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The Council of School Supervisors and Administrators is suing Mayor Bloomberg, the city, and the Department of Education for refusing to restore thousands of parking permits to the union’s members.

According to the union, an arbitrator decided in August that the city had to return the permits or it would violate its contract with CSA. But that decision hasn’t ended the back-and-forth. After two weeks of discussions, the union’s legal counsel headed to court today to file a lawsuit.

“Nobody has gotten an answer from the City about why it won’t honor the arbitration,” a spokeswoman for CSA, Chiara Coletti, wrote in an email. Coletti said that the decision not to reinstate the 6,500 permits came from the mayor’s office.

Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor, did not address whether the city felt it was in compliance with the arbitrator’s decision, but said the current system should continue.

“For most City agencies and their workers the system has worked well for over a year, yet the CSA has stubbornly tried to hold onto their perks and has refused to work with us to combat misuse and abuse. The current system for the Department of Education limits the number of placards to the number of parking spots at schools, a fair and reasonable policy that we think should continue. We have not yet received the legal papers for this case,” Post wrote in an email. (more…)