Chicago City Council pushes vote on parking meter sale deal to next meeting
The Chicago City Council convened a special meeting Friday to consider a deal allowing the parking meters to be sold from one private company to another that would allow the city to share in the profits, but deferred the vote until their next meeting.
The deal, which was negotiated by Finance Committee Chair and 3rd Ward Ald. Pat Dowell, 32nd Ward Ald. Scott Waguespack, 36th Ward Ald. Gilbert Villegas 27th Ward Ald. Walter Burnett and 11th Ward Ald. Nicole Lee, passed out of the Finance Committee Thursday.
Mayor Brandon Johnson called the special meeting into session Friday morning and turned the floor over to Dowell. She noted the finance committee had recommended a "do pass," and then said she and Waguespack moved to defer and publish.
A motion to defer and publish moves the final vote on a measure to the next scheduled council meeting, which is Tuesday, Sept. 29.
With no other business on the agenda, Mayor Johnson adjourned the meeting shortly after.
Dowell told CBS News Chicago she moved to delay the vote to shore up support for the deal among council members and give the supporters time to speak to their colleagues about it.
The city faces a Sept. 30 deadline to either approve the sale or risk having to fight the deal in court.
In 2008, Mayor Richard M. Daley proposed leasing the city's parking meters to Chicago Parking Meters LLC for 75 years in exchange for a $1.15 billion lump payment, which the council approved. The company has since doubled its investment, and the deal is widely considered to be one of the worst deals in municipal governance.
In May, Stonepeak Partners agreed to buy the system from Chicago Parking Meters LLC, but would not disclose the terms of the sale. That reticence led to calls from the City Council for transparency, with the handful of alders who opposed the 2008 deal demanding details before anything moved forward.
Stonepeak is buying out the remaining 57 years left on the contract. Under the deal negotiated by the group of alderpersons, the city will receive an upfront payment of $75 million immediately upon the transfer of the parking meters to Stonepeak, and then an additional 5% profit share from the annual net income from the meters for the rest of the lease. City officials estimated that amounts to more than $367 million over the remaining 57 years of the deal.
There is opposition within the council to the deal, however. Ald. Bill Conway, who represents the 34th Ward, argued that after Stonepeak factors in the costs of interest expenses and depreciation of the parking meters, the city will likely only net around $140 million from the profit sharing.
Two finance committee members voted against the deal, including 28th Ward Ald. Jason Ervin who argued the council was rushing to approve the new deal and should take more time to dig into the details before the deadline. The other holdout was 6th Ward Ald. William Hall, who criticized city officials for not making sure Black-owned firms could get a bigger share of the deal.
Mayor Brandon Johnson has said his administration explored the possibility of buying back the city's parking meters, but determined it would have been too costly.
Johnson said the city would have had to take on a massive amount of debt to buy back the parking meters, and nearly 100% of any parking revenue collected by the city would have to go to paying off that debt for the next 40 years, effectively forcing the city to raise parking rates every year to cover costs.
Johnson also said the city would have faced the risk of parking habits changing significantly over the life of the contract, such as a rise in the number of self-driving cars or a dramatic increase in the use of public transit, leading to a significant drop in parking revenue needed to pay off the cost of the contract.
