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Mayor Daley's dream of leasing Midway Airport finally came crashing down for good Monday, as news that the consortium of private investors led by Citibank notified the city over the weekend that they had failed to line up the financing necessary to close the deal. As a result of MidCo's failure to obtain the $2.5 billion in credit necessary to lease the airport, the City of Chicago will retain the $126 million in earnest money the consortium put up.
Although the South side airport will remain in public hands for the foreseeable future, the city hasn't taken the idea of leasing it to a private company off the table. "We still retain the right to competitively offer the Midway transaction again, down the road, when financial market conditions improve," City Chief Financial Officer Gene Saffold said. "Stock markets, real estate markets, infrastructure asset markets go up and down over time. We've tried to complete this transaction at a time where values had declined somewhat," he said. "With a global recovery in the economy and improving liquidity in credit market conditions, there's no reason to believe we won't get back to a point where this makes sense in the future." Last September Mayor Daley announced that the deal wouldn't die, in spite of the global credit crisis. "Everybody thought ... the deal was dead a month ago. There were rumors running around City Hall and every place. You heard it: The deal is dead. Nothing's gonna happen," Daley told the Sun-Times then. "We're on the cutting edge. If you're not creative in an economic crisis for your city, where are you gonna get the infrastructure money to compete?"
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"Mayor Daley's dream of leasing Midway Airport finally came crashing down for good Monday.."
Well, give it another year or two; the city still will need the cash in a very major way, and Daley is a huge advocate of privatization. In fact, you seem to acknowledge the general plan of leasing Midway still has life in the following sentence which contradicts your initial thesis:
"Although the South side airport will remain in public hands for the foreseeable future, the city hasn't taken the idea of leasing it to a private company off the table .."
Maybe Daley is on to something...
1) Present infrastructure available for lease to investors.
2) Receive millions in earnest money.
3) Keep earnest money when the deal falls through.
4) Repeat.
Do this 15-20 times and Chicago will be in the black again!
"We're on the cutting edge. If you're not creative in an economic crisis for your city, where are you gonna get the infrastructure money to compete?"
Well, he's sorta right. I CUT the EDGE of my tire on a big ass pothole the other day. So when's that infrastructure money gonna get here?
You heard them:
"With a global recovery in the economy and improving liquidity in credit market conditions, there's no reason to believe we won't get back to a point where this makes sense in the future."
That's right, the only way to keep Midway (and presumably anything else that generates money for the city) from being sold to the highest bidder is to vote Daley out of office the next time around. Now what are the chances that a qualified candidate will be on the ballot against him ...?Waa...waa...waa...