Aldermen delayed a vote on the sale of Chicago’s parking meters Friday, punting a fateful decision on whether to turn the page on a decades-long saga widely considered one of the worst deals in city history.
They are set to reconvene next week for a floor vote on an agreement to transfer ownership of Chicago’s infamously privatized parking meter system from one owner to another — not buy it back. During the special meeting, lead negotiators Aldermen Pat Dowell, 3rd, and Scott Waguespack, 32nd, moved to defer the item that would authorize the $2.53 billion sale.
The “defer and publish” is a popular, if sometimes controversial, parliamentary maneuver to either stall an issue in the hopes of wresting more concessions or to guarantee a vote will happen on a certain date.
After the meeting adjourned, Dowell told reporters she remains confident in the deal passing next week and accused Mayor Brandon Johnson’s floor leader, Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, of trying to sabotage it.
“There are efforts afloat by the mayor’s floor leader to whip no votes, and we can’t have that, so I want to be able to make sure we cross all our i’s and dot all our t’s so that we can have a favorable vote,” Dowell said.
Ervin readily confirmed he was indeed whipping “no” votes but denied it was at the behest of the mayor.
“Yes, I was. I think that the city of Chicago can do better than what’s been done today,” said Ervin, saying he still backs the city reclaiming the meters via a public infrastructure trust.
Asked to respond to his colleagues who argue that this deal is better than the status quo, the alderman scoffed: “That’s what they said in 2008. Everybody’s rush, rush, rush, and that’s what we got in 2008. What’s the big deal about waiting? I don’t understand.”
In a statement after the meeting concluded, Johnson press secretary Griffin Krueger applauded the decision to take more time but did not betray the mayor’s stance on the deal.
“City Council approved the original parking meter deal on a rushed timeline with little to no deliberation,” Krueger wrote. “The result was arguably the worst transaction in municipal history. Given that history, it’s no surprise members are being vigilant with a focus on due diligence and deliberation. The administration will continue to support the process to get a better outcome for taxpayers.”
Should the deal prevail, New York investment firm Stonepeak Partners would take over the remaining five decades on the 75-year lease. The city would get a $75 million transfer fee, 2% of any future sale and the opportunity to negotiate over new revenues from technologies like electric vehicle charging.
That would change ownership of the city’s parking meters for the first time since aldermen in 2008 rubber-stamped the privatization of the once-public system during a fiscal pinch — and have been stung by the backlash over lost revenue ever since.
More Top Picks Best Reading Glasses For Women
Aldermen Dowell, Waguespack, Nicole Lee, Gil Villegas and Walter Burnett led the charge on the renegotiation, with Johnson’s outgoing Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry joining the table to hammer out the deal. However, Johnson’s intentions remain unclear, as he has said he wants to leave it up to the City Council.
Earlier Friday morning, Richardson-Lowry met with Dowell and progressive council members to discuss, among other things, Stonepeak officials’ pledge to sell Omni Air, a cargo airline it owns that conducts long-haul deportation flights for federal immigration authorities. The Johnson administration and his left-leaning allies have increasingly sought to cut any financial ties with President Donald Trump’s administration in the wake of last fall’s Operation Midway Blitz.
Richardson-Lowry had told aldermen Thursday that she would not publicly elaborate on “a legal strategy,” but sources in Friday’s meeting said they left feeling assured they would have recourse should Stonepeak renege on divesting from Omni. Ervin told reporters he remains skeptical, however.
Aldermen have another crack at the vote Tuesday. The city faces a Sept. 30 deadline to decide — a date Ervin contended could easily be extended again, though Dowell insists that is not the case.
Members of the negotiating team were confident of final passage on Tuesday — with allied Ald. Nick Sposato, 38th, contending there was a veto-proof majority backing it. Waguespack said the deferral was “to make sure that everybody was on board and had just the extra time until Tuesday to review the documents” in the hopes of unanimous passage.
“Anybody who says they have a deal cooking up in the background makes me wonder what’s been going on,” Waguespack said, noting Johnson has tried to cite a nondisclosure agreement to withhold information on a previous proposal. “What we’re saying is that the deal that we worked out is the best deal on the table for taxpayers.”
Johnson ally Ald. William Hall, 6th, said his sticking point remains that “currently Stonepeak is not doing business with anyone that is African American.”
“That’s a problem for a city that’s 27% African American, and for a city where almost $1.5 billion in parking ticket revenue comes from African American communities,” Hall said. “So we’re good enough to pay the tickets, but we’re not good enough for the deal? Doesn’t make sense.”
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley masterminded the original scheme, and the City Council approved it after only three days of discussion. The city received a $1.15 billion cash payout for selling a 75-year lease of the system to Chicago Parking Meters LLC. That amount has paled in comparison with what the meters have earned for their private owners: over $2 billion in revenue, including $189 million last year alone.
Should aldermen blow past the Sept. 30 deadline to approve the sale from current controlling owner Morgan Stanley to Stonepeak, the city risks costly arbitration. Any future sales would involve the City Council and mayoral administrations in a clearer, simpler way — a key concession after aldermen accused Johnson of not communicating clearly as he responded to the proposed sale and, at one point, even tried to buy the system back for the city.