Parking Meter Challenges Abound

By Chuck Sudo in News on Nov 1, 2010 1:42PM

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.

Mick Dumke, reporting over at Chicago News Cooperative, notes some ongoing court challenges to the parking meter fiasco. Last week, Circuit Court judge Richard J. Billik, Jr. heard arguments in a suit that charges the city illegally ceded its policing powers and right to set parking regulations to Chicago Parking Meters LLC. Chicago Parking Meters LLC can write tickets for parking violations and is required to be compensated by the city when it changes parking meter locations and rates. Another lawsuit filed against the investment firm chosen by the Daley Administration to advise the city on the deal, charges that William Blair & Company provided underestimated the value of the meters. This seems like an understatement, given the financial hole the city now finds itself in and how deeply into the lump sum payment it's had to reach into to even make the budget seem close to being balanced.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office, which opened an investigation into the parking meter deal in May, has kept quite since then regarding its investigation into the deal.