{"id":1391,"date":"2025-05-19T19:45:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T19:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=1391"},"modified":"2025-05-19T19:45:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T19:45:49","slug":"15-5m-settlement-is-first-win-in-a-series-of-losses-on-chicagos-lopsided-parking-meter-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=1391","title":{"rendered":"$15.5M settlement is ‘first win in a series of losses’ on Chicago’s lopsided parking meter deal"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The 75-year, $1.16 billion deal that privatized Chicago parking meters was so lopsided in favor of private investors that a $15.5 million settlement <\/a>to resolve their most recent claims is a comparative victory.<\/p>\n

That was the story line on Monday as the City Council\u2019s Finance Committee agreed to pay that amount \u2014 plus $7.2 million in attorneys\u2019 fees \u2014 to resolve claims that stemmed in part from a pandemic-era scheme devised by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our first win in a series of losses on this deal \u2014 and it still doesn\u2019t feel like a win,\u201d said former Finance Chair Scott Waguespack (32nd), who cast one of only five votes against the parking meter deal that Chicagoans love to hate.<\/p>\n

The settlement is further proof that the Council \u201crushed through a deal that wasn\u2019t fully open, wasn\u2019t fully transparent\u201d and \u201cshould have been shelved,\u201d Waguespack said, a deal created simply to help then-Mayor Richard M. Daley avoid raising property taxes.<\/p>\n

Waguespack noted that private investors from as far away as Abu Dhabi have already raked in nearly $2 billion\u2014 and a record $160.9 million last year alone \u2014 with 58 years to go on the deal with Chicago Public Meters LLC.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating to read that document and see … how ironclad this deal is and how legal minds look at it in favor of CPM pretty much no matter what happens,\u201d Waguespack said. \u201cIt\u2019s so tight that it exceeds the death and destruction of a pandemic. … Even a pandemic … once in a century couldn\u2019t break it open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) was incredulous to learn that CPM did not seek a forgivable Payroll Protection Program loan like \u201cevery other business\u201d did during the pandemic. Instead, the company is turning to the same taxpayers broadsided by the lopsided deal to compensate the company for its losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of Chicago needs to know that these are not people who have our interests at heart \u2014 who willfully are trying to stick it to us at every turn,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n

Noting that CPM generates $8 million a year in credit card processing fees, Lopez said, \u201cIf they\u2019re gonna look at us as their proverbial cash cow, perhaps we should start looking at the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) asked Deputy Corporation Counsel Jim McDonald whom then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot consulted before her administration devised a way to use the pandemic to the city\u2019s advantage in an effort to reduce of eliminate so-called \u201ctrue-up\u201d payments requiring the city to compensate Chicago Parking Meters each year for meters taken out of service.<\/p>\n

The plan called for the city to reclaim 4,007 parking spaces as the stay-at-home shutdown dramatically reduced the value of those spaces<\/a>, then return 2,646 of those spaces to CPM two months later, keeping 1,361 spaces for the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may have consulted Katten Muchin, the outside firm that drafted the concession agreement,\u201d McDonald said.<\/p>\n

Reilly countered, \u201cWe may have sought the counsel of the folks that crafted this horrible deal? That\u2019s not an encouraging answer. I\u2019d say that\u2019s probably the last law firm we\u2019d want to approach for legal advice on a contract that\u2019s been killing taxpayers for quite some time now.\u201d<\/p>\n

CPM initially demanded $322 million to resolve three legal claims stemming from: the city\u2019s alleged failure to enforce meter violations as required under the concession agreement; the suspension of parking tickets during the height of the pandemic and a subsequent dispute over the distribution of meter revenue between the city and private investors.<\/p>\n

The pandemic dispute was resolved by the $15.5 million cash payout, plus $7.2 million in legal fees. The city gets to keep $26.2 million in parking meter revenue.<\/p>\n

The other two issues were resolved at no cost to the city. The city agreed to hire ten additional parking enforcement aides to do parking enforcement for one year at a cost of roughly $520,000. But each of those $52,000-a-year employees is likely to write enough tickets to generate $490,000 in revenue, McDonald said.<\/p>\n

Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Chair Daniel LaSpata (1st) noted that, \u201cAnyone in this room could talk about where their neighbors would like to see more enforcement activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

LaSpata said he would \u201cprefer not to see this company… being the one designating where that enforcement action happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDonald said it \u201cmakes sense\u201d for the city to collaborate with CPM because the company has enforcement personnel of its own. But he added, \u201cEnforcement is definitely the city\u2019s prerogative. CPM has no contract rights to tell us where our personnel must be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n