As motorist prepare to pay more to park along some stretches of city streets, the parking meter lease deal that Mayor Richard M. Daley got quickly passed through the City Council two years ago continues to come under fire.
At a news
conference Monday at her campaign headquarters, mayoral candidate Carol Moseley
Braun said if elected, she would renegotiate a contract that privatized the
city’s parking meters while also identifying ways the city could raise $1
billion.
“This
contract is a financial disaster for Chicago. I will cancel this contract if
elected mayor,” Braun said at a Monday news conference. “The execution of this
contract was beyond the authority of the city.”
In
December 2008 the City Council approved a 75-year lease deal for the city’s
35,000 parking meters with Chicago Parking Meters LLC, a private Chicago-based
company, in exchange for a $1.15 billion payment upfront. The deal passed by a vote
of 40 to 5.
On New
Year’s Day, downtown meter rates increased to $5 an hour from $4.25, or over 60
percent more than the $3 an hour it cost to park in the Loop in 2008. Local
parking in neighborhoods, which cost 25 cents an hour in 2008, increased to
$1.50 an hour from $1.25 this year. And for motorists parking outside of the
Loop the rate increased to $3 from $2.50 an hour. Under the lease agreement CPM
will increase rates to $6.50 ah hour by 2013 and that future rate increase
would depend on inflation.
Avis
LaVelle, a spokeswoman for CPM, said except for inside the Loop, payment is not
required from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. unless otherwise posted.
She added
that until all fare boxes have been programmed to reflect the new rates,
motorists are only responsible for paying the posted rate on the meters.
Mayoral candidate and former Chicago Board of Education
President Gery Chico blasted the parking meter lease deal, too. The former
Daley appointee said in November that, “in 2008, our city missed the mark when
it agreed to the parking meter deal. To
add insult to injury, we barely have anything left to show
for it.” Chico said if elected mayor he would work to set up legislation that
would prohibit the “raiding” of city reserve funds.
Alderman
Howard Brookins Jr. (21st) voted for the deal but said he did so to prevent
layoffs Mayor Richard M. Daley had threatened if the deal was not approved.
“This was
the only way to prevent more city employees from losing their jobs,” Brookins
told the Defender shortly
after giving the lease deal his approval.
Ald.
Leslie Hairston (5th) was one of two Black aldermen who did not vote for the
parking meters deal.
“It is a
very bad deal. Seventy-two hours was not time for us to evaluate this deal,”
Hairston told the Defender about the parking meter lease proposal the City
Council had only a short time to consider. “I feel (Chicago taxpayers) got
cheated and would surely support any measure to renegotiate this deal.”
Former
Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), who became the first woman elected Cook County
board president in November, also voted against the deal.
If she
were successful at renegotiating the contract Braun said she has identified
some cost cutting ways to raise any money needed to refund the initial payment
the city has received and nearly used up.
“If we
were to put a moratorium on tax increment financing use that would get us half
way there and save $500 million,” she explained. “We could also streamline
communications to save money.”
Copyright 2011 Chicago Defender
