Phila.'s new TV star: The Parking Authority

The televised real-life comic melodrama of the Philadelphia Parking Authority and its beleaguered customers is beginning to pay dividends for the city, and will help keep swimming pools open this year.

Parking Wars, the A&E series that follows PPA employees through their daily rounds of ticketing, booting and towing cars, is directly responsible for a $110,000 pledge from A&E and the program's producer, Hybrid Films, to the city Department of Recreation's Splash and Summer FUNd drive to avoid pool closures.

Hybrid Films and PPA officials said yesterday the first $60,000 would be paid within 10 days and the remaining $50,000 by June.

The city asked nothing of A&E and Hybrid in the first season of filming, in 2007. PPA officials were unsure how the show would turn out.

Parking Wars is entering its third season of filming, has a snazzy Web site, http://www.aetv.com/parking-wars/ - and the mahoffs at PPA have decided that the show allows some insight into the personalities of the otherwise-hated parking enforcers.

What's more, the show gave the PPA a chance to educate residents on policies and enforcement programs, said Executive Director Vincent Fenerty. When A&E returned for the second year, the PPA and Mayor Nutter suggested a donation to city programs, with Nutter recommending where it should go.

Parking Wars obliged, pledging $87,000. Of that, $73,000 was used to preserve the city's Kixx fall soccer program, $4,000 went to the PPA's Operation Santa Claus toy drive, and the remaining $10,000 was held over to this year.

A&E and Hybrid took the leftover $10,000 and pledged a further $100,000 to pools for the show's third season. Their pledge is the largest to date and constitutes 30 percent of all "firm" pledges received by the Recreation Department as of Thursday.

"It's great for us to be able to do a show that celebrates the spirit of a great city and at the same time allows us, in the spirit of partnership, to allow the kids to access the pools," Parking Wars' executive producer and director, Daniel Elias, said yesterday.

Mayoral spokesman Doug Oliver yesterday applauded PPA's efforts. "It is a significant contribution as well as an example of the creative thinking that is needed to meet the challenges that the city is faced with," he said.