Did McCarthy single-handedly win, or lose, the mayoral election on Monday?

Chicago woke up Monday morning to the first significant snowfall of the season, which of course got some more trivial-minded broadcast types determined to ask the ultimate political question.

McCARTHY: Cracking down on 'dibs'

Dibs, or no?

AS IN SHOULD people be allowed to stake out a parking spot near their homes and claim it for their own, just because they managed to clear it of snowfall.

Because it also was a day for many of the mayoral aspirants to file their nominating petitions to get on the ballot, it meant candidates got the question put to them – yea or nay?

And no pussyfooting about how it’s a stupid non-issue meant to divert attention away from serious problems confronting Chicago. Which is the way I feel about the issue – a stance that I’m sure will cause some to want to mock me.

For the record, most of the candidates tried to get out of answering the question, but ultimately wound up deciding that people have a right to stake a claim to a parking spot come winter weather.

ALL EXCEPT FOR Garry McCarthy – the one-time law enforcement official from metro New York who came to Chicago to be police superintendent, then got fired by soon-to-be-former Mayor Rahm Emanuel to try to divert criticism from himself over the police shooting death of teenager Laquan McDonald.

McCarthy is likely to be he preferred mayoral candidate of those people eager to express support for law-and-order and police above all others, and who see anything less than such an extreme attitude as being chaos run amok upon our society.

But on this issue, he came out in favor of cracking down on people who think they have a “right” to a particular parking space.

“That’s a bad idea. It causes conflict. Anything that causes conflict, I think, is a bad idea,” McCarthy told reporter-type people.

NOW I’LL BE the first to admit that it’s a total pain in the behind to have to use a shovel to clear one’s car free from heavy snowfall. It takes time, it can be freezing, and one comes off totally soaking wet – then having to get into the car and tend to whatever business they’re doing.

To then come back home to find out someone else took the space for their own automobile? I can comprehend how some people would be p-o’ed.

But it’s one of the realities of urban life. Parking one’s car is always a problem. If you want to have a guarantee of a private spot, then you have to pay for it.

Either that, or go move to a suburban area, or some part of the country where snowfall just isn’t much of an issue. My guess is that if you go out there, you’ll find out just how preferable your life situation is better off here, and your complaints about winter-time parking will come off as downright petty.

BUT THERE ARE those people who want to view it as some sort of inherent right, somewhere along their ability to own a firearm, to have a personal parking spot and stake a claim to it. Almost as though they think they’re 19^th Century prospectors panning for gold in isolated spots.

So I have no doubt that McCarthy’s comments, no matter how trivial they truly are, will instigate some people to vote against him, Heck, I’ve already seen one anonymous commenter label McCarthy a “communist.”

Which I’m sure would grossly offend Sen. Joe of Wisconsin, as though his name were being taken in vain.

But the fact that some voters will make their Feb. 26 decision based off of the early Monday snowfall is the fact that actually grossly offends me – quite possibly more than those who think they have the right to vandalize a car that dared to park in a spot they think is theirs!

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All Private parking when out in public?

One of the drawbacks of being a reporter-type person is having to venture into neighborhoods where I’m not familiar with the local quirks.

Are these worth potential $130 penalty in Wilmette?

Which always has me wondering if I’m going to inadvertently park the automobile in a spot considered private by the locals; and wind up having the vehicle either towed away or booted.

NOT EXACTLY SOMETHING I want to have to explain to an editor as to why I’m not going to make a deadline. I still remember a time some several decades ago when I got into a fender-bender collision while on assignment with the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago.

My managing editor definitely held it against me for some time thereafter. How long would the grudge have lasted if my car had been impounded?

Because some people seem to think they can view space around their property as somehow sacred. Or if they’re out to get a neighboring business and follow the letter of the law in taking down any cars belonging to that business’ patrons IF they happen to venture into parking on their own property.

That seems to be the case in north suburban Wilmette (a place I must confess I haven’t set foot in for more than two decades).

THE WILMETTE LIFE newspaper reported how there have been several incidents in recent weeks of people who wanted ice cream from a Dairy Queen franchise and parked their cars in a nearby lot.

But the lot was part of the property of a neighboring strip mall, and the property owners have hired a company to keep a vigil on who parks in the lot and where they go.

The newspaper reported that the company admits it can have someone’s car booted within five seconds of noticing that the owner is engaging in business anywhere except the strip mall proper.

There even have been instances where someone who had business within the strip mall then decided to walk over next door to the Dairy Queen to get some ice cream before leaving the area.

THAT WAS ENOUGH to get them a boot that the company will only remove if paid $130 in cash (or $140, if charged on a credit card).

I’d like to think this is some sort of isolated incident – perhaps an example of a North Shore quirk that real people living in the rest of metro Chicago could never engage in.

Sadly enough, it isn’t.

I happen to know of a Mexican restaurant in suburban Lansing whose property is directly adjacent to a strip mall with a large parking lot – compared to the four parking spaces that are within the restaurant’s plot of land.

BUT I ALSO know of a convenience store owner within the strip mall who watches the parking – convinced it is meant exclusively for the people who venture into his store to pick up a pack of cigarettes or whatever other puny purchase they need to make at that moment.

I remember once venturing into that restaurant; only to be warned by the cashier that I had to move my car in order to eat there – or else the neighbor would have my car towed.

It would seem that this Wilmette Dairy Queen franchise is in a similar predicament. For the Wilmette Life reported that the ice cream shop has taken to posting signs warning their customers that their cars will be booted if they venture too far away from the place where they purchase their soft-serve cones.

All of which has me hoping I don’t have to venture into Wilmette for newsgathering purposes anytime soon. Because if my car got booted and I had to explain to an editor why there’d be a delay in copy, I’m pretty sure that a promise of a Blizzard would not be enough to calm him down.

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EXTRA: Scouring for Sunday parking?

I'm almost nostalgic for this sight

A part of me is twisted enough to want to take my hunk-of-junk automobile out for a ride across as much of Chicago as I can cover come Sunday.

Because I’d want to see just how much of a difference it makes now that people will no longer have to feed those new digital pay boxes (we can’t really say we’re “feeding the meter” any longer) in order to avoid a parking ticket.

OF COURSE, THAT would be more of a waste of gasoline than I’d want to encounter. Somehow, I suspect that would cost more than I’d save by not having to pay for parking on the one day of the week that God supposedly told us to rest.

Besides, in my case, I’m going to be with family out in the Beverly neighborhood on Sunday – a massive barbecue being done on behalf of Father’s Day. It will be interesting to see mi padre, even though if I’m comprehending the change in parking policy approved earlier this month by the City Council, that particular area is among those where people still have to pay.

It’s only a dozen of the 50 wards where the new no-paying-on-Sunday policy takes effect on Father’s Day. The rest of the city is going to have to wait until July 1 – which could make Independence Day the learning period for the bulk of the city (particularly those parts up North).

Which means I’m likely to have to resort to my usual methods of scouring for a not-blatantly-illegal place to park my automobile when I make my trip.

IT’S ALSO GOING to mean that Chicago residents and people visiting the city are going to have to keep it straight in their minds where they can, and cannot, leave their automobiles without paying up.

It will be worse when the council later this year is expected to approve enough exceptions for business districts across the city where you will still have to pay on Sunday.

The bottom line seems to be that city officials want to receive credit for doing something to eliminate parking fees – a contentious issue ever since former Mayor Richard M. Daley a few years ago sold off control of parking meters to a private company.

A parking meter alternative? Image by railroadpictures.net

But that doesn’t mean government officials want to lose the money being pumped into those machines. They just want us to quit despising and blaming them so much for having to pay up!

JUST THINKING ABOUT this confusion of where one can park without hassle is headache inducing. It makes me wonder if I need to start carrying aspirin with my when I drive into the city.

Or better yet, just revert back to my habit of using mass transit in the city whenever possible. That’s the easiest way to avoid parking tickets by a cop too eager to fulfill his quota.

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If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a transportation-related conspiracy

As expected, the Chicago Transit Authority gave its approval this week to the implementation of a new system by which people would pay their fares for bus and elevated train rides.

Too costly a place to ride to, or park near?

One that would encourage people to pay larger sums of money up-front to purchase contactless cards. The way to persuade people to quit thinking in terms of paying for individual rides is to raise the fare – from the current $2.25 to $3 – for those customers.

OF COURSE, THOSE people catching an el train at O’Hare International Airport would get hit with a $5 fee for that single ride – all part of the rhetoric that says the only people who will really wind up paying the higher fare are those out-of-town tourists who decide to use the “el” during their Chicago visit.

As I wrote earlier this week, I sympathize with those activists who object to this new system, believing that people who rely on mass transit but don’t have the kind of cash to put up front into purchasing a card will get hit with the bulk of the higher fares.

I wasn’t shocked with the CTA approval. I would have been amazed if they could have been swayed.

But now I learn about how city officials also are considering changes in the fees that people pay when they use a downtown parking garage or lot.

AS IF THOSE fees weren’t already enough.

I know that the last two times I was in a situation where I had to drive an automobile into downtown Chicago and park it, I got hit with $34 fees – for leaving my car in a garage for not more than two hours each time.

CTA officials defended their own changes, in part, by saying that the new fare schedule will be complex – and that it is overly simplistic to portray anyone as having to pay an increased fare.

But after reading about the proposal made this week by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, I’m wondering if he’s determined to out-complicate the CTA.

FOR WHAT THE city has in mind, according to the Chicago Tribune, is to alter the taxes on parking fees from an escalating fee to a percentage-based system.

The people who literally are using the garages to park their cars for just a few minutes (or maybe up to 1 hour) could wind up paying less.

Like I wrote, my recent parking experiences in the downtown garages weren’t all that long – yet I still got whacked with what I consider to be a ridiculous fare. A fare that likely will be even higher when/if I get stuck paying it again.

All I know is that it truly discourages me from wanting to have my automobile with me when I have business to take care of in downtown Chicago.

YET THE THOUGHT of using mass transit to go downtown is something that could also become an expensive proposition.

I find Chicago’s downtown district too intriguing a place to want to avoid altogether (and I pity those people who claim they never set foot in or near the Loop). But it almost seems like certain people are determined to put financial obstacles to our ability to go downtown and stay there long enough to enjoy it!

You’d think these people with an interest in propagating the image of the city so as to bolster its economic potential to the max would be interested in avoiding moves such as these that wind up discouraging some people from wanting to come here.

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Nice to see state Police Department helping with holiday traffic enforcement

I remember back when I was a reporter-type person based at the Illinois Statehouse, I would often hear jokes made about the police department maintained by the Illinois secretary of state’s office.

That law enforcement agency exists primarily to enforce state laws concerning the sale of automobiles and car parts, protecting the people from fraud. But their most visible (to the general public, at least) function is that they also patrol the grounds of the Capitol building and all the other state government buildings at the capitol complex in Springfield.

IT MEANS THE jokes were along the lines of the agency being nothing more than overglorified security guards, or some sort of personal perk for the Secretary of State (George Ryan’s, and now Jesse White’s, own personal police department – to do with as he sees fit).

Which is why I was pleased to see the Secretary of State police being put to work in another function – beginning Friday and running for the next few weeks. It will be put to work throughout the Chicago area at the shopping malls to help patrol traffic and find parking cheats.

More specifically, they’re going to be scouring the parking lots of those overglorified shopping centers in suburban Schaumburg, Oak Brook and Orland Park, along with the malls located in Bloomington, Carbondale, Springfield, and Fairview Heights (an Illinois-based suburb of St. Louis).

People who think the way to cope with the overcrowded parking lots at those shopping malls is to take one of the close-in spots set aside for people with physical disabilities are going to find that their traffic tickets were written by the Secretary of State police.

 NOW I WILL be the first to admit that I understand the frustration of people who find it near to impossible to get a parking spot when they make a trip to the mall in order to do some holiday shopping.

Particularly on Friday, with all those people who absolutely insist on going out to the stores to take advantage of the alleged deals being offered by retailers who are desperate for the business, it is going to be a mess.

That is the exact reason why I refused on Friday to go to anything resembling a shopping mall, and wasn’t too enthused about entering a store of any type. I don’t want to deal with the crowds of people.

But I know not everyone is like me. So there were people who were swearing up a storm while looking for a parking spot that wasn’t a long haul from the malls main entrance. Some of them invariably decided their comfort was more important than someone’s use of a parking space set aside for the “handicapped.”

PERSONALLY, I DON’T feel sorry for the fact that they could get hit with a fine of up to $500, and could also wind up finding their driver’s licenses suspended for a few weeks. Which means I think this is a good use of the Illinois secretary of state police department.

I have gained that attitude in recent years, particularly since my father and step-mother managed to become one of the roughly 443,000 (according to the Chicago Tribune) motorists with a special placard they hang from their rear-view mirror of their vehicle indicating they can park legally in the “handicapped” spaces.

Not that I expected them to be among the frenzied shoppers on Friday. But I’d hate to see them having to haul themselves across a shopping mall parking lot, particularly if my step-mother’s mother was with them, just because someone else got a little bit lazy during their shopping spree.

So it will be nice to know that the secretary of state police are helping to control the traffic mess at the mall – which I intend to avoid as much as I possibly can during this holiday season. Perhaps we should think long-term when it comes to that law enforcement agency.

NOT THAT I want the secretary of state police out at the mall beyond the holiday season. Perhaps there are other places where they could be loaned out to provide needed law enforcement assistance.

Because while I realize that the Capitol building and the rest of the Statehouse Scene is in need of some sort of security, I want to believe that our legislators will still be safe next spring when they try to resolve Illinois’ serious financial problems even if there are a few fewer police officers on hand around the building.

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