Teachers at PS 185 in Bay Ridge fight unfair parking tickets

BY MATTHEW LYSIAK
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

Monday, November 19th 2007, 4:00 AM


Some Bay Ridge educators just got schooled in the ABCs of unfair parking violations.

A number of teachers from Public School 185 whose legally parked cars were towed by city workers into illegal spots, then later slapped with $60 fines, are vowing to fight the "outrageous" violations.

"I am so upset at the unfairness of the situation," said teacher Lillian Turrugiano, who was in the middle of a lesson when she was notified her car had been towed and ticketed.

"This whole thing is one big annoying nuisance."

The trouble began Oct. 26 about 8 a.m., when four teachers thought they had lucked out in finding some open parking spots on 86th St. between Ridge Blvd. and Third Ave.

Parking has been tight on heavily congested 86th St. since May, when a sewer repair project began.

"There were no signs or workers, nothing to indicate you couldn't park," said Turrugiano.

But 45 minutes later, a crossing guard told the teachers their cars had been towed and ticketed without warning after construction crews got city workers to move the cars across the street - where they violated alternate-side parking rules and were issued citations.

Now the teachers are crying foul and vowing not to pay the violations.

"This is completely unacceptable because all of these cars were parked legally, and the staff was engaged in full activity with our children," wrote PS 185 Principal Kenneth Llinas in an angry letter to the city's Parking Violations Bureau unit on behalf of the teachers.

The steamed faculty then took their case to Councilman Vincent Gentile (D-Bay Ridge) - who gave the city's bureaucracy a failing grade in communication skills.

"This is another case of one hand not knowing what the other one is doing," said Gentile, referring to a lack of coordination between employees of the Department of Design and Construction, who had the cars moved, and law enforcement personnel, who fined them.

"It's a sad commentary that I wasn't surprised to learn that DDC personnel had knowingly moved these four teachers' cars into illegal parking spaces. It would be almost humorous if real money weren't involved."

The 18-month renovation of 86th St. is slated to be completed by next fall.