Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration has repeatedly invoked a non-disclosure agreement to justify not sharing information with the public and aldermen as the City Council vets a planned sale Chicago’s parking meter system.
As Johnson’s top attorneys cited it again Thursday at a council hearing on the proposed deal, the companies on the other side of the confidentiality pact offered to tear it up on the spot.
“We can sign it literally right now, blanket waiver, whatever you want to say,” said James Wyper, managing director at Stonepeak, the New York investment firm attempting to buy the meters from their current owner, Chicago Parking Meters LLC.
It was just one strange moment of many in the spirited, if not raucous, hearing aimed at vetting the sale of the infamously privatized system.
As aldermen badgered the buyer, seller and Johnson’s top lawyers during the no-vote hearing, some zeroed in on the mayor, accusing his team of being unnecessarily secretive. Others grilled Stonepeak, bashing the firm for its ownership of a company that carries out long-haul deportation flights for the federal government.
But through every tense question and sharp retort, it was clear Thursday that aldermen across the spectrum remain highly skeptical of the deal that would land the parking meter system a new owner.
Early in the hearing, Ald. Matt O’Shea, one of 22 aldermen to pledge a no vote in a letter earlier this month because of Johnson’s alleged secrecy, questioned the mayor’s attorneys after Wyper revealed that the city’s own bid for the parking meters — concealed from aldermen when it was made earlier this year — was for $3.3 billion.
“As a lawyer for the taxpayers for the city, for the City Council, why was that not disclosed to this body that we were bidding?” O’Shea asked city attorney Jim McDonald.
“I would be happy to discuss all of that with you in a nonpublic forum, not in this public forum,” McDonald answered, a common refrain Thursday and in recent weeks for the tight-lipped, Johnson-controlled Department of Law.
“Why is the public not entitled to that discussion?” Wyper interjected.
For his part, McDonald did not clarify how Johnson thinks aldermen should vote on the parking meter sale.
Some in the council believe they have the ability to vote it down for any reason they see fit — and view the threat of rejecting it as a tool to extract concessions from its potential new owners.
The meter system, now controlled by majority owner Morgan Stanley, was sold in a 75-year lease in a 2008 deal masterminded by Mayor Richard M. Daley. The system has already earned its owners far more money than they paid for it and is expected to sell for a considerably higher price.
Wyper said Thursday his company bid $2.53 billion for the system.
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As aldermen have tested their ability to reject a deal, the system’s current owner has warned Johnson and the council that they do not have the right to shoot it down. The city would be responsible for harming the value of the system and could face “financial catastrophe” in court or arbitration, the owners warned in a letter this month to Johnson’s legal team.
For his part, Wyper said Chicago leaders can already improve the deal by adding more paid parking spots to offset expensive “true-up” costs paid when it shuts down spots for street closures.
Veteran Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, said the city needed to “be laying out the red carpet” for companies that want to invest in the city.
But he was one of several aldermen troubled with the Johnson administration’s approach in the first place, describing the $800 million gap between the city and Stonepeak’s offer as “totally a derelict of duty … Maybe somebody fell asleep and hit the wrong decimal or something.”
But some progressive Johnson allies zeroed in on Stonepeak instead of the mayor.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez pressed Wyper on how much his firm expected to make from the parking meter system. When Wyper did not immediately share projections, but promised to share the information later, Sigcho-Lopez accused him of “dodging” in a tense back-and-forth.
“I cannot believe that a financial company cannot provide a simple answer,” Sigcho-Lopez said.
“I’m happy for it to be public—” Wyper answered.
“I thought you were committed to full transparency,” Sigcho-Lopez interrupted.
“I don’t know what to do here,” Wyper said.
Sigcho-Lopez then turned around to face aldermen sitting in the back row who appeared to be insulting him during the exchange.
“Boys, boys, settle down,” Finance Committee chair Ald. Pat Dowell told them.
Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, said as chair of the Latino Caucus and co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, a number of aldermen had “extreme concerns about any level of association” with deportations carried out by a Stonepeak-owned company.
Earlier this spring, Mother Jones reported that Omni Air International, whose parent company Stonepeak bought last year, had flown “shackled passengers on long-haul ICE flights to Africa and Asia,” including dozens that lasted between 24 and 50 hours. Some passengers reported soiling themselves in their seats.
Wyper described ICE’s activities as “abhorrent” and said he “could not be more apoplectic … I hate this. It was not the business we bought. If there was anything I could be doing, I want to say it to your face, I am doing it.”
“So were you apoplectic when you guys bought it?” Vasquez asked.
Wyper said Omni’s predominant business was transporting the families and spouses of active military families into non-combat zones, but had business dating back more than 20 years with the Department of Homeland Security. Wyper said there is an “active sale, ongoing, of the business” and that Stonepeak had worked to reduce the number of hours dedicated to DHS.
“I appreciate the bleeding heart right now, y’all weren’t doing that when you decided to buy it, so I don’t need to hear it,” Vasquez said.
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After the hearing, Vasquez said he won’t consider supporting the sale unless Stonepeak sells Omni.
Under further questioning from Ald. Jesse Fuentes, Wyper said he could not speak to whether flights had become “longer and more cruel” under their ownership. Fuentes pressed him on days-long shackling, lack of access to water and bathrooms.
“We have made constant affirmative inquiry to ensure the behavior outside the guidelines has not occurred. We have found no evidence of that behavior, and should we, we would and will take immediate action,” Wyper said, though suggested he was referring to Omni employees, not DHS ones.
“I had a colleague who said we should roll out the red carpet for you. I don’t think you should be sitting here while you own Omni,” Fuentes said.
After the tense hearing, Wyper said he understood aldermen remain troubled by the “original sin” of the sale. The intense anger in Chicago surrounding the deal was the number one risk he and his team identified as they explored buying the system, he said.
But the system could be managed better, “in a way that better reflected and contributed to the needs of the city,” he added.