The Waterfront Commission, who are tasked with policing the docks for mob corruption, drug smuggling and other major crimes, is slowly turning into the Keystone Cops of the waterfront. The Daily News caught New York Waterfront Commissioner Ronald Goldstock using his official police parking placard, only to be used for police business, in order to park for at least six hours under a "No Parking" sign at NYU. And what was he doing there? Teaching a course on corruption.
Goldstock insisted he was on "official police business" ("attending a Vera Institute of Justice luncheon") after he was caught returning to his car after finishing teaching his Corruption and Corruption Control course at the school. Parking placards have notoriously been misused time and again; even though a large amount of them aren't official and carry zero legal protections, and despite a large crackdown by Bloomberg in the past two years, any dashboard decoration that looks semi-official can intimidate or fool officers into giving the owner a pass. Perhaps Goldstock should just be glad that it was the News who caught him, and not some angry guy with a lead pipe.
This is just one of several embarrassing incidents for the Waterfront Commission in recent years. Former New Jersey Waterfront Commissioner Barry Evenchick was caught using police to save spots for him; his predecessor, Michael Madonna, had been fired amid allegations of corruption at the agency. And of course, who could forget the $2.50 ongoing investigation.
