Tags: Chicago, Government, Parking meter
The boon of a deal the City of Chicago signed with a private company for the parking meters revenue in the city, seems more and more like a boon for the private company, instead of the other way around.
New information states that the City has to pay the private company when ever the city has to block off parking spaces for parades, fairs, construction, etc. The legal mumbo-jumbo of this idiotic deal also states the City gets to keep revenue from parking tickets given to people that park at metered spaces, but don’t pay the parking fee.
If the private company gets money back from us for lost revenue from things like construction and parades and the like, I’m hoping there isn’t microscopic fine print somewhere stating that we have to pay them a portion of parking ticket revenue, because of their “lost revenue”.
As stupid as this deal was to begin with, when it’s all said and done, the city will probably have found a way to owe the private company more than they paid us in the first place! Not to mention, the money we got out of this deal, sure as hell didn’t fix the budget deficit, as we still have one! Hopefully, the lawsuit filed, stating it was illegal for the city to privatize the parking meters, sticks. I fail to understand how a city the size of Chicago could even begin to think that quick fixes would be the answer. At best, they’re stop-gaps. Not to mention it screws the tax payers even worse than usual as we have to pay parking meters twice over now. Once to park, and once to block them off.
A parking situation blown totally out of proportion and a city transit system so skewed, it needs to be blown up and started over. City streets were in bad enough shape with the government getting their hands on it, now they’ve stuck their nose in a big pile of dogshit and we get to deal with the stink.
Welcome to the big city, run, while you still can. Before they tax that too!
Related articles by Zemanta
- Lawsuit Attempts Declare Chicago’s Privatized Parking Meters “Illegal and Void” [Privatization] (consumerist.com)
- On Chicago’s Parking Meters (trueslant.com)
- Chicago’s parking deal revisited (blogs.reuters.com)
