The parking meter deal that my aldermanic caller and his City Council colleagues voted for last December–at Mayor Daley’s insistence–sucks. It sucked then. It sucks now. It will suck even more in the future.
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Of course, I suppose most of you–aldermen excluded–probably suspected as much from the start. But the thing about this deal is that the more you study it–and Mick and I have been turning it inside and out for months–the worse it looks.
I guess us peasants were supposed to be impressed by that figure. Just to be clear, she put it in caps. She went on to report, “The sweetener to the deal is already on the books: a provision to raise the parking meter rates, which is clearly a carrot for whomever buys the meters.”
Meanwhile, the city has informed alderman Scott Waguespack that the meters are worth considerably more than $1 billion–probably closer to $5 billion.
