Mayor Rahm Emanuel faced uncharacteristic push-back from the Chicago City Council on Wednesday, but still is likely to end up with everything he wants on a pair of his top agenda items.
A speed-camera ticketing measure passed with 14 votes against it — the closest thing to a slim margin on a 50-member council accustomed to handing lopsided wins to Emanuel and his predecessor.
Although Emanuel temporarily pulled up on a plan to enlist private investors in building public projects, he isn’t conceding much. By coordinating a six-day delay on a vote, the mayor was able to outmaneuver aldermen who wanted more changes. He’s already predicting victory at next Tuesday’s special council meeting.
“I believe we’ll pass it overwhelmingly,” Emanuel said. “I am not going for a unanimous vote. I am going for passage, and we will, in a significant way, pass it.”
The end result: Chicagoans could start getting $100 camera-generated speeding tickets as soon as the summer and the city is on the cusp of expanding public-private partnerships without some of the safeguards critics say are needed to protect taxpayers.
On Tuesday, Emanuel rebuffed calls by some aldermen to delay a vote on the Chicago Infrastructure Trust. Although the mayor introduced the complex proposal just last month, he argued it had been debated long enough.
But Emanuel changed course Wednesday, pulling an end run around council critics who wanted to more thoroughly examine a complicated proposal that could prove more costly in the long run and has the potential to limit their oversight. Emanuel presented his deferment as an attempt to allay concerns, but the brief nature of the pause suggested the maneuver was primarily tactical and designed to project the appearance of compromise.
After the vote, Emanuel said he doesn’t intend to change the legislation. Instead, he intends to issue an executive order that he said will serve as a complement to the trust ordinance. But the executive order does not require a council vote and would not be binding on Emanuel’s successor.
The mayor explained that his executive order would require the city to provide “a kind of a mission statement” issued by an independent financial adviser about each project the trust finances, including how much it will save, a cost comparison to traditional municipal financing, and the number of potential jobs it will produce.
Some aldermen remain unswayed. Ald. John Arena, 45th, said Emanuel’s changes don’t appear to correct fundamental concerns about oversight. The aldermen plan to present a list of modifications that strengthen oversight and transparency.
Aldermen are concerned that the trust does not extend the oversight authority of the city inspector general’s office to the trust or its members. And they note that the state could not enforce open meetings or public information laws on the trust. The measure also does not specify whether the trust would have to comply with city the ethics ordinance designed to prevent conflicts of interest.
Yet another concern was that the ordinance calls for council approval of all projects involving city property or money, but not projects undertaken solely by agencies controlled by the mayor such as the Chicago Public Schools and CTA.
Emanuel dismissed the concerns about the inspector general, noting the office’s ability to investigate and audit projects involving the city. When asked if he would ask state legislators to extend the authority of sunshine laws to nonprofits affiliated with governments, the mayor said he would “take that under advisement.”
During the previous 24 hours, the mayor met with several aldermen to hear them out, said Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd.
“It’s proof we’ve turned a page and we have a new mayor with a new approach to governing,” Reilly said. “It remains to be seen what can be accomplished, but I plan to give it my full attention and as many hours as necessary to make changes to this program.”
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Ald. Ricardo Munoz, 22nd, said he plans to vote against the trust no matter what because it just isn’t needed.
“The mayor is attempting to create this umbrella organization that’s going to be basically shopping around deals on behalf of the city,” said Munoz. “We don’t need a distinct, separate body that’s accountable to no one negotiating on behalf of the city.”
Speed cameras coming soon
The mayor did score an immediate win on speed cameras. Afterward, Emanuel said it’s too early to say how soon cameras would be installed and speeders would start being hit with tickets. The state law allowing the city ordinance takes effect July 1.
Before voting, several supporters relayed their personal encounters with red-light cameras, the cousins of speed cameras, saying that they made them more cautious drivers. “The fact of the matter is it works, people slow down,” said Ald. Joe Moore, 49th.
Although 14 aldermen voted against it, only one spoke vehemently. “It’s not about safety,” said Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th. Other critics have said the speed-ticket cameras amount to a cash grab by the city.
Last week, the mayor tweaked the ordinance to reduce the fine for driving six to 10 mph over the limit in a speed camera zone from $50 to $35. The fine for going 11 mph or more over the limit will be $100.
The cameras would operate near schools from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and while parks are open. During the first 30 days, only warning tickets would be issued, and first-time violators will be issued one warning ticket before getting fined.
Emanuel sought to ease concerns about the potentially wide reach of his proposal by casting it as a “safety zone” plan with a limited number of cameras.
Both the state law and Emanuel’s ordinance permit speed cameras within one-eighth of a mile of the city’s parks and public and private schools, which would allow the administration to cover nearly half the city with speed cameras, based on a Tribune analysis.
In seeking more support, the administration focused on the legal definition of those zones, many of which overlap. That has allowed the administration to say it will put cameras in “no more than 20 percent of all eligible safety zones shall be equipped” with speed cameras.
What the ordinance doesn’t point out is that there are many places where three, four or even five schools and parks fall within the same one-eighth-mile radius. While the city took some of those overlapping zones into account, under the approved scenario, it is still possible the mayor’s plan could cover nearly half the city.
Aldermen will be notified where the cameras will go in their wards but won’t be able to block them, an idea council members didn’t like.
Several aldermen took to the council floor to say the speed cameras are needed because they will save lives, a point the mayor has stressed while selling the plan.
That point is not disputed. But a Tribune analysis of city traffic data provided to the federal government found a very different and less dramatic conclusion than the Emanuel administration reached.
Last month, the newspaper reported that the drop in fatalities at some red-light camera intersections was not as high as the city claimed, and instead mirrored a broader accident trend in Chicago and across the nation, regardless of whether cameras were in place.
Now the administration will hire a company to do the speed-camera work. The mayor’s effort has been supported by the Traffic Safety Coalition, a group pushing for the speed cameras that is run by close Emanuel political ally Greg Goldner and funded by Redflex Traffic Systems, the city’s red-light camera vendor.
Tribune reporters John Byrne and Bob Secter contributed.