The Parking “Advisory” Committee is a Trojan Horse

You all remember the story of the Trojan Horse from history, right? For ten years, the Greeks had unsuccessfully tried to capture the well-fortified City of Troy. One day, a Greek general decided to play a sneaky trick on the Trojan (Troy) soldiers. His army would pretend to sail away, fooling the Trojan soldiers into thinking the Greeks had finally given up. Before leaving, the Greek soldiers built a giant horse. It was quite the sight to behold! The Trojans thought it was left behind in the Greek soldiers’ haste to depart. They wanted this magnificent creation for themselves, so they brought the horse inside their gated city. Unbeknownst to the Trojan soldiers, the horse wasn’t empty. Greek soldiers were secreted inside the belly. As the Trojans slept, the Greek soldiers exited the horse through a hatch in the belly, opened the city gates, and allowed their comrades in arms (who’d quickly sailed back in the meantime) to enter the City of Troy and burn it down.

Whether or not the story is true, the idea of a Trojan Horse has persisted into modern times. The phrase is used to mean deceit disguised as something innocuous or good. Once the good thing is innocently accepted, the inescapable treachery (or a computer virus) follows. And based on how the “parking advisory committee” is unfolding, it sure seems to me that it’s the Clarkston version of a Greek Trojan Horse.

The parking advisory committee was supposedly Mayor Eric Haven’s idea. We were told this would be a small group that would “help” the city manager with some of the thornier issues involved in setting up paid parking in the Depot Road parking lot. To be fair, there really are some things that need to be resolved, which include the hours of parking to accommodate residents who want to use the park during the day as well as how to address the reserved spaces (because not all of the Depot Road parking lot spaces belong to the city). It appears to have expanded beyond that into a committee that will likely be used by local businesses to jam their desires down our throats.

Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? In order to understand the issue, you need to know who the players are.

Almost every time that paid parking, or expanding paid parking, has been discussed at a city council meeting, Curt Catallo (Union Joints owner) complained about it. You see, Catallo apparently believes he’s entitled to profit from destroying our neighborhoods with transient parking everywhere for his restaurant customers and employees – at no cost to him, of course.

Parking was always a problem in Clarkston, but the problem exploded exponentially when Catallo opened Honcho. This was his fifth business on Main Street, since he already had the Union Woodshop, the Clarkston Union, the Union General Cupcakery, and Union Adworks (located further down the street with lots and lots of available parking). At one point, I recall Catallo admitting he knew how much parking he needed for his restaurants, how many spaces he was short, and that he relied on the ability to have his customers take over our residential streets to make up the parking shortfall. (He put it differently, of course, but that’s the gist of it.) And if you are under the misguided impression that Catallo gives a damn about changing the character of local neighborhoods in his endless pursuit of profit, think again. Here’s a story from another neighborhood with a Catallo restaurant: “Settlement Would Allow Vinsetta Garage to Raze Homes for Parking,” Detroit Free Press, January 6, 2020, last visited March 25, 2023 and linked here.)

I’m not anti-profit, I’m anti-subsidy and anti-cost-shifting. Nothing in life is free. All of the supposed “free” parking the restaurants demand is paid for by you and me. I think the cost of parking should be shifted to the people receiving the benefit, don’t you? (It’s hilarious that Catallo has recently taken steps to protect the parking spaces he owns behind the Woodshop. Apparently, what’s his is his, and what’s yours is his. 😂)

Catallo has been given extra special treatment by the city council throughout the years. For example, the city council gave him an exclusive, no charge lease of the public property at the end of Church Street for an entire year during COVID that he used to put up a giant, ugly tent. No other business was treated so favorably. The favorable treatment has happened so often that there are many in the city who refer to Clarkston as “Catalloville.” (There’s an interesting contrast between the way Catallo has been treated as compared to the owners of the Millpond Inn Bed & Breakfast, which the city is apparently trying to stamp out of existence. I wrote about that here.)

When Curt Catallo’s mother Sharron sat on the city council, she refused to recuse herself from parking discussions and parking votes, things that clearly benefited her son’s businesses, even though she was a corporate officer of some of her son’s businesses. (I wrote about that here and here.) She always feigned offense when the issue of her conflict of interest came up, and to the best of my knowledge, she never disclosed that she was a corporate officer for any of her son’s companies. Sharron Catallo was also on the city council when paid parking in the city-owned Washington and Main lot was considered. After unsuccessfully trying to delay the vote for “more research” (a frequent Catallo family tactic), she voted “no,” but a majority of the council voted “yes.” This prompted a temper tantrum from Curt Catallo, because merely shifting the cost of parking to the people actually using it made “the city into a ‘money vampire,’ sticking a ‘blood funnel into anything smelling like money.’” (“Parking Kiosk Coming to Downtown,” Clarkston News, August 31, 2017,  last visited March 25, 2023 and linked here.)

Curt’s sister, Cara Catallo, regularly shows up at city council meetings to complain about expanding paid parking, even to the point of throwing a fairly recent temper tantrum of her own over it. At the city council meeting following the vote to establish paid parking in the city-owned Depot Road parking lot and right before the contested November election for mayor last year, Cara Catallo attacked Mayor Haven, calling him “disgraceful,” “reckless,” “self-centered,” “lazy,” “ignorant,” and “selfish.” At another point in the meeting, she attacked Haven for being “anti-diversity,” an accusation that she arrived at by taking one, distant comment out of context and using it in a way that strongly – and improperly – inferred that Haven holds vile viewpoints. (I wrote about that here.) I’m sure it was no coincidence that Cara Catallo, Sharron Catallo, Cara’s daughter, and Erich Lines (Catallo’s business partner) all signed the petition to put Haven’s opponent on the ballot last November, and I sincerely doubt they would support someone who was in favor of paid parking.

Lately, Erich Lines, the aforementioned Catallo business partner, has been filling Curt Catallo’s role at city council meetings. Mr. Lines recently moved to Clarkston and registered to vote here in October 2021. He’s also listed in some of the corporate filings for Catallo’s restaurants. Lines regularly comments at city council meetings, albeit in a less whiny way than Curt Catallo. To the best of my recollection, Lines’ comments have always pertained to his business interests.

The city council meeting before the election also included an attack on the mayor from the city manager, Jonathan Smith. (Note that the city manager reports to the city council, and his job is to complete assignments from the city council as instructed – or resign.) The city manager felt that a discussion he’d had with Haven about paid parking in the Depot Road lot was taken out of context in his absence and used to influence the council vote in favor of paid parking in the Depot Road lot. Fair enough. A private discussion with the mayor and a brief, public comment would have been sufficient. But that’s not what happened. Smith complained at length and said he was upset because he wanted to delay the decision on paid Depot Road parking by passing it off to the planning commission. (Ah, another delay!) And, for what it’s worth, I would note that Smith’s wife also signed the nominating petition in support of Haven’s mayoral opponent in the November election.

At the February 13, 2023, city council meeting, councilmember Amanda Forte made a public comment about Depot Road parking. Forte mentioned an email from Haven where Haven said he was thinking about putting a parking advisory committee together to assist Smith with logistical issues in getting Depot Road paid parking up and running and to allow for input from residents and businesses. This email was not shared with the public. I don’t know for certain, but Haven’s demeanor on the video recording suggested to me that he didn’t appreciate Forte discussing this non-public email in a public forum and that he wasn’t ready to talk about it. (FYI, the city was once sued over an open meetings act violation, and one of the allegations in the lawsuit was that the city council deliberated over email, something that violates the open meetings act.)

At the March 13, 2023, city council meeting, the city approved five members for this “parking advisory committee.” The business owners were Robert Eshaki (someone building yet another restaurant downtown), Bryan Coudret (owner of 2 South Brunch House, formerly the Olde Village Café), and Erich Lines (Curt Catallo’s business partner).

I’ve already discussed Lines’ pecuniary interest concerning paid parking, so let’s move on to the other members, starting with Robert Esshaki. Esshaki plans to build a restaurant in place of Rudy’s Market and the Clarkston News buildings. He owns the handful of parking spaces that are along the Washington side of the old Clarkston News building. At the October 10, 2022, city council meeting, Esshaki complained that parking spots had been “taken away” on Buffalo and Church streets (something that was done to protect those streets after the chaos that followed the Honcho opening). Esshaki said he believes there should be some “shared pain” with everybody. (Um, no. Esshaki wants all the pain for the residents, and all the gain for Esshaki.) Esshaki said he wanted a “comprehensive plan” (remember that phrase because it will come up later), and if “everybody’s a little bit unhappy, we’ve probably done a good job, right?” Again, the only people who will be unhappy are the residents, not Esshaki. He knows that he is creating a problem for himself – and us – by trying to shoehorn another restaurant into the downtown area. And referring to parking spots on Church and Buffalo as “taken away” demonstrates a whole lot of chutzpah and insight into his mindset. Just like Catallo, Esshaki believes that he’s entitled to have his future transient customers invade every quiet residential neighborhood in the area around his restaurant.

As far as I know, Bryan Courdret, new owner of the restaurant at the corner of Washington and Main named “2 South Brunch House,” owns no parking spaces. He has been using two parking spaces that were temporarily assigned along Washington to his predecessor, the Old Village Café, for the limited purpose of providing a safe space for outside dining during COVID. He’s continued to block off those spaces, even though they belong to the city – and for some reason, the city has permitted this. Perhaps Coudret believes he’s somehow acquired squatting rights to these spaces?

There were two homeowners announced as members as well. I don’t know anything about them other than what is in public records. The first person is Lisa Paterscak. Ms. Paterscak signed the petition to get Haven’s opponent on the ballot in the November 2022 election (the first three signatures on the petition belonged Cara Catallo, Cara’s daughter, and Sharron Catallo; Paterscak was the fourth signer; and Lines was the last signer). Though she lives on Buffalo, a street that’s impacted by restaurant parking, I’m pretty sure that she’s not been here all that long. Her 2019 voter registration suggests that she missed the time when streets were so overcrowded with restaurant patrons following the Honcho opening that larger emergency vehicles wouldn’t have been able to navigate their way to get to people who needed them before street parking was limited to protect the residents in the area. Her home is located on the “no parking” side of her street.

The second homeowner is Maggie Sans. Ms. Sans lives on Main Street and is unaffected by restaurant parking on residential side streets. She registered to vote in Clarkston in 2021. If that’s any indication of how long she’s lived in Clarkston, then she also missed the parking debacle that surrounded the Honcho opening.

During the meeting discussion, Lines asked that his designation on the committee be changed to business owner and homeowner. (FYI, Lines’ home is also on the “no parking” side of his street.) Haven thought that was a good point and joked about calling Lines a “flex” member because he could represent both points of view. Really? Do the other two homeowners receive all or a significant part of their income from businesses that stand to gain if paid parking is shot down? No, they don’t. This additional designation for Lines was designed to add a false patina of balance to the “advisory” committee, making the representation of homeowner to business owner appear equal. I’m pretty sure that Clarkston businessowners who also own homes in Clarkston would let people park on their front lawns if it meant more money in their pockets. Your city council apparently believes you’re stupid enough not to realize this.

Cara Catallo complained about the selection process because she had other people in mind. (Of course, she did! Packing the committee with anti-paid parking people would help her brother’s businesses.) Catallo criticized the two residential homeowners on the committee because they worked on the campaign against having marijuana dispensaries in the city. (Um, not going to speculate why that’s an issue for her, but OK.) Catallo also urged a delay. (What? A Catallo urging a delay? You don’t say!)

Smith said that the meetings would be open to the public, and people can make comments without being members. He thought the membership should be no bigger than 5-7 members. (Hint, hint – calling all biased business owners! There are two more spots!). Smith claimed that the purpose of the committee was not to try to undo the approval for paid parking in the Depot Road parking lot. However, Smith left the door open for exactly that outcome, stating that if the committee decided paid parking wouldn’t work, they would bring that back to council to reconsider this contentious issue – that they’d already decided.

The vote to put these five people on the parking “advisory” committee passed unanimously.

And that brings us to the meeting on Monday, March 27^th. There is a new motion to expand the advisory committee to seven members. (Surprise! That just happens to be same number suggested by the city manager as the maximum number.) In addition to Courdret (2 South Brunch House), Esshaki (restaurant being built in the former Rudy’s Market and Clarkston News buildings), and Lines (Catallo partner and owner of three downtown restaurants, with a “homeowner” designation as well), they are adding Steve Lukens (HealthQuest) and Kevin Harrison (owner of KH Homes). Though there are a few parking spaces next to HealthQuest, I don’t know if HealthQuest owns them. I’m also not sure if KH Homes owns any spaces at all. Harrison has also been given the designation “homeowner,” just like Lines, because we’re supposed to be fooled into thinking this somehow adds balance. 😂 There was no expansion of the non-business homeowners beyond the two who live on Main Street and on Buffalo street, discussed previously.

This means that there are exactly ZERO non-business homeowners on the committee who are affected by street parking and who haven’t supported a mayoral candidate that the Catallos and Erich Lines also supported.

This is what your city council thinks is balanced representation. Oh, and just so you know, these business owners also think that Clarkston taxpayers should subsidize “free” parking for their employees as well, even though the Clarkston United Methodist Church parking lot is huge and they don’t care if business employees park there. (Councilmember Rodgers recently told the city council that this is because Catallo provides “free” coffee to the church’s coffee bar in exchange for “free” parking.) Apparently, Clarkston business employees are incapable of using this lot because they would inconveniently have to walk a short distance to work, making this a taxpayer problem somehow. (How many of you receive free parking if your employer doesn’t own the lot? I’m guessing none.)

The resolution to expand the committee to add two more business owners also suggests that talking about employee parking, permit parking, hours of operation, and enforcement requires more time, gosh darn it. They want to put off the implementation of Depot Road parking lot paid parking until June 1^st to “give the Committee time to develop a comprehensive parking recommendation.” (I told you to remember that Esshaki phrase earlier. And of course, any delay almost always benefits the businessowners.)

And there is the Trojan horse, ladies and gentlemen. Do you think that this unbalanced group of mostly self-interested businesspeople will be limiting their discussion to the Depot Road parking lot? I’m sure they would like you to think so. Did you know that we’ve had other parking study committees? Or that we paid for a parking study? Ever wonder why they were ignored?

Our zoning ordinance establishes the sufficiency of parking (see section 20.02 of the zoning ordinance, which is linked here). The zoning ordinance allows businesses to pay for the number of spaces they are short, which is described in 20.02(V); the amount is determined by the city council. A $10,000 per space number is frequently thrown around, but since the city doesn’t have that ordinance online, I can’t link to it. I can tell you that your tax dollars funded a 2018 parking study by the city’s contract planners, Carlisle/Wortman, and they determined that the value of a parking space is $9,000 each (not including the cost of the land). You can find that study by going here).

You should also know that the failure of city council to enforce its ordinance allowed our local business freeloaders to avoid paying a dime for parking spaces. One businessowner estimated that had Curt Catallo been charged for the parking spaces he is short, it would have amounted to $2-$3,000,000. And of course Esshaki doesn’t think he should have to pay, because others haven’t paid. (I wrote about those issues here.) All of these businessowners feel entitled to use “free” parking, funded by the taxpayers, for their customers and employees. It’s all about the Benjamins, baby. They don’t give a flying eff about you. They’ve made their self-created problem your problem, and now they are sitting on an “advisory” committee working on developing a “comprehensive parking recommendation” that is likely not limited to the Depot Road parking lot.

I don’t know how many people will have the opportunity to read this before the vote on Monday to expand the committee members and to expand their interests into “comprehensive parking recommendations,” but if this is something that is of interest to you, you should make your feelings known about this incredibly lopsided composition of the “advisory” committee.

You can attend the city council meeting personally or online. The dial-in instructions are provided at the top of the agenda, which is currently linked here. Be sure to double check that you are looking at the most current agenda, since the city has been known to change it repeatedly, even up to one-half hour before the meeting begins. Alternatively, you can contact your city council members by email and let them know how you feel:

Eric Haven HavenE@VillageofClarkston.org

Sue Wylie WylieS@VillageofClarkston.org

Gary Casey CaseyG@VillageofClarkston.org

Amanda Forte ForteA@VillageofClarkston.org

Bruce Fuller FullerB@VillageofClarkston.org

Mark Lamphier Lamphierm@VillageofClarkston.org

Laura Rodgers RodgersL@VillageofClarkston.org