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“The City was paid, conservatively, $997 million less for this 75-year lease than the City would have received from 75 years of parking-meter revenue had it retained the parking-meter system under the same terms that the City agreed to in the lease,” states the report, the result of a five-month investigation. The city received about $1.16 billion in its deal with Chicago Parking Meters LLC.
“In addition, the driving force behind the decision to lease the parking meters was the City’s short-term budgetary need. While we do not question the seriousness of the City’s budget problem that was presented in Fall 2008 because of the recession, the hasty, ‘crisis’ nature of the decision-making process meant that the short-term budget problems and the large upfront payment the City was receiving overshadowed all other legitimate, long-term, public-interest issues.”
