Our Bumbling City Hall

There are a few legitimate criticisms regarding the new food truck/trailer that recently found a home on Columbia Street alongside the 7th Street Park, but I will keep it brief today and maybe pick up with other issues at a later date.  

First of all, anyone who receives a vendor's permit from the City Clerk's Office has the freedom to choose any parking space anywhere in the city, be it metered or not, to set up shop.  The only rule that permitted vendors must follow in terms of location is to keep a distance of 250 feet from a school.  In other words, there are no designated areas, streets or parking spaces where food trucks/trailers can set up shop.  Pick an available space or two, anywhere you like!  How about on Warren Street?  Sure, go for it!

The Waffle and Chicken vendor regularly chooses to occupy more than one metered parking space on the truck route next to a public park and near apartments.  As of today, the food trailer has been parked for at least 4 consecutive days and nights unmoved in the same metered space(s).  This means that the trailer has violated the overnight alternate side parking rule at least twice.  How and where would a cop attach a ticket to a trailer if they were to issue one?  On the side with a magnet?  I know for a fact that the trailer has already been issued meter violation tickets by Parking Enforcement for parking in their metered spaces on Columbia during the day when they fail to open for business.

When the vendor is open for business, they utilize a gas powered generator to electrify the trailer.  As you can imagine, it's really loud, like they all are.  They put no cover over the generator or make any effort to muffle the ugly, unwelcome noise -- it sits uncovered in the street for all to see and hear.  If you stand in the middle of the 7th Street park and the traffic noise doesn't drown it out, you will hear the roar of the generator.  Sit or stand anywhere in the park closer to Columbia Street, or walk by on the sidewalk, no matter how many cars and trucks are passing by, and you will hear the generator loud and clear.  Yet another unwelcome addition to the park, making it uglier, less peaceful and more reason to stay away.

A generator for a farmers market vendor,
covered.  It's called being respectful and considerate.

I don't live in one of the apartments at the corner of Park & Columbia, but I guarantee that if a window is open there that the inhabitants will hear the generator when it is roaring away.

And City Hall is perfectly fine with all of this.  That would be our bumbling City Hall.