Way too late to show caution

The current parking meter mess almost makes me nostalgic for a scene like this 1959 Miss Parking Meter. Photograph provided by Chuckman Chicago Nostalgia

There are certain government officials who give a knee-jerk “no” vote whenever any measure comes up that involves a sports stadium.

For some, they are bitter that their opposition to a new stadium for the Chicago White Sox some two decades ago passed anyway. That’s a long time to hold a grudge.

BUT FOR OTHERS, they saw the negative reaction caused by that deal. So they think a “no” vote now will somehow show they are being responsible and protective of the public interests.

I’m skeptical of such logic – which to me makes about as much sense as the aldermen who this week made a point of expressing opposition to attempts to alter the deal the city has with Chicago Parking Meters LLC.

That is the entity that operates the parking meters on city streets. It is the entity that paid Chicago a respectable sum of money a few years ago – in exchange for gaining the rights to the meters and all their money for decades to come.

Of course, Chicago blew through that cash within a year; and now has nothing to show for all the upcoming years that an outside entity will take in billions from those people who pay the parking fees to legally leave their cars on city streets.

THAT IS THE motivation behind Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s desires to redo the deal. He wants to be able to take credit for getting something back for city taxpayers (the ones whom a new Chicago Tribune poll says don’t love him quite as much as they did a year ago).

He apparently worked out a deal by which we’d be able to park for free on Sundays, provided that the hours of the day the rest of the week be extended during which tickets could be issued to those people who don’t bother to feed the meters.

Personally, it strikes me as being way too little. Chicago parking meters are going to be an issue that will be a political joke for decades to come – most likely for the rest of my life (and I don’t anticipate departing this Earth anytime soon).

Maybe the aldermen think they’re gaining our support by the fact that they wouldn’t give Emanuel’s “deal” a rubber stamp of approval. Because that’s what didn’t happen when the City Council met this week.

ALDERMEN COMPLAINED, RANTED and whined about how they suspected that this was just a scam to let Chicago Parking Meters LLC make even more money. Such as how requiring the meters to be “fed” in those areas just north of the Loop (River North, Streeterville) could bring in more money than would be lost by offering free Sunday parking.

They might be right.

But if the aldermen think they’re suddenly being responsible public officials, they’re seriously being delusional. Because there isn’t anything they can do these days to fix the mess that has been created.

That actually is the one point on which I will give Emanuel some credit. He admits this is a bad deal that can’t be fixed.

ALDERMEN ARE ACTING as though there is a “fix” to be found!

And I think the mindset of most Chicagoans when it comes to street parking is set – regardless of any amendments to the deal that might be made in the future.

About the only thing that can be said about street parking is that it isn’t quite as expensive (in most cases) as parking in a downtown garage.

Although I suspect I’m not alone in being among the ranks of people who turn to mass transit to get about the city. Parking the car is just too darn costly!

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Does City Council need a jolt from the public to get them to act properly?

Council chambers weren't quite this empty, but it wasn't far off either. Photograph provided by City of Chicago.

On the one hand, I can’t say that the City Council’s behavior earlier this week surprises me, or that their actions caused any serious harm.

But the indifference expressed by the aldermen is dismaying. Eleven ought to be Luis Aparicio’s retired uniform number, NOT the number of council members who thought it worth their time to show up for a City Council meeting.

I’M REFERRING TO the special meeting of the council that was supposed to take place Monday, but didn’t because most aldermen didn’t bother to show up. Of the 50 aldermen, at least 26 need to be on hand for any official action to take place.

They didn’t even come close to a quorum. So nothing happened.

What died politically as a result were a series of referenda that officials, including city Clerk/mayoral hopeful Miguel del Valle, had wanted placed on the Feb. 22 municipal election ballot.

Monday was a deadline for the council to take action to place questions on the ballot allowing voters to have a say whether more police officers should be hired, city officials should try to renegotiate their horrid parking meter lease, or financial transactions at the LaSalle Street exchanges should be taxed.

SO NOW, UNLESS voters show the initiative to undertake petition drives to place the issues on the ballot, these questions won’t be on the ballot.

Now I realize that even if these issues had made it to the ballot, they were merely advisory questions. There was no binding legal authority for city government officials to act in accordance with the results of the referenda.

They were just a chance for people to express their opinion. And we all realize how little the city officials themselves care about public opinion – they view it as a lot of meaningless noise that gets in the way of city business being conducted.

I even realize that on the issue of the parking meter lease, it doesn’t matter how much people complain, or if city officials were willing to get themselves involved in that fiasco. Our city government signed a valid contract and is now stuck with a bad deal.

I SUPPOSE THE company that is now getting all that money we pump into the parking meters every time we park on a city street (personally, I try to avoid operating an automobile within the city limits) could, out of the generosity of their hearts, decide to renegotiate.

Then again, we could also have a White Sox/Cubs World Series in 2011. Fat chance!

So I suppose the aldermen who didn’t bother to show up would claim they were merely ignoring a meeting whose activity had no legitimacy – although Forty-Ninth Ward Alderman Joe Moore told the Chicago Sun-Times he thinks soon-to-be-former Mayor Richard M. Daley personally told the aldermen not to bother to show up.

After all, why even discuss these embarrassing issues (a 75-year parking meter lease where the city has already spent its share of the money only two years into the agreement) when the referendums can’t do much?

NOW I WILL be the first to admit that I detest political blather. Government officials gathering together to grandstand and make pronouncements about issues when they can’t truly act upon them is a nauseating concept.

Yet I still have enough respect for a City Council as an institution (I think some of its members are unworthy of serving in that legislative body) that I take offense to the idea of 39 out of 50 aldermen deciding they can’t be bothered to show up for a meeting.

It’s not like the council has daily sessions (it’s not Congress or the Illinois General Assembly). It would have been one morning out of the working lives of the aldermen – most of whom have business or legal interests that are enhanced by the fact that they are also elected officials.

MEEKS: Taking city to the people?



It actually makes me wonder if Rev./state Sen./mayoral hopeful James Meeks is on to something with his latest campaign pronouncement. He plans to hit all 50 wards during the next 50 days, and earlier this week said he wants to have city officials spent more time in the neighborhoods – rather than huddle amongst themselves all the time at City Hall.

“WHY SHOULD EVERYONE be forced to come to City Hall to conduct their city business,” Meeks said, in explaining his proposal to have city department heads spend one day per week in the neighborhoods.

Now I realize the individual aldermen do spend some significant time in their own wards, although there are times I wonder if their local knowledge is too limited to which of their neighbors vote regularly and which do not?

Perhaps a little less time spent studying the vote tallies would mean more attention paid to the actual concerns of the residents. Heck, that might even get those people who can’t be bothered to vote to actually show up and cast a ballot, once in a while.

It would definitely make the aldermen realize how silly they looked this week when only 11 of them bothered to be present.

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Chicago’s “Elite Eight” for ‘08

I enjoy this old postcard image of downtown Chicago, from before the days when the Sears Tower and Hancock Center dominated the skyline. Image provided by Chicago Postcard Museum (http://www.chicagopostcardmuseum.org/).

In the history of Chicago, 2008 won’t go down quite as adventurous a news year as, say 1968, 1929 or 1871.

But the year that will be complete in just a dozen more days did have its share of stories worth remembering. Considering this weblog began its existence one year ago today with a promise to “help people better understand what is happening on the shores of Lake Michigan between Evanston and East Chicago, Ind.,” today is as good a day as any to review the year’s top stories.

8 – MILOROD GETS BUSTED: Some people are going to disagree with me and claim I’m downplaying the legal predicament now faced by Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

I will be the first to admit that moving forward with impeachment of an Illinois governor is unprecedented. So is the degree to which a Chicago public official is accused of such crass (how else do you describe trying to “sell” the former post held by the biggest-name goo goo in politics today?) public behavior.

But I rank it at the bottom of this list for one reason – the real saga is going to come when the legal process progresses to the point where a trial takes place in U.S. District Court (or when Blagojevich enters a “guilty” plea to some sort of lesser charge).

In all likelihood, that will take place some time in 2010 (or 2011, or some year thereafter, if attorney Ed Genson gums up the legal works with enough procedural motions like he did with the criminal case of rapper R. Kelly, whose case took five years to go to trial).

When that happens, I will gladly proclaim the Blagojevich trial the Number One story of the year. Until then, I’ll have to agree that Genson’s characterization earlier this week of the Illinois House committee’s impeachment hearings as “stupid” has an element of truth to it.

7 – SKY-HIGH PRICES GIVE ME GAS: The times I have pumped gasoline in my car this week, I have paid somewhere in the area of $1.60 per gallon It wasn’t all that long ago that the only Chicago-area motorists who paid that much for gas were those stupid enough to use those overly-taxed pumps at filling stations in and near the Loop.

But it comes off as sounding like a bargain basement rate when compared to the more than $4 per gallon we were paying back in the summer months. At one point, Chicago-area motorists were paying an average of $4.24 per gallon (with those downtown pumps charging rates dangerously close to $5 per gallon). We had the highest average in the United States – even higher than isolated places like Alaska and Hawaii.

The end result of this gas price fiasco is that we are now used to paying ridiculous rates for petrol, and are inclined to think of the current price as some sort of bargain for which we should feel grateful. It also has many of us wondering how high gas will go come the summer of 2009.

If it weren’t for the steadily increasing rates (combined with service cuts) for mass transit, I’d be inclined to junk my automobile once and for all.

6 – BASEBALL IS MORE THAN A GAME: It’s a nerve-wracking ordeal.

In one sense, Chicago baseball in 2008 was historic. For the first time in 102 years, both of the major league teams representing the city made it through their six-month regular season ordeal to finish the season in First Place.

Both ball clubs will hold rituals in April to raise banners over their respective ballparks declaring themselves to be “Central Division Champs” of their respective leagues. And the way the White Sox managed to win that division title by winning a string of end-of-season games (with a loss in any one of them bringing their season to a Second Place conclusion) is something that ought to be remembered for decades to come.

Yet what is going to be remembered is the way both the White Sox and Cubs managed to lose the first round of their playoffs (I still see merchandise for sale touting the idea that the Cubs were destined to win the World Series this year). While the Sox managed to be competitive and win a game, the Cubs got swept in such humiliating fashion (for the second year in a row) that many of us wonder what was it about this team that made anyone take it seriously to begin with?

5 – AUCTIONING OFF THE ASSETS: Much has been made of the idea that Rod Blagojevich was selling off a U.S. Senate seat to the highest political bidder. But in a sense, Richard M. Daley did the exact same thing with some of the city’s assets that (if managed properly) can bring in revenue.

I’m talking about the deals made to turn control of Midway Airport from the Chicago Aviation Department to a private company, and another deal to let a private company oversee the parking meters on city streets.

Much has been made of the fact that parking along downtown streets could someday (by 2013) reach a rate of $6.50 per hour.

But what gets to me is why city officials think such income-producing resources are better off in the hands of private companies. While I appreciate the short-term benefit of millions of dollars being pumped into the city coffers, the long-term harm is that there will be nothing left for city government to oversee.

If that’s the case, why don’t we just auction off control of the City Council and Mayor’s office to a private management firm that could do all the actual work of government management? Then, Daley & Co. could sit back and do nothing, which some smart-aleck observers might think is an improvement.

4 – LANE BRYANT BANDIT REMAINS AT-LARGE: It was back in early February that a would-be robber at a Lane Bryant store in southwest suburban Tinley Park got carried away and killed five women (including some who were nothing more than customers).

The senselessness of the slayings caught the national mindset, and people across the country were paying attention to us for a time. It also inspired some of the craziest conspiracy theories (such as the idea that the robber/killer was some sort of homophobe who picked a Lane Bryant store because of the perception that transvestites shop there).

I even remember a few religious fanatics trying to turn the funerals of at least one of the women killed at the store into an excuse to protest against gay people.

But when one puts the mindless nonsense aside, the fact is we still don’t have a clue as to whodunit, or what the motivation for the slayings was (even though we’re pretty sure it will turn out to be something trivial).

3 – SCOTUS BANS FIREARMS BANS, CHICAGO SAYS “NO”: It was earlier this year that the Supreme Court of the United States gave gun nuts their jollies by issuing a ruling that struck down the stringent bans on firearm ownership in the District of Columbia.

The activists who can’t envision life without their high-powered rifles (and view ownership of an AK-47 or an M-16 as the equivalent of the car collector who likes to drive fine sports cars) immediately started filing lawsuits against other cities that try to restrict firearms ownership – including Chicago.

Many of those towns (such as Morton Grove, Ill., the suburb that enacted the original firearms ban) decided to avoid litigation by eliminating their bans, or amending them so as to make them pointless.

But Chicago stood firm, refused to make any changes, and recently got a federal judge to rule that the city’s ban is constitutional. That ruling is now susceptible to challenge in appeals courts, and it is possible that a higher court will try to overturn the local judge’s ruling.

But in my mind, that merely confirms that the high court’s action was a politically partisan move on behalf of a conservative constituency – rather than any serious reservation about the legitimacy of gun bans.

2 – I CAN HEAR THE OLYMPIC MARCH ALREADY: The next summer Olympiad is to be held in 2012 in London, with the next one after that in 2016 still in search of a site.

And there’s a chance that Chicago will become that site, bringing the eyes of the world to our city similar to how the presidential campaign of Barack Obama kept showing off aspects of Chicago life to the nation.

The U.S. Olympic Committee made it official when they officially chose Chicago to be the focus of their efforts to get the Olympics in the United States, rejecting a proposal by Los Angeles.

Now I suppose it’s possible that the International Olympic Committee could be delusional enough to think Madrid, Tokyo or Rio de Janiero is a nicer city than Chicago. Of course, that would mean they’re the same kind of people who think Britney Spears has legitimate musical talent.

The Olympics in our city would have the opportunity to give our city a grand new image, while also pressuring city officials to finally get off their duffs and fix some of those problems (ie., mass transit) that confront our daily lives.

As for those people who claim the headaches of staging the Olympics are not worth it, all I have to say is, “pipe down.” You probably think the Illinois State Fair is a grand old time, instead of the most overrated excuse for a corn-dog fest ever derived.

1 – YES, WE DID: The rise of Barack Obama from the obscurity of Illinois politics to being able to work in the Oval Office without causing the Secret Service to arrest him could very well turn out to be the “Chicago Story of the Decade.”

I can remember after his loss to Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., for a seat in Congress that political people were wondering if the Obama intellect was destined to fizzle out before it ever rose to new levels.

Even at the beginning of ’08, people figured Hillary R. Clinton (the suburban Park Ridge native-turned-Arkansan-turned New Yorker) was the shoo-in for the Democratic Party’s nomination, and Obama was just a pretty face who could give good oratory.

But he gained an advantage with an early win in the Iowa caucuses (where participants don’t view Chicago and Illinois as some alien land), and he ran up a string of primary victories despite the aspects of Chicago culture (Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Antoin Rezko, etc.) that may seem alien to those people not fortunate enough to live in the Second City.

Insofar as the general election, Obama won because a majority of the people decided they liked political newcomer Barack and didn’t care much for the other newcomer – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

In the end, Honolulu-native Obama (who like many others adopted Chicago as his home when he started his adult life) caused people from across the country to converge Election Night on Grant Park to celebrate the fact that he will become the first U.S. president with significant Chicago ties (Abraham Lincoln was a Springpatcher, while Ronald Reagan ditched Illinois for California, and Ulysses Grant didn’t live in our state long enough to qualify, in my mind).

And come Jan. 20, when Obama takes the oath of office to become the 44th U.S. president, this country will have a chief executive with an innate knowledge of all things Chicago, including why it is totally absurd to think one can root for both Sox and Cubs come the Cross-town Classic.

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Is $6.50/hr for downtown parking meant to scare motorists out of the Loop?

I’m starting to wonder if Chicago city officials perceive parking meters downtown the same way that most governments view tobacco products.

Whenever a government entity raises its tobacco tax, there usually is a concession that some people will quit smoking because they won’t be able to afford the increased cost of cigarettes – which is seen as a health benefit for society as a whole.

DO CITY OFFICIALS secretly hope that the idea of charging people up to $6.50 per hour when they park along downtown streets will discourage them from bringing their cars into the Loop, thereby improving the area’s traffic flow?

I’m not making that figure up. The City Council is expected to hold a special session Thursday to consider a measure that was rammed through a committee earlier this week – one that would turn over parking meters in the city from control of the Department of Revenue to a private company that would pay Chicago city government $1.2 billion.

Under the proposal being considered by the City Council, parking meters would get standardized rates, and rates would be increased annually. That is how meters that now charge about $0.25 per hour now will go up to $1 per hour come next month, and will be as high as the aforementioned $6.50 figure.

City officials tell reporter-types that they would want to use about half the money paid by the private company to balance the city budget for the upcoming year (the deal that was approved last month and included layoffs for more than 600 city employees).

I’M SURE CITY officials, including Mayor Richard M. Daley, like the idea of some private entity paying them a set fee, rather than having to rely on the ebb and flow of parking revenues for the next five years.

It allows the city to know exactly how much money it can expect from parking.

So what would the city care if the thought of such a high rate (it’s a good thing that modern parking meters take credit and debit cards, or else having to carry nearly $20 in small change for three hours of parking along a downtown street would weigh people down too much) winds up scaring some people away from driving their cars downtown.

The city still gets its money, and it becomes the problem of the private company to figure out how to achieve enough revenue to make operating the city’s parking meters profitable for them.

AND IF FEWER cars downtown means it is easier for people to move about on foot, then perhaps there is a plus for urban dwellers and travelers.

I have to confess something. While I enjoy downtown Chicago as much as anyone else, I can’t remember the last time I took my car down there.

One of the advantages of my current residence is that it is within walking distance of a train station that can take me to the Loop anytime I want to go there. Once there, the CTA continues to be helpful in getting about, along with the occasional taxicab (that is, if I can’t just walk there – that’s what legs are for).

I honestly don’t understand why anyone really feels the need to deal with the already-high prices of parking meters in the Loop, or those downtown parking garages whose rates also are going up.

IN FACT, ABOUT the only time in my life that I ever drove into downtown Chicago on a regular basis was back in my earliest days with the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago, where riding around in my car from assignment to assignment was part of my job, and my day always involved checking in with the “main office” in the old Jeweler’s Building at Wabash and Wacker.

That was about the only time I ever got parking tickets on a regular basis – finding a “legal” spot in front of the building so I could run in-and-out was difficult, so it became easier to just “take” the occasional parking ticket.

In fact, I recently used the Chicago Department of Revenue’s website to check my driver’s license number to see if I had managed to pay all those outstanding tickets.

As it turns out, I still have one ticket (from August of 1990) for parking illegally downtown. This particular ticket qualifies for the amnesty program the city is offering this month, and I probably will use that option to pay it off – mostly because I don’t want some overanxious city crew mistaking my car for one that can be “booted.”

MY POINT IN noting this anecdote is to point out the date – it has been just over 18 years since I last got a parking ticket. It may very well have been that long since I drove my own car into the downtown area.

Yet I don’t feel like my access to the area has been limited in any way. So I won’t suffer any sacrifice in avoiding a $6.50/hour parking meter fee, since I am already avoiding parking meter fees.

If more people took my view on the issue, this activity would be a moot point. Some company would wind up regretting getting involved in a deal with city government because not enough people would be parking at meters for them to generate enough money to meet their profit margins.

My question? How much would parking have to decline for the deal to become a money-loser for a private entity, and for Richard M. Daley to wind up looking like a genius for taking the $1.2 billion up front?

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EDITOR’S NOTES: New Year, Memorial, Independence, Labor, Thanksgiving and Christmas days (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2008/12/aldermen-debate.html) will no longer be recognized as parking meter holidays, if a new deal is approved by the City Council on Thursday.

The whole world is watching (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b6850188-c0db-11dd-b0a8-000077b07658.html) as Chicago prepares to sell off operation of its nearly 36,000 parking meters to a group led by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners.

The next time you wonder why it always takes government so long to do anything (such as approve a new airport for the Chicago area), keep in mind that this parking meter privatization (http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1312003,chicago-parking-meter-privatize-approve-120308.article) did not exist publicly until this week. The City Council can act quickly when it is in their interest to do so.