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This is a tricky issue. The correct thing to do would have been to increase parking rates to something sane, which the private company did, but would have been
by cozzyd 8y ago
This is a tricky issue. The correct thing to do would have been to increase parking rates to something sane, which the private company did, but would have been politically difficult for the city. At the rates the city was charging before, and assuming there was no political way to raise them, it's possible it may have been a rational choice. Ideally it would have been a shorter timescale though...
- gok 8y agoIt also had the benefit of moving the meter maids off the city payroll...
- fencepost 8y agoIf it was a rational choice it wouldn't have been rammed through the way it was. The way it was handled gives an almost undeniable air of utterly filthy bought and paid for fix is in. The Chicago Reader has a nice timeline of a bunch of the privatization that was going on at the time: https://m.chicagoreader.com/chicago/features-cover-april-9-2009/Content?oid=1098561 https://m.chicagoreader.com/chicago/features-cover-april-9-2... Bids are opened 12/1. Aldermen get invited on 12/2 to a briefing that day, where they get limited information and no details. 12/3 a finance committee meeting is held to get an ordinance to accept the bid into process - what they'll be voting on is provided only during this meeting. The finance committee passes it with no significant scrutiny. The full council vote is scheduled for 12/4, and requests to see the city's numbers and financial analysis of the deal are rejected. When you look back at the deal, to me and an awful lot of other people it looks like one of two things: either most of the people involved on the city side were utterly incompetent, or someone(s) were nicely taken care of in some way. Edit; autocorrect