Four and a half years after Chicago sold control of the city streets to a consortium of investors, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council are taking steps that would make sure the city is stuck with the deal for the next seven decades.
There’s only one problem with these assertions—they’re not true.
In 2009 attorney Clint Krislov filed a suit on behalf of the IVI-IPO, a public-interest group, challenging the constitutionality of the deal. Krislov argued that by granting CPM so much financial leverage over the use and placement of meters, it illegally gave away the city’s power to set traffic and safety regulations. He asked that the deal be halted or reworked.
The argument they made in favor of the deal was so forceful it might as well have been written by CPM’s lawyers themselves. As a matter of fact, CPM’s position was almost exactly the same: “The Agreement has materially improved public use and enjoyment of the System.”
The plaintiffs have since appealed.
And the meter deal will almost certainly continue to siphon off the public’s money for years to come. Given Judge Billik’s ruling, once the City Council ratifies the core of the meter deal again, it will be even more difficult to challenge down the road. As Krislov says, “They’re locking in a terrible deal that Chicagoans are going to have to cope with for generations.”
