Hey, there! Log in / Register

Free Lisa Saunders!

The Globe reports Saunders, whose family owns the Park Plaza Hotel, had one of her minions wrangle a valet space for one in front of her office so that she wouldn't have to mix with the hoi polloi when she got out of her Cadillac for work.

Dang Globe sic'ed a reporter to verbally and physically assault her (she claims, in a police report) and got the city to take away her personal valet space (Globe denies the reporter yelled at her or touched her shoulder, but they would, wouldn't they?).

H/t Michael Ratty for the headline.

Neighborhoods: 
Topics: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

That the globe shouldn't have accosted her.

BUT here we go again, BTD not ticketing people who are 'connected' and park illegal. I don't care if she owns the Taj Mahal, it's still a public way, and regular parking rules apply.

She has the cash, she can afford a private space. I'm sure her delicate tootsie's can deal with walking a block.

up
Voting closed 0

I'm sure the "accosting" was nothing that the hoi polloi would get their panties in a twist about. But when in doubt, file counter charges, says I.

up
Voting closed 0

DRUUUPAL!!!!!

up
Voting closed 0

The George Jetson of content management systems.

up
Voting closed 0

Was I mistaken? Is that not what you're using here? I haven't as much as peeked at the page source so, you know... no authority of knowledge or anything.

up
Voting closed 0

I'm a confirmed Drupal user from back in the day. Just the way you wrote the name made me think of Mr. Spacely:

up
Voting closed 0

...That the globe shouldn't have accosted her.

Of course they should have. That's the job of a newspaper. She was using a public space for exclusive personal use. It's perfectly appropriate to question her on the matter. I have a sneaky suspicion that the reporter's "questioning" turned into "grabbing" somewhere between the Park Plaza and the police station where the report was filed. That said, I'd love to see if there are any witnesses and if so, hear their account of the incident.

up
Voting closed 0

"I'd love to see if there are any witnesses and if so, hear their account of the incident."

Wouldn't it be a safe bet that there are security cameras covering that doorway/sidewalk area?

up
Voting closed 0

Just another rich person absolutely terrified to be taken out of their entitlement bubbles for even a moment.

The Globe should know better to never speak to their superiors without being spoken to first.

up
Voting closed 0

Doesn't she know that the best way to obtain 24x7 free parking is to procure a ticket booklet from your friendly neighborhood cop and display it prominently on your dash?

up
Voting closed 0

She's obviously a budget minded woman if she only has a Caddilac and not something more expensive like a mercedes or a bm-er

up
Voting closed 0

Apparently you haven't seen the prices of a new Cadillac lately.

up
Voting closed 0

It appears she's driving an XTS sedan, which retails for just $45k - a paltry price compared to an easy 80+ for a similar Mercedes or BMW.

up
Voting closed 0

Henry Ford was unpopular with some for his politics also resulting in long grudges against his company. Hence, Cadillac has been a traditional favorite for American Jews with means.

up
Voting closed 0

Look, as a middle-aged Jew, I'm very familiar with the whole don't-buy-German thing - my parents always made a point of not buying a Volkswagen because of that (that you couldn't fit a family of five in the sort of sedans VW sold in the 1960s was beside the point).

But why are you bringing it up in this context? I don't know if Saunders is Jewish, but even if she is, her choice of automobile really has nothing at all to do with the story.

up
Voting closed 0

It's as relevant as your constant race baiting.

up
Voting closed 0

I think you need to look up the definition of that before you look like an idiot again.

up
Voting closed 0

Many younger people are ignorant of the bias held by some people of Ms. Saunders generation, and thus suggest she might instead purchase a BMW or Mercedes. I'm at a loss as how you twisted that into hating of Jews. Also, lots of people rather only buy domestic cars, so that could also be why she drives a Cadillac. Pointing that out would make me a xenophobe?

up
Voting closed 0

The man was an admitted anti-semite. And as far as Caddys are concerned, most of the well off Jews I know wouldn't go near a Cadillac. They prefer Benzes or Lexus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_Jew

up
Voting closed 0

My fairly orthodox rabbi drives a ~30 year old Datsun with "underbody air conditioning" in the back seat (meaning there's a hole in the floor).

But nobody becomes a rabbi to get rich.

up
Voting closed 0

Ms. Saunders situation, while unique, is far from the only abuse of valet parking in this city. I see valets nightly taking metered spaces at practically every restaurant in the Back Bay and South End.

And maybe they should stop giving access to the employee cafeterias to meter people at local hotels (guess which ones) so that they ignore the double and sometimes triple parked cars on major streets.

And if the Globe reporter really was doing their job, they would have noticed that half the cabbies in this city use the last few spaces on the cab stand at the Park Plaza as parking spaces while they run off and do God knows what.

up
Voting closed 0

Meaning anyone can park in them, unless there's other permitting involved (resident, commercial, etc). As far as cabbies, I sure love to complain about them too, but I've seen plenty of them pop over to the Ben & Jerry's and enjoy an ice cream, so that's "God knows what" for ya.

up
Voting closed 0

especially around park square?

There was a story (here?) a couple years about valets purposely breaking parking meters (I think it was near Mistral, which is near Park Plaza). This was so that the valets could park cars in the metered spaces for "free" up until 8 pm.

up
Voting closed 0

with valet companies charging people for private parking and then using meters so they don't have to pay a private garage by the car.

up
Voting closed 0

Customers probably would too. If they're paying for valet parking (either directly, or indirectly through the stuff they're buying), they probably don't expect the risks involved with leaving their car unattended on the street.

up
Voting closed 0

"the hoi polloi" is incorrect - the "the" is redundant (hoi polloi = the multitudes)

up
Voting closed 0

What'd you just step out of, a Scotch ad?

up
Voting closed 0

Now excuse me while I go withdraw some money at my local ATM Machine (see what I did there?)

up
Voting closed 0

Everyone knows that only the hoi polloi use ATM machines!

up
Voting closed 0

It's easy to grin,
When your ship has come in,
And you've got the stock market beat,
But the man worth his while,
Is the man who can smile,
WHEN HIS SHORTS ARE TOO TIGHT IN THE SEAT!

up
Voting closed 0

The world needs ditch diggers, too.

up
Voting closed 0

Mr Jameson used to say the translation , in a figurative sense meant , '' those who have many ''.

up
Voting closed 0

Don't tell W.S. Gilbert.

up
Voting closed 0

Can we take this kind of in depth, in your face investigative journalism and turn it on the drivers, cyclists and pedestrians that break our sacred traffic laws daily? Maybe a Big Picture photo/video album of that days particularly egregious violations?

up
Voting closed 0

Who give us poorly synchronized, 6-cycle lights that take forever to get through in a vehicle, as well as pedestrian signals that refuse to give the walk signal, even when it's perfectly safe to cross?

up
Voting closed 0

MyBikeLane.com was such a project. A photo in it that was a local favorite was of Mayor Menino's City owned SUV parked in a bike lane. I think some spin-off sites exist. Really, all the sort of violations would overwhelm, if all violators could be identified, not just motorists with license plates.

up
Voting closed 0

At least according to the Globe piece. The Globe should FOIA his emails regarding Ms. Saunders and that developer guy Gregg Donovan, if only to see if they've been double-deleted or whatever. Although by all accounts a nice guy and all that, for me Kineavy was the face of Menino's "soft corruption" (favors for friends, harassment for enemies, but no clear self-enrichment), and I hope he disappears from city government after Tom's gone.

up
Voting closed 0

A rich woman parking her expensive car in a convenient spot ostensibly used for other wealthy people to have poor kids take the keys for their expensive cars is a singularly impactful issue for all citizens of the city, and indeed the Commonwealth as a whole. I for one am glad this brutal, shocking exposé has been published, so that this egregious insult to law and order, and indeed all human beings, can be dealt with swiftly.

up
Voting closed 0

I mean, that's about what a private parking space is worth in the Back Bay, right?
The more I think about this, the more I think it might warrant an investigation by the State Ethics Commission or Attorney General's office. A case could be made that, if some or all of the players involved knew that the intent of this "transfer" was merely to give this lady a private space in a place where parking is at a premium, somebody should get indicted for larceny by fraud or scheme, or merely indicted under the new Ethics law (which prohibits "using one's position to obtain something of value not available to others similarly situated", or something like that). It's basically Grand Theft Parking. I wonder if BTD was instructed to turn a blind eye prior to the Globe's investigation? Admittedly much of the case might hinge on that detail.
Maybe not the biggest deal in the world, but people have been indicted, and done time, for things even less "singularly impactful"- drug possession being an example that comes immediately to mind.

up
Voting closed 0

Have you ever considered a career in journalism? You'd make a great headline writer for the Herald.

up
Voting closed 0

Some mega-wealthy woman was willing to throw money away on a tandem parking space adjacent to her building so that her servants did not have to walk more than a few feet from their cars.

That's not exactly a representative case. She paid for convenience and the cost was meaningless to her.

Constructing an underground parking space can cost $50,000 to $100,000. And for surface parking you could take a look at the per-square-foot cost of land in that area (figure ~350sf per space). But it's probably under $20,000.

(the parking cap does not apply to accessory parking such as this)

Not that I condone what Saunders did.

up
Voting closed 0

Some mega-wealthy woman was willing to throw money away on a tandem parking space adjacent to her building so that her servants did not have to walk more than a few feet from their cars.

That's not exactly a representative case. She paid for convenience and the cost was meaningless to her.

You're right.

In this case, some mega-wealthy woman was willing to take a free public parking space adjacent to her building so that she didn't have to to walk more than a few feet from her car.

Totally different case...she didn't pay for the convenience and the cost to the rest of us was meaningless to her.

Yes, you raise a great point.

up
Voting closed 0

I think Matthew was only arguing against the particular point that a parking space costs multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in this market, not for or against the core of what Ms. Saunders did.

up
Voting closed 0

Matthew's issue seemed to be with my assessment of the space's market value, which admittedly was hyperbolic. Still, "grand theft" is anything over $500, right?

up
Voting closed 0

"The more I think about this, the more I think it might warrant an investigation by the State Ethics Commission or Attorney General's office."

Get serious. This woman is mega-wealthy. Nothing will come of this. It will be covered up and blown over. She will obtain another parking space equally convenient for her, though likely less obvious, and she will be sure all her tracks are covered the next time. Case closed. That's how it works. The rich do whatever they want. I'm not thrilled about it, but I don't see things changing anytime soon.

up
Voting closed 0

Valet-shmalet! If I ever spring for a Park Plaza and it doesn't come with at least one parking spot for me and my pals, I'll sell it and move to a city that treats its luxury hotel owners with a little more respect....

up
Voting closed 0