Clerk Candidate Floats Idea of City Sticker Ads

By Prescott Carlson in News on Dec 18, 2010 4:00PM

As if selling naming rights to anything and everything on the CTA and the privatization of every one of the city's assets weren't enough, State Rep. and City Clerk candidate Susana Mendoza wants to micro-monetize down to even that little rectangle in the bottom right corner of your windshield.

According to Fran Spielman at the Sun-Times, Mendoza wants to turn Chicago city stickers into tiny billboards, selling space on the sticker to advertisers for $1 per month, per 1.25 million stickers:

"[The sticker is] a complete waste of real estate. We have an opportunity to open it up to corporate advertisers to raise $15 million," said Mendoza. "Nobody is talking about how they're gonna bring that type of revenue to the city and it's such a no-brainer. As clerk, I should not be the beneficiary of that very valuable real estate. Taxpayers should be the beneficiaries."

Mendoza says she would use some of the additional revenue to hire 100 police officers, and the rest would go towards lowering the cost of the city stickers from $75 to $70 for cars, and $120 to $115 for SUVs and large vehicles.

Mendoza has served in the Illinois General Assembly for over 10 years, and has sponsored bills such as a cell phone lemon law as well as SB 3695, which fines convicted criminals an extra $100 if they are a member of a gang.

Update: Ms. Mendoza, in an email, clarified that she is proposing that the ad be placed on the back portion of the sticker that faces the driver (or, more specifically, your front seat passenger), not the front as our image implies.