CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A Cook County judge’s decision that allows the city to double fines for parking tickets and city sticker violations is being appealed, and an attorney said hundreds of millions of dollars is at stake.
Illinois law prohibits Chicago from assessing more than $250 in fines for parking tickets or city sticker violations.
But a judge decided that an unrelated 2010 law concerning $500 fines for railroad crossings, also applies to these violations, ruling in a class-action lawsuit against the city by attorney Jacie Zolna, of Myron M. Cherry & Associates.
“Think of the outrage that would have happened if the legislature or a legislator proposed doubling the parking fines in the City of Chicago. There would have been a public outcry. Nobody was talking about doubling parking tickets. All they were talking about was a very well-intentioned law to promote safety around railroad crossings," Zolna said.
He said he presented signed affidavits from sponsors of the 2010 law.
“That said they did not make that mistake, they intentionally left the $250 provision in, because they did not want to raise the price for parking tickets and city sticker tickets," Zolna said.
Zolna said there’s been over $300 million in unpaid city sticker debt since 2012, and an increase in bankruptcies.
He’s appealing the judge’s decision and is looking to get it all thrown out, or at least roughly half, whatever is over the $250 per ticket cap.
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