You have to hand it to Jonathan Yedin: He’s managed to perfectly embody the entitled insider arrogance behind parking-placard abuse.
As revealed in Monday’s Post, Yedin apparently has been using his girlfriend’s placard to illegally park his Mazda CX-5 near his Financial District home. But what’s especially ripe is that he’s a senior adviser to City Councilman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn) — a high-profile critic of placard abuse and a co-sponsor of several active bills to help curb it.
Placards proliferated from 67,297 in 2008 to 121,000 this year, helped mightily by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to hand thousands of new ones to city teachers. He vowed in 2017 to crack down but has (surprise) failed to deliver.
The city’s 311 “Parking Permit Improper Use” complaint line has recorded nearly 7,000 complaints since May 2017 — with 4,600 of those complaints reported as “no action taken.”
Bills before the council would standardize the process for getting a placard and require regular weekly sweeps by law enforcement, with added penalties for abuse.
Then again, the Twitter page @placardabuse posts pictures of new violations — including by police cars.
Brannan probably had it right in March, when he questioned the need to issue any placards at all when officials use illegally and their peers refuse to hold them to account. Of course, that does raise the question of why Yedin still has a job . . .