ask state officials to OK dissolving the agency.

The Parisppany law firm was barred from contributing to Fulop's campaign this year because of its business with the city, but state Sen. Ray Lesniak, a founding partner at the firm, counts among his allies Freeholder Bill O'Dea, one of the earliest and most vocal Fulop supporters in the mayor's race, and former Gov. Jim McGreevey, whom Fulop tapped to run the city's jobs and prisoner re-entry program.

The contract was not put out to bid. According to city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill, the city each year asks professional firms to submit qualifications so the city can make a list of firms that can handle various contracts.

"Weiner Lesniak, who has expertise in this type of work having handled the dissolution of the Hudson County Utilities Authority and the Aberdeen Township Municipal Utilities Authority, was selected from that list," Morrill said.

Campaigning for mayor, Fulop said he would put all city contracts out to bid. Morrill, in response, said the city is using the list of pre-approved vendors this time "in the interest of moving fast." The method is legal.