The City That Works has so far earned its moniker in the opening rounds of Mayor Emanuel's managed competition between city laborers and private contractors for the right to collect Chicago's recycling. more ›

On Friday, we took on Da Mare's impact on the city's music and arts - today, it's time to turn to restaurants. How has the mayor's tenure affected the city's food scene? As with most of the mayor's legacy, it's a mixed bag: genuine improvements and admirable goals mixed with inefficiency, graft and lost opportunities. more ›

Even though just three days ago Daley was still looking to privatize Taste of Chicago, the city has decided to turn the reigns to the festival over to the Park District. By doing so, the city hopes to still save cash while keeping Chicago's biggest food orgy free to the masses. Chicago Park District General Superintendent Timothy Mitchell said via press release “Mayor Daley has stressed the importance of keeping the Taste of Chicago free with no admission fee, especially during these tough economic times. Our goal is to do just that while also ensuring that the Taste remains economically viable.” more ›

City Clerk Miguel del Valle has asked state Attorney General Lisa Madigan to investigate the city's ballyhooed parking meter lease deal, believing that because Morgan Stanley employees didn't register with the city as lobbyists, the deal violates Chicago's ethics ordinance. more ›

Even though the bid to privatize Taste of Chicago and other city festivals by Celebrate Chicago LLC went out with a whimper thanks to the proposal to charge an admission to Chicago's largest display of gluttony, Mayor Daley isn't done looking for a private bidder to run the festival. With a little more than four months before Taste is scheduled to open, that's really cutting things close. more ›

The lone bidder to privatize Taste of Chicago has come back and said maayyyyybe a $20 admission isn't such a good idea. So they've cut the proposed fee in half in an effort to appease Mayor Daley, who reminded us a few weeks back the annual festival with food, music and some carnival attractions is all about the food. more ›

The city, after only making a modest profit from last year's Taste of Chicago, received one bid from a private contractor to take over organizing the annual event. And that bidder, if they get their way, is looking to charge a $20 admission fee for folks to have the privilege to gnaw on giant turkey legs. more ›

City officials, after repeated affirmations that they wish for annual festivals such as Taste of Chicago, Blues Fest and Jazz Fest, now seem to be warming to the idea of selling naming rights to those and other festivals and, in some cases, even charging admission to the festivals. Losing $7 million on the festivals in a three-year span has a way of making the city revisit its stance. more ›

Remember last month when the Chicago transit Authority, beaming at the results of the North/Clybourn station renovation, said that they would open up naming rights to anything they owned to the highest bidder? more ›

You would think that, after the shit storm that rained on Mayor Daley's head once the details of the parking meter privatization came out, he'd give up the privatizing ghost and count down the days until next May. more ›

Yesterday Illinois PIRG held a press conference outside of city council chambers to thank the 19 aldermen who signed a pledge against future privatization of city resources. more ›

The city's parking meter situation is certain to be a major issue in the upcoming mayoral election. With only $76 million left of a $1.2 billion lump sum payment for turning over control of the city's parking meters to a private consortium, Voters and media pundits will ask the prospective candidates in the next few months their positions on privatizing city services and whether it's wise to have done some privatizing of services the way Mayor Daley did: rammed through witha City Council rubber stamp and in secrecy. more ›

While you were out watching football, hitting the farmers market, or squeezing in a weekend getaway before the cooler weather of fall arrives, there was still plenty happening here in the city and here's some of our weekend coverage you might have missed. more ›

When he's not lashing out at the same state reps he's also asking for money, Mayor Daley is apparently thinking of other city assets he can sell off a la the parking meters so as to bring in a little cash to fill that ginormous budget gap. And now there's a laundry list of things under consideration including the city's recycling program and some lakefront festivals like the annual Taste of Chicago. According to a report in the Trib's Clout City blog, other services Daley is also considering selling off include vehicle maintenance and repair and animal care and control. Over the summer, rumblings of reviving the plan to privatize Midway Airport have also gotten notice. The city plans on reporting to the FAA by November about any further thoughts on that project. more ›

Privatizing city assets has been a hot topic over the last year and a half here in the city, especially given the debacle that was the parking meter hand-off. But what about an agency like the CTA? How would that do under privatized control? The thing is, it's happened before. In this week's Chicago Reader, Robert Loerzel explores, in depth, the city's previous stint of privatized public transit. It's an engrossing, extensive read so get comfortable. more ›

• The Reader's (and former Chicagoist writer) Hunter Clauss discovers that Ald. Beale's claim that Wal-Mart is the only retail choice for Pullman isn't quite true.
• Metra has placed chief executive Phil Pagano on leave as they continue to investigate his alleged bonuses.
• Authorities have recovered a car involved in an early morning hit-and-run accident on I-94.

The City has been given a brief reprieve in its deadline to submit plans for the proposed privatization of Midway Airport. The deadline for the submission to the FAA was for today, February 1, but the FAA has granted the City an extension until April 30. The City has been working on a plan for the privatization of the airport since the fall of 2008, but the credit crisis nixed the deal last spring. The proposal has since been resuscitated but the City has been more cautious on this second approach. more ›

In the midst of all their political polling, a question from the Trib/WGN team found a subject most Democrats and Republicans agree on: no privatization of the state's tollway system. 72 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of Republicans polled said no to leasing the system with the primary fear on both sides being that tolls would increase as a result. more ›

Just a day after John Schmidt, the city's outside attorney that handles privatization matters indicated that Mayor Daley was anxious to get on with the 99 year lease of Midway Airport, the mayor is indicating that he's not actually in that big of a hurry after all. "It's a long way off. … You have to make sure the market is there," Daley told CBS2 Chicago. The mayor seems to be gun shy of the deal now, after a similar deal in England netted less than was expected. "Gatwick Airport, a small airport in London — instead of going for $1.5 billion, it went for $1.1 billion or $1.2 [billion]. It was down in value. So, that was not a good sign at all. That was just in the last six months." more ›

Following up on Mayor Daley's successful privatization of Chicago's parking meter system, and the cost-savings realized by drivers on the Spanish-leased Chicago Skyway, the mayor is gearing up to lease Midway Airport to a consortium of private investors. Crain's is reporting that the city will meet a February 1 deadline to tell the Federal Aviation Administration what its next steps will be in the process. The FAA has five spots open for a pilot privatization program, one of which is for a major hub airport. Midway currently holds that spot. “The mayor has said he clearly wants to do it,” John Schmidt, the city's outside attorney that handles privatization matters told Crain's. more ›

After Mayor Daley's budget presentation last week, speculation swirled over what city services would be next to get the privatizing treatment. CBS 2 reported over the weekend that lucky city asset to be the city's water system. The station cited an unnamed trade publication as a source but the rumor was confirmed by Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) who told CBS 2, "We've already heard inklings that they're thinking about it...They've had discussions. Why is the public not at the table?" more ›

With Mayor Daley's budget on the table and things looking grim financially for the next several years, it's natural to wonder what other city assets Daley will sale as he dips into the parking meter lease cash to help cover the 2010 budget gap. The Sun-Times Fran Spielman runs down for us what could very well be up for sale next, including another run at privatizing Midway. Daley's tried to do it before. The 99-year, $2.5 billion deal was set up by the mayor and approved by the City Council, but the deal floundered as the economy did. Another run at this deal with any number of companies wouldn't be a surprise. Spielman suggests he could also try to do the same kind of deal with O'Hare, which would bring in even more money, but roadblocks could drag out such an attempt. more ›

We did a lot of complaining and moaning about snow plowing - or, rather, the lack thereof - this past winter. And we weren't alone. The Mayor's reasoning: they didn't have the money to pay for the overtime for the unions. Eventually, the Mayor relented. Now, Daley's looking to cut out that problem altogether. Aldermen were alerted by Daley's aides today that the Mayor is going to start soliciting bids from private companies for a contract to plow the city's streets. Regardless of what you think about privatizing city services, color us scared to death about this one. Given the horrendous transition on the parking meter hand-off, we can't imagine how badly the city will be paralyzed if this item comes to pass and they screw it up again. more ›

The citizens of Gary, Indiana aren't happy today, but at least their garbage is getting picked up again. By a vote of 5-4, the Gary City Council voted to approve a contract that would continue to allow a private company to pick up the city's garbage at the cost of $12 per month fee for the citizens. Gary Mayor Rudy Clay reasoned that privatizing garbage collection was cheaper for the city - the decision eliminated almost 50 city jobs. [WBEZ] more ›

If there's something of a stench coming from the direction of Gary, Indiana, it's not another factory or plant. Rather, it's the trash, which hasn't been collected in a week. WBEZ has more as does the Tribune. At issue is Gary Mayor Rudy Clay's insistence on hiring a private firm to do the work in spite of protests from residents to the contrary. Hmmm, where have we heard that before? more ›

The rebellion against the city's parking meters continues even as the Mayor, City Council, and private company running the meters continue to all tussle over the issue. Last night, a group of 50 parking meters stretching across the neighborhoods of Andersonville, Edgewater and Uptown were vandalized. From Chicago Breaking News: more ›

Mayor Daley announced this afternoon that he will hire outside elevator inspectors to relieve the backlog for the city elevator inspectors, after the Chicago Tribune reported that nearly 70 percent of the city's elevators have not been inspected in the last year, even though laws require annual inspection. The Tribune article also said that the city does not keep records on whether or not an elevator has been brought back up to code after failing an inspection. more ›

On May 18, the Chicago City Council will hold hearings on the 75-year lease that the city signed with a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley to privatize the city's parking meters. 49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore sponsored the ordinance that called for the hearings. more ›

As the city's efforts to change all of the parking meters to accept the new steep rates fall further behind schedule, reader/Flickr Pool contributor lauren*o captured one meter who seemed to have the same feelings about Mayor Daley's meter privatization as we do. more ›

The FAA's final approval of the City of Chicago's deal to privatize Midway Airport has been delayed. In September, the city leased Midway to Vancouver-based YVR Airport Services Ltd for 99 years at $2.5 billion. The FAA is still hashing out some of the financial agreements and YVR says the deal won't be finalized until April. The FAA, on the other hand, insists the work will be done before then. Given the fact that YVR manages 18 airports, it should have no trouble proving to the FAA it is capable of handling one more. more ›