Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Politics / Clout City / News Rahm Emanuel's shifting views of the parking meter deal
Posted by Mick Dumke on 09.07.11 at 01:04 PM
Two-and-a-half years after it was consummated, the infamous parking-meter lease deal won’t go away—perhaps because there’s 72+ years left of it.
Last week, for example, citizens submitted at least four questions about the city’s meter system or the deal itself during Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s two town hall meetings. The mayor called the use of meter funds to balance the budget a “smoke and mirrors” technique that his predecessor might have used but he never would.
Yet his staff answered the questions online in the most matter-of-fact way possible: “The money fed into parking meters goes to the firm with the contract to operate the meters. In return for the right to operate the system and collect meter fees, the company paid the City $1.2 billion in 2009.”
In case you didn't know.
Yet it wasn’t so long ago that Emanuel had a lot more to say about the meter deal—including the possibility that he might nix it.
But Emanuel's views of the deal and what can be done about it have shifted along with his political circumstances. Here’s a timeline:
October 17, 2010: In an interview with Fran Spielman of the Sun-Times soon after he launched his mayoral campaign, Emanuel agrees that the meter deal was “controversial” but hedges when asked if he would have entered into it himself: “It's not helpful or productive to say, would I have done something in the past. It's done. What are we gonna do going forward?... Inertia is the enemy of reform and this is going to be an era of reform.”
November 17, 2010: Mayoral candidate Gery Chico says he would take steps to replenish and protect the reserve funds generated from asset leases, while Carol Moseley Braun vaguely promises to find a way to scotch the meter deal altogether. Asked to respond, Emanuel says only that the deal “didn’t work” and that the money should have been used “to invest in key infrastructure, investments in making the city a more productive city economically so you can grow jobs.”
January 5, 2011: As the campaign ramps up, so do Emanuel’s statements about the meter deal. During a presser called to propose selling ads on the sides of garbage trucks, Emanuel tells reporters “he would use the bully pulpit of the mayor's office to pressure Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners to renegotiate the 75-year, $1.15 billion lease that privatized Chicago parking meters to include more favorable terms for taxpayers and more moderate rate increases for motorists,” Spielman reports.
January 14, 2011: Or maybe not.
During a forum before the Chicago Tribune editorial board, Emanuel comes under attack from his campaign rivals. When the subject turns to the meters, Emanuel changes his stance from a few days before, saying this time that anyone who claims the deal can be scrapped or rewritten “is not being honest with the public” since most of the money has been spent.
April 25, 2011: Or maybe not.
Shortly after being elected, Emanuel is floating ideas for all sorts of things, from confronting the food desert problem to making the city more bike-friendly. He’s also ready to tell people what they want to hear about the parking meter deal.
In his first neighborhood appearance as mayor-elect, he tells an audience of hundreds at Alderman Joe Moore’s monthly 49th Ward meeting that members of his transition team are investigating the possibility of retooling or scrapping the deal. “Know that I have people on the transition—and more than a person—working on this,” he said. “I have some ideas and we’re exploring them.” He did not elaborate.
August 29-30, 2011: Or maybe not.
Emanuel continues to promise an honest, straightforward budgeting process that gets away from the quick fixes of the Daley years. "It's time we took control of our future," he tells an audience at the first of two public budget hearings.
The next day, Emanuel jokes on “Chicago Tonight” that the meter deal was helpful because it brought Chicagoans together. “There’s a difference on the north side, south side, and west side, and we have differences in economic and racial and religious [ways],” he said. “I’m proud that the city came together in unity in opposition to the parking deal.”
In seriousness, he adds, the deal “offends” him—but he can’t do anything about it. “The parking meter deal is particularly wrong. That said, we are stuck with the contract.”
September 6, 2011: I reached out to the city’s law department to see if city attorneys had looked into the issue at all, and if so, what they’d found. I got no response.
Contributing: Mark Bergen
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
Rahm should take a page out of Mac from It's Always Sunny's book and just eat the the contract.
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I think the parking meters raising rates higher is good for chicago; as it should encourage drivers to take other forms of transportation to get into and throughout the city. The only problem I see that they should fix is to renegotiate the ability for the city to remove and relocate parking spaces on the street so as to make room for bike lanes or BRT. Chicago needs to make a transition away from driving as the sole way to get around and enter the ranks of the other mobile, global cities.
Huh? Since when has driving been the sole or even the primary means of getting around? Chicago is probably one of the three or four least car-centric cities in the country. A very large proportion of the population that lives and works in the city uses transit. Nearly every city resident who works downtown does. You should make a trip to Los Angelas, Houston, or Phoenix and see if you still believe that Chicago is the one that needs make a transition towards a more transit dependent infrastructure.
And I've said this before and I'll say it again. I think the raising of the parking rates have encouraged more people to drive and fewer people to use public transit. It discourages people from driving to work if they are going to be parked in one of the street parking spaces. But it encourages people to drive if they are spending a shorter period of time there, such as shopping or eating a restaurant. This is because there are many more open parking spaces then there were before the rate hikes and people don't have to worry as much about driving all over the place looking for somewhere to park. There are more cars parking in the neighborhoods for shorter periods of time. That's good because it encourages people to stop and shop in a neighborhood when they otherwise wouldn't if there wasn't any available parking. So I don't disagree with you that raising the parking rates is positive. But your reasoning is flawed and simplistic.
The problem is that the deal made it so the raising of the rates were basically all done without regard to the fact that different neighborhoods have different needs. In some neighborhoods, it would be good for the area businesses if the parking rates were lower since there are always plenty of parking spaces. Lincoln Avenue between Diversey and Belmont, an area with a rather huge amount of retail vacancies compared with ever other nearby major street, is a good example of this. But the way the deal was made discourages decisions from being made that are based on the interests of the surrounding community.
I can assure you of one thing. It has certainly encouraged me to shop, wine and dine in the suburbs. I've cut my city activities out almost completely.
Let's get right to the point. These changes were NOT created to benefit you and me but rather the Chicago Department of Revenue. The real question is.. Where is all the money going?
Taken from the City Of Chicago Website..
"In 2010 the Department of Revenue (DOR) collected
$1.18 billion in DOR administered taxes, which
included $220.4 million in parking and red light
revenues, $618.5 million in water collections and
$709.2 million in other collections."
"The real question is.. Where is all the money going?"
Police and fire, for starters.
I love the parking meters. The hourly rates were 25c per hour(?) forever - and finding parking was impossible in a lot of places and payments could only be made in coins.
This deal forces people to pay more for parking in very busy areas - say like the loop. That is good. People also have stopped parking their cars in one spot the whole day.
Finally - the city got $1Billion from the deal - a lot of money considering the city does not have to hire (and pay pension) to parking meter people, and the city could not have raised the rates cos people (and the aldermen) would have objected.
One last thing - anyone who complains about expensive parking downtown - park it somewhere else and take a bus or train. (suburbanites - dont wanna come ? thats ok too)
Straight to HELL with the Parking Meter Deal ! If I were mayor the first thing I would do is completely ignore the deal. Come hell or high water - what ever the ramifications. F#c& this theft !
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FAIL: The Reader's Parking Meter Investigation
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