PALM CARD: City Council's meter is running on controversial sale vote

It's been years since anyone parking in Chicago has had to fish around in their purse or center console for a quarter to feed a meter, the old manual meters having been replaced by solar-powered pay boxes that can be fed from a smartphone.

But Chicago aldermen who face a potentially pivotal vote on the future of the city's street parking revenue could be racing the clock before time expires to consider approving a sale of the universally-reviled parking meter contract.

Under the contract drafted by the Richard M. Daley Administration and approved by all but five City Council members back in 2008, aldermen must OK any proposal to sell the parking meter concession. And that's what the Council faces now, as the investors making up Chicago Parking Meters LLC have announced a planned sale to the private equity group Stonepeak Partners.

The city's already on track to miss a potential June 30 deadline for a vote on the deal, though that's been extended, and aldermen have accused Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration of not giving them information until what frequent mayoral critic and Far South side Ald. Anthony Beale called "the twelfth hour."

"They held this for over 30 days, and gave it to us with less than two weeks to go over the entire deal," said Ald. Beale (9th Ward).

North side Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward), who was one of the five votes against the meter contract in 2008, told me several weeks ago that the mayor's office's apparent reluctance to share information about the proposed sale had echoes of the compressed timeline of the original deal, when aldermen were asked to approve a 75-year, $900 million contract with just 48 hours notice: "We were supposed to learn from that."

Part of the issue, Ald. Waguespack said, is that the Johnson Administration was placed under a non-disclosure agreement by Chicago Parking Meters LLC: "They came in and basically said we cannot provide legal or financial advice to you beyond what's already public knowledge."

Whether that NDA is still in effect is a matter of some dispute: a spokesperson for one of the principals, JPMorgan, told the Chicago Tribune it's released the city from the agreement, but Mayor Johnson told reporters Wednesday that the city is still enjoined by it. A spokesperson for the mayor said information was shared with aldermen as quickly as "practicable," and Mayor Johnson said his administration has moved "with expediency."

And even though aldermen have been asking for clarity about whether the mayor's office believes approving the sale is in the best interest of the city, he's not saying ... at least not publicly. "I'm doing what the law requires me to do," he said this week. "I'm going to do my part to give City Council all that it needs in order to make a sophisticated response."

In the middle of all this is Dan Webb, one of the city's best-known litigators and a former chief federal prosecutor, who this week sent a letter to aldermen on behalf of his clients Chicago Parking Meters LLC raising the specter of legal action if delays by Council cause the reportedly multi-billion dollar sale to expire.

Members of the City Council's Finance Committee are now set to ask questions of Stonepeak Partners and other figures in the sale at a hearing on June 25. At that time, aldermen may inquire about whether the parties are amenable to changes in the contract that would benefit the city and its drivers, though the mayor and Ald. Beale have both described the deal as "iron-clad." But even without changes, City Council may find itself with little choice but to vote "yes" on a supremely bad deal for the city, or vote "no" and tying the whole thing up in court for years.