The Chicago City Council's vote clearing the way for the sale of the city's parking meter contract wasn't just a standard purchase agreement. It represented a big step in taking the 2008 lease of Chicago's on-street parking revenue from "the worst deal in the history of municipal finance" to just "bad" ... which is objectively an improvement.
It also served as an example of City Council flexing its muscle to force changes over the "take it or leave it" deal proposed in the spring, including securing a $75 million dollar "transaction fee" and forcing the private-equity owner to sell the Omni Air charter aviation company that counts among its clients the Department of Homeland Security. In addition, it created an avenue for the city to realize a portion of parking meter revenue for the first time in nearly two decades, through a "profit-sharing" arrangement with new owner Stonepeak Partners.
But Northwest side Ald. Andre Vasquez said after last month's 46-to-3 ratification that it also accomplished something equally important: it proved that "City Council can actually function, which has not always been the case."
That was not necessarily a foregone conclusion, as the vote on the deal brokered by several aldermen with the help of retiring Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry came after an attempt by allies of Mayor Brandon Johnson to force a delay to consider other options including buying the meters back, which the mayor briefly considered last year. For the record, the mayor has assiduously avoided taking anything approaching a stand on the sale, insisting that the responsibility lies with City Council. The closest he would come was after the vote, when he called the deal "stronger" than it was before.
And now that the city has an avenue to realize a portion of revenue from its 36,000 meters, a conversation has started among aldermen about ... what else? ... how to get more of that revenue.
It's important to note that parking meter revenue, including that $75 million "transaction fee," is earmarked for the city's underfunded public worker pensions. It's also worth recalling that the original 2008 sale happened in part because optics-sensitive aldermen balked at a proposal to double parking rates during the Great Recession, when North side Ald. Scott Waguespack (one of the OG opponents of the meter deal) recalled "we were paying a quarter in the neighborhoods an hour" (it's $2 an hour now).
Those optics appear to be less of a concern on the second floor of City Hall, with some aldermen suggesting that the way forward includes linking future parking rates to increases in inflation. "If you're not tying everything to inflation as it increases, you're losing the return," said Ald. Vasquez (40th Ward). "Pricing has to be dynamic," added Ald. Waguespack (32nd Ward).
But the city already has the highest base on-street parking rate in the country, and some aldermen are floating ideas about how to extract more money from drivers without causing more hardship for Chicagoans. San Francisco and other cities have dynamic pricing that allows meters to charge higher rates during business hours (for instance), and Ald. Vasquez suggested that dynamic pricing could go further: "My understanding is there is a way to make sure that Chicagoans are paying less than folks who are coming from out of town."
Mayor Johnson would only talk about such an initiative in general terms, telling aldermen last month that "it sounds like there's some level of speculation around what could be made possible," but that "I'm always going to support measures that will provide a fairer structure on how revenue is generated."
However, South side Ald. William Hall (6th Ward), who was one of three votes against the purchase agreement, said he was not on board with any discussion about meter rate increases, suggesting that the people facing the highest percentage of parking-ticket debt ... Black and brown drivers ... were not represented in the negotiations: "Why would I support raising and putting more pressure on the backs of people who aren't even at the table?"
And that may represent a preview of the battles to come, suggesting that new battles over parking on the streets have not yet been kicked to the curb.
