Posted on 08/25/2009 6:40:27 PM PDT by Libloather
Daley to apologize for parking meter problems
Posted: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 11:15 am
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says the city "totally screwed up" the implementation of a $1.15 billion lease of city parking meters to a private operator.
That's according to a copy the Chicago Sun-Times obtained of a Daley speech prepared for an appearance Tuesday. The Sun-Times reports that Daley says the deal was necessary because of the city's fiscal situation.
The 75-year deal approved in December quadrupled parking rates in some neighborhoods, causing a citizen outcry. Aldermen complain meters charge incorrect rates or post outdated fee information. They say many meters are broken.
In May, the Illinois Attorney General's office launched an investigation into the meter deal.
I think some community organizer, or “outfit” will get the new parking contract.
2009 ushered in bad parking meter problems in Los angeles. They now run $5.00 and up and hour. some only take quarters, some take credit cards. I always carry a couple of rolls of quarters in my car.
People are protesting by getting a quarter and squirting Super Glue on it. Insert it in the meter and it is jammed.
Now the police ticket people parking at jammed meters!
Time to go Cool Hand Luke on the parking meters.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/1733017,CST-NWS-daley25.article
A meter culpa from the mayor
Will admit tonight deal handled poorly, but city needs money
Comments
August 25, 2009
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter/fspielman@suntimes.com
Mayor Daley will acknowledge tonight that his administration “totally screwed up” the transition to private control of the city’s 36,000 parking meters and that some Chicagoans believe he has “put too much time into” the quest for Olympic gold.
With a $520 million shortfall that can only be filled by tax increases and spending cuts, three nights of public hearings on Daley’s preliminary 2010 budget are expected to turn into giant gripe sessions before City Hall lowers the boom.
Congressional hearings on President Obama’s health care plan are likely to look tame by comparison.
(snip)
A meter culpa from the mayor
Will admit tonight deal handled poorly, but city needs money
August 25, 2009
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter/fspielman@suntimes.com
Mayor Daley will acknowledge tonight that his administration “totally screwed up” the transition to private control of the city’s 36,000 parking meters and that some Chicagoans believe he has “put too much time into” the quest for Olympic gold.
With a $520 million shortfall that can only be filled by tax increases and spending cuts, three nights of public hearings on Daley’s preliminary 2010 budget are expected to turn into giant gripe sessions before City Hall lowers the boom.
At a public hearing Tuesday, Mayor Daley addressed the much-maligned parking meter deal.
Nothing like an apology on parking meters to take the edge off the anger.
“I’ll be the first to admit that we totally screwed up the way it was implemented. I want us to do better — and we will,” Daley plans to tell the crowd at the South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. Shore Dr., according to a copy of his speech obtained by the Sun-Times.
No issue in recent memory — not even the Hired Truck scandal or Daley’s notorious midnight destruction of Meigs Field — has resonated more with voters than the 75-year, $1.15 billion parking meter lease tied to a steep schedule of rate hikes.
It was bad enough that drivers had to stuff their pockets with quarters to pay the higher meter rates.
When the transition to private control got bogged down by broken pay-and-display boxes and overstuffed and improperly calibrated meters that overcharged motorists, Daley and aldermen who approved the deal had a crisis on their hands.
After falling on his sword in the bluntest of terms, the mayor will defend the deal as “financially responsible” and argue that, without it, “we’d be forced to consider raising new revenues and cutting services this year.”
The other hot-button issue is Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games and Daley’s promise to sign a host-city contract that amounts to an open-ended guarantee from Chicago taxpayers.
“I am confident they will make a profit and not cost Chicago’s taxpayers,” Daley plans to say, apparently referring to private insurance policies that could shield taxpayers from any losses beyond the $500 million the City Council has already promised.
“Still, I can understand why some believe that we’ve put too much time into pursuing the Olympics. To those who feel that way, I want you to know that nothing matters more to me than making Chicago a better city — for every neighborhood and every person,” Daley plans to say, according to the text of his speech. “Nothing troubles me more than the violence against our children that continues to needlessly take their lives.”
Even after wringing concessions from organized labor and drying up a “rainy day” fund created by the parking meter deal, Chicago has a $520 million budget shortfall in 2010.
With no obvious untapped sources of revenue, Civic Federation President Laurence Msall has warned that city government will be “forced to re-invent itself in the way it delivers services and eliminates services not critical.”
Tonight, Daley will make no effort to sugarcoat the difficult choices ahead.
“We need to understand what services you want us to continue. We also need to hear what services you believe you can go without,” he plans to say.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/1733017,CST-NWS-daley25.article
The Democrats “totally screw up” everything they do. Is that slimeball Daley saying he is going to give the $1.15 billion back?
These types of deals are always bad for the taxpayers no matter what publicly owned infrastructure is involved. If Congress was sane, it would pass a law banning any state government from selling or leasing any such infrastructure to any out-of-state entity, a legitimate restriction of interstate commerce.
Daley started by taking aim at one of his favorite targets, the local media. He asked the audience to join him in a round of applause for the media, which he accused of not attending these events in the past.
He said this would not be like the raucous town hall meetings that members of Congress have held.
“This is not entertainment. This is serious business,” Daley said.
UPDATE 8:06 p.m. - Criticism of mental health clinics.
Despite Daley’s warning, the session has been more turbulent for the mayor than in past years.
Carol Smith, an activist for the mentally ill, blasted the mayor for the decision to close mental health centers.
“Why should people who have mental health problems suffer because the administration screwed up?” she asked Daley. “I want an answer right now.”
Daley sat stone-faced for several seconds as many in the audience yelled for him to reply.
Finally, the city budget director said the health commissioner, who sat at the front table with other members of Daley’s Cabinet, would address the question. But he did not immediately answer, and Smith walked from the microphone.
UPDATE 8:25 p.m. Daley asks crowd to quiet down.
Melvin Slater, one of dozens who signed up to speak, pressed for financial details that the city has not released as part of the preliminary budget, such as the amount paid by the administration to settle lawsuits against police.
The crowd jeered and laughed when budget director Eugene Munin replied, “We’ll have somebody talk to you.”
Daley interjected: “Let’s respect one another.”
A mayoral aide approached Slater as he left the room at the South Shore Cultural Center and spoke with him for several minutes.
But Slater said he was disappointed that there were fewer details available at the time of the hearing.
Without more information, he said, “Then it’s just for show.”
The Democrats “totally screw up” everything they do. Is that slimeball Daley saying he is going to give the $1.15 billion back?
He’s such a little blustery napoleonic buffoon.
Well, I guess that gathering didn’t go so
well for him ... LOL
The meters are a complete scam on the citizens.
“Why should people who have mental health problems suffer because the administration screwed up?” she asked Daley. “I want an answer right now.”
Daley sat stone-faced for several seconds as many in the audience yelled for him to reply.
YEOW!
A politicians apology is worth about as much as the paper it’s written on. All empty words and nothing about how he’s going to resolve the half a billion dollar shortfall.
“I’ll be the first to admit that we totally screwed up the way it was implemented. I want us to do better — and we will,” Daley planned to say, according to a copy of his speech obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Daley did not deliver that strong language, but said “the implementation was not good at all from the city’s side.”
He’s made a similar concession before. Back in May, four months and hundreds of complaints after the handover, Daley said the meters should have been transferred to the contractor, LAZ Parking, more gradually.
In an attempt to shore up a $520 million municipal shortfall, the city late last year offered up all 36,000 parking meters in a 75-year lease deal valued at $1.15 billion.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/politics/daley-town-hall-parking-meters—54873562.html
//
Alan Lazowski
http://www.lazparking.com/about/executiveprofiles.cfm
Alan B. Lazowski is Chairman and CEO of LAZ Parking, Ltd. He founded Laz Parking in June of 1981 while attending the University of Connecticut. He completed coursework at Harvard University specializing in Real Estate Investment Analysis. He was awarded the Thomas and Bette Wolff Family Entrepreneurship award at the University of Connecticut.
Alan is presently on the Board of Directors of the National Parking Association, the Greater Hartford Jewish Federation, the Hebrew Home and Hospital, the Anti Defamation League, the Hartford Economic Development Company, the Urban League of Greater Hartford and the Chabbad House of Greater Hartford.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/1584938,CST-NWS-deal21.article
Two of Mayor Daley’s former top aides — and a security company once co-owned by the brother of Ald. Danny Solis (25th) — are poised to make some serious coin from the $1.15 billion deal that privatized Chicago’s 36,000 parking meters.
Under pressure from aldermen to comply with the city’s minority set-aside requirements, LAZ Parking Chicago LLC has hastily assembled a team of subcontractors that includes former mayoral press secretary Avis LaVelle and Cortez Trotter, who was Chicago’s first African-American fire commissioner before being promoted to chief emergency officer.
Monterrey Security — owned by former Chicago Police Officer Juan Gaytan and once co-owned by former Chicago firefighter Santiago Solis — is in line for $1.2 million in 2009 and has already been paid $413,152, according to a document distributed to aldermen.
LaVelle, Daley’s 1989 campaign spokeswoman and first City Hall press secretary, said she watched aldermen lambast the meter deal Monday, even though she had not yet signed a formal contract.
LaVelle’s invitation to attend the hearing came from Trotter, who had an “existing relationship” with LAZ CEO Alan Lazowski.
It was only after the City Council hearing that LaVelle and Trotter were asked to join the team under terms yet to be negotiated, she said.
75 years?!!! are they insane!
oh yeah its Chicago
Are they going to install the “smart” parking meters with the sensors that zero out the remaining minutes when the car pulls out so the new driver parking is always presented with an expired meter?
Chicago, that’s all that one has to say.
I’d imagine they will. Why anyone lives in Chicago is beyond me.
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