For at least 30 years, it has been illegal to park on the north side of Baldwin Street.
And for 30 years, nobody really enforced that ordinance — until recently when police began putting warning tickets on cars illegally parked on Baldwin Street.
At least a half-dozen residents and business owners showed up at Monday’s borough council meeting to protest the sudden parking crackdown.
Less than one hour after the first complaint, council was voting on a series of parking ordinance changes specific to Baldwin Street.
The backstory is more complex.
Councilman William Henderson says that the public safety committee, which he heads, has been systematically reviewing Bridgeville’s parking ordinances. But the issue hadn’t been urgent, he said, because, well, many of the seemingly outdated laws aren’t being enforced.
The reason residents were suddenly getting tickets (albeit just warning tickets), Henderson said, is that Mayor Pasquale DeBlasio decided to start enforcing the parking ordinances as written.
Why?
Because the effort to revamp and modernize the borough’s parking code was going nowhere, DeBlasio. The Baldwin Street question had lingered for a year-and-a-half without action, he said.
Whatever the case, it looks like you’ll soon be able to park on of the north side of Baldwin Street — at least part of it.
Next up: parking in the rest of the borough. When council was voting on a motion to removed Baldwin Street parking restrictions that were based on street sweeping schedules, DeBlasio wanted the change to apply borough-wide.
“Do we have to get people down here from every other street here to complain?” the mayor said.
“No Pat,” Henderson shot back. “We as a committee are dealing with it, if you’d let us do it.”
If you want more details on the Baldwin Street parking changes, Police Chief Chad King summed it up nicely.