James Flynn has left a note for you in front of his Tracy Street home: No Parking

James Flynn has a history with this city. A mail carrier for 30 years, he’s owned and rented the three-unit house at 30 Tracy Street for 27 years. Seven years ago, he left his home in the country and moved into 30 Tracy Street himself. Since then, he has fought for parking in front of his house, a struggle that culminated in a sign.

After fighting for years to get some kind of permission from someone in City Hall to allow him to park in front of his home, Flynn eventually erected a sign of his own creation. The sign states: “These 3 Homes of Italianate Style 24, 30, and 32 Tracy Street, are historic homes, built in the Mid 1800’s, they have been preserved and maintained by the present owners. Please do not park here. This side of the street is reserved for the owners and occupants. Thank you.”

With a restaurant opening around the corner, an apartment building across the street, the new M&T building right around the corner, and a commercial building on the same block, there is a tight competition for parking spots. The street used to have parking meters used to be on the street, but they were removed, which Flynn thinks was a mistake. “I’m entitled to be here and I live here 24 hours, not just eight,” he says. “The business is pushing us out of our homes. I spend the afternoon looking out the window to see if I got a parking space.”

Early in 2005, Flynn appeared before the Council to make a case for special parking privileges. Certain councilmembers—namely Bonnie Russell, Brian Davis, and Michael Kearns—were sympathetic, according to Flynn. “The facts were so overwhelming,” Flynn says. “You give a guy a home, he puts $100,000 into it, and now he can’t get to it.”

Trying to find out who gave Flynn permission to erect a sign was a daunting task. Not surprisingly, every person he came in contact with seemed to recall him vividly, even though they’d met him more than three years ago. Flynn says Councilmember Bonnie Russell “took him by the hand” to the director of parking because she felt so strongly about his predicament. Russell says, “I remember him well. He tried to get privatized parking or something. I know he raised hell about it. He went to the mayor’s office and everything. The only thing I did was get him an appointment with Lenny Sciolino [the city’s director of parking enforcement]. I don’t touch anything in anyone else’s district. I let the councilmember handle that.”

Flynn says that Councilmember Kearns spoke up when his item came up during the Council’s meeting on the matter back in 2005. Flynn says that Kearns talked about parking problems by Mercy Hospital and felt that he could relate to Flynn’s problem.

“I probably did say what I said,” says Kearns. “It’s true we still have parking problems. Everyone’s fighting for a parking spot.” Kearns says that with Trocaire College, Mercy Hospital, and a grammar school so close to one another, parking can be scarce. But Kearns adds, “I don’t think he [Flynn] did get permission.”

Flynn’s district councilmember is Brian Davis, who Flynn described as “spearheading” the initiative to get something done. Davis says, “I recall this vividly. He came and requested from the Common Council residential parking. They were still looking at options at that time.”

Leonard Sciolino, director for the division of parking, also remembers Flynn. Sciolino says he remembers trying to help Flynn gain some kind of release for his parking situation, especially since Flynn and his wife are both handicapped and in their mid 60s. “I would make sure the parking enforcement officers would know Mr. Flynn lived there,” Sciolino says. “I knew he wanted to put a handicap parking meter there, but I can’t do that.” Even if he had, it would not have helped Flynn, since any handicap person would be able to use it. “I understand where he’s coming from,” Sciolino says, but adds, “For him to tell people they can’t park there, I can’t see that. That doesn’t make sense.”

A sign on a sidewalk is a matter for the Department of Public Works. Michael Murphy, an assistant engineer with the department, says, “I don’t recall getting Council approval. We would need to approve the overall location.” Murphy explains that when a sign is located in the right-of-way, it may need to be insured in case someone trips over it. Eric Schmarder, another assistant engineer, says, “Well, they probably have some sort of permission to put the sign up, but as for the verbiage of the sign, I don’t know where they would get permission for that. It’s not a legal sign as far as a regulatory sign.”

At first Flynn insisted that the Council approved his sign. Eventually he allowed that really he just kept complaining to different departments in City Hall. He has complained to the Planning Board, for example, because it continues to okay buildings in his neighborhood that have too few parking spaces available. “You have to come in with an equation that fits,” says Flynn.

Eventually, Flynn ended up on the third floor of City Hall, home to the Department of Economic Development, Permit and Inspection Services. He says, “I was sitting on the third floor in City Hall; a guy come up to me and asked, ‘What’s your problem?’ And I told him, and that’s when we come up with the idea of the sign.”

Flynn only knew the guy who helped him by the name of “Doc.” Luckily, David Granville, assistant to the department’s commissioner, remembers the guy Flynn is talking about. “He was here as a volunteer,” Granville says. “When he was here, he would answer the phone, that kind of thing. What I think he did is he saw this man who was trying to give recognition to this property. I even said it couldn’t be a permanent sign unless the Council approves it and it can’t be in the right-of-way unless the Council approves it. ‘Please do not park here’ is not a sentence that I would say got approval.”

“Doc” is Anthony Gensicki. Gensicki lives on the East Side, volunteers at Saint Luke’s, and volunteered at the Department of Economic Development, Permit and Inspection Services for about a year. He stopped volunteering when a job opening came up in the department and he didn’t get it, due to his lack of computer literacy. He got involved with the department to begin with when he’d come in to try to get some derelict buildings in his neighborhood knocked down. Gensicki says he was asked to volunteer, and that his main tasks were running errands and answering phones. However, he acknowledges he did more than that to help Flynn when he saw him sitting there in the hall.

“He didn’t know where to go,” says Gensicki. “He was about at wits’ ends. I listened to him and I got pretty involved with what he was doing. We went through the whole thing. We went through all the city channels. Finally I said, ‘Heck with this. There’s somebody who lives here.’ Councilmembers can agree with him, but no one wants to take a chance. Everyone ignored him.”

Gensicki and Flynn tried the Preservation Board, which gave them the history of the homes but, of course, was unable to give Flynn a parking spot. After all avenues had been attempted, Gensicki and Flynn went to a sign company on Elmwood after spending hours coming up with what the sign should say. After the sign was made, Flynn put up stones around it, and filled in the area around the stones with dirt so that the sign could not be yanked out. “Jim was the one who built the little foundation around it,” Gensicki says. “I think it’s pretty. It fits right in.”

The sign, for all its good intentions, may not be legal. Granville says, “I would say if someone complained about this…that he could be required to remove it.”

Though Buffalo Police Chief Donna Berry of the B District, in which Flynn lives, say that there have been no complaints about the sign, there have been complaints as recently as March 25, 2008, for a blocked driveway.

Turns out Flynn’s home has a narrow, gated driveway attached to it—one Flynn has trouble using because he and his wife are handicapped, not to mention that it blocks an entrance to another apartment in the home. However, Flynn says he does use it on occasion while waiting for parking on the street to open, and that he does not hesitate to call police to ticket a car that may block it unknowingly.

“They didn’t have driveways back then [when the homes were built],” Gensicki explains. “There were no cars. Space between houses—that’s not a driveway.”

Though odds are Flynn’s sign will be removed, it raises the serious issue of parking availability in the city. Flynn argues that he pays city taxes and deserves a spot in the vicinity of his home. The people who prevent him from parking nearby generally drive in from the suburbs every day, do not pay city taxes, and park for free all day long, preventing Flynn from using his home comfortably.

Flynn cares about his street. He lamented over a beer can and small liquor bottle on the sidewalk, saying that he had cleaned the yard hours ago only to come out on his porch and discover this more recent trash in front of his home.

Does a man like Flynn deserve a parking spot? Can the city do anything about it or will Flynn’s own attempt to alleviate his parking situation be torn down?

Flynn says many do not listen to the sign’s plea anyway. “It’s something you got to do and hope for common sense.”