See if I’ve got this right: The two hot proposals out there are to take Midway Airport private and to take Wrigley Field public.
OK, I’m good with those.
Selling or leasing Midway to a private operator would earn the City of Chicago a giant slug of upfront cash, as did offloading the Skyway.
Maybe that would let Mayor Richard Daley cool it with those caught-on-tape traffic tickets. Or nix the bottled water tax. Or let go of some of those tax-increment dollars he keeps from the schools.
As for Wrigley, why not? Some will accuse me of currying favor with Tribune Co.’s new boss, Sam Zell, but his plan is not such a bad idea. Wrigley’s future would be assured, no matter who buys the Cubs from Tribune Co. If team rents and ticket taxes covered the debt service, taxpayers would be off the hook. And the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority could raise extra cash for upkeep and improvements by bringing in more Jimmy Buffet-type concerts and other events. Residents could even rename the neighborhood “Margaritaville,” as if it wasn’t already.
The other daily newspaper will scream like a banshee, of course. Funny how folks there weren’t as exorcised back when the stadium authority was created for the sole purpose of levying a hotel tax, leveling a bunch of homes and building a new stadium for the White Sox.
I covered that story for the Trib and still possess, in a file cabinet somewhere, a copy of the original master lease that required ISFA to provide to the Sox, besides an entire 40,000-seat stadium, two sets of bases. Not one set, two. Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf thought of everything.
(Nor did that other newspaper have much to say about the sweet property tax break and urban renewal discount the city gave it on its new printing plant on South Ashland Avenue. But let’s not go there.)
No, today’s mission is to submit for your consideration, thoughtful reader, more candidates for taking private or taking public. I mean, as long as we’re doing Midway and Wrigley, why not harvest some other low-hanging fruit.
So here goes:
– Take private the city’s Departments of Water Management and Streets and Sanitation. Contract for the whole shebang at a fixed price with a can-do joint venture of companies like Waste Management, ServiceMaster and Bechtel. Think of it: no more clock-watching city crews leaning on brooms and contemplating disability claims; no more trucks hired from in-laws; no more political SWAT teams operating out of the Jardine water purification plant. Sure, a clout lawyer or two would have to broker the deal, and a bogus minority- or female-owned partner might get to ride along, but it would be worth it.
– Take public the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One reason these fool’s errands have been allowed to drag on for so long is that our military is being supplied and maintained by a growing army of private contractors that never had it so good. A recent report by the Government Accountability Office determined that the Defense Department spent $158.3 billion on private services last year — more than it spent on supplies, equipment and major weapons systems — and 76 percent more than it spent before President Bush launched his global war on evildoers. The Pentagon even contracts out most of its contracting. As for Vice President Dick Cheney, his former company, Halliburton, and its former subsidiary KBR … better not go there either. It’ll all come out soon enough.
– Take private the Cook County (a.k.a “Stroger”) Hospital and maybe even the Cook County forest preserves. Wouldn’t it be great if Rush University Medical Center or Northwestern Memorial Hospital or even Walgreen Co., would take over that beautiful new building and fix it so you didn’t have to wait all day to get an outpatient prescription filled? As for the forest preserves, wouldn’t you like to see what a well-run non-profit like Openlands Project could do with that $50 million annual operating budget? They might even reopen the toboggan runs.
– Take public the condo towers along the east side of Sheridan Road between Hollywood and Devon Avenues. Or at least threaten to. Nothing like a whiff of eminent domain to convince the NIMBY cliff-dwellers there to drop opposition to extending the city’s lakefront park system up toward the city limits. Why, a well-designed linear park, complete with a beach and jogging trail, likely would add to their property values. Maybe the mayor could get Bob Newhart, who used to live there on TV, to cut the ribbon.
OK, so I haven’t worked out all the details. But you get the idea. Privatization is a good idea for some things. On others, publicization makes sense.
Sure it may take a little longer to drag the infield between innings at Wrigley. And you may have to pay a bit more for a clean bathroom stall at Midway. But face it, in times like these, it’s a way for the city that works to keep on working.
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John McCarron teaches, consults and writes about urban affairs.