Now I do covet that brownstone...

Unfortunately, my cell phone does not have a camera, or I would have provided photographic evidence of Brooklyn's esteemed City Planning commissioner, sitting behind the wheel and talking on her own cell phone. Given her recent vehicular trangressions, I was actually surprised that she was not driving in the bike lane while talking on her cell phone.

If you've had a few too many, why not just catch a ride with your pal and patron, Marty Markowitz?

On too many blogs, the basic content may be okay, but the comments section is out of control and not worth my time.

On STREETSBLOG, the comments are often at least as interesting as the editorial. That reflects not only the caliber of the blog's readership but also its editorial policies.

I'm grateful to STREETSBLOG's editors and contributors for keeping the discussions smart, substantive and reasonably respectful.

Dolly has her own driveway just a couple blocks from where she was breaking the law, so I'm sure the car has been moved, though as another poster pointed out, they saw the car obstructing the same hydrant at a different time (I believe sh's the landlord of a property near where the fire hydrant is located).

Anyway, I emailed Department of City Planning head Amanda Burden to complain. I'll post the response when I receive it.

Streetsblog is a tightly edited and moderated forum. We don't purport to allow people to use our server to post whatever content they want. We reserve the right to delete whatever we want.

One of our highest priorities in editing Streetsblog is to maintain a high level of policy-oriented discussion here in the comments section. I've seen some other blogs' comments section really degenerate and that is something that we will work hard to avoid here.

There is no set comments policy but, in general, comments may be edited or deleted if they contain ad hominem attacks, personal insults, crude profanity or if we feel that a commenter is dragging down the quality of discussion. We welcome commenters with alternative viewpoints, especially if these viewpoints are accompanied by smart, interesting, and generally fact-based arguments.

i wrote a comment once a good few weeks ago criticizing TA for their inaction regarding many cycling infrastructure issues, and it was never posted. it included no slurs, foul language, offensive imagery,etc. it simply was a response to someone suggesting vehemently that TA is good at starting a ruckus to get things done. i pointed out that TA has been rather inactive about some issues and that to believe that TA "sh/c/would get it done" was rather laughable.

shame!

my first comment said something about what low-lives i think dolly and marty markowitz are. i think i used a couple of other words which weren't really bad slang - i didn't use four letter word for example. then i wrote another post repsonding to #18's comment and that was deleted as well. here it is...
(might get deleted again but for the sake of discussion - lets see what happens)
"hey #18,
isn't alan moss retired? i used to work for parks. this would make it even
worse.
name calling doesn't undermine anyone's credibilty for me. maybe it does for
you because you're uptight and you feel you're being "a better person" or
whatever...
if someone wants to speak out and express and name call that's fine. it gets
the point accross, it gets people's attention, and it's satisfying. i'm sure
you've done it too. and this is a comment section on a blog. i'm not making
a state of the union speech."

streetsblog then wrote this;
"Hey.

I delete all ad hominem remarks towards other commenters and most things
with profanity too. Sblog is somewhat tolerant of ad hominem stuff towards
public officials but only if it's making a good point or argument.

Please keep the discussion at a high level. "

again i appreciate their point of view and love their blog but i don't think i went too far. the worst thing i did was call another blogger "uptight". is that so bad?

If I'm thinking of the right comment (hard to tell when you remove them), the worst thing said was "degenerate," and it seemed to me to be part of a mere joke, at that! (Something about Porsches and colors, right?)

Seemed pretty harmless to me. The story itself really is good journalism, like Glenn says in #15. But it's always been very clear that the comments in the comment section are mostly not the comments of Streetsblog itself! "Credibility?" Who cares about the credibility of us non-contributing commenters? Let us just say whatever stupid stuff we want (I say draw the line elsewhere, e.g., threats, etc.). The conversation has stayed pretty intelligent over the first year! But for it to stay that way, I say you have to LET IT run the risk of descending into low-brow nastiness!

Again, though, great job with the story.

Fortunately, that's really not a risk. FDNY SOP is to smash in the windows and run the hose through the car. Those big axes they carry are very versatile. No excess loss of life, and some quick poetic justice to boot.