Still costing Chicago money, and again with the parking meter fiasco:
- While Chicago’s infamous parking meter lease deal quietly celebrated its third anniversary the first week of December, the city was releasing documents chronicling more evidence the privatization of the city’s more than 36,000 parking meters turned out to be more costly for taxpayers than originally imagined.
Financial statements, released by the Chicago Inspector General’s office via their Open Chicago government transparency initiative, reveals what many critics of the lease deal had feared–the city would end up owing or paying Chicago Parking Meters, LLC millions of dollars in compensation when any sort of change or activity by the city impacts parking meter revenue for the company.
Financial statements for the company show that CPM has billed the city an additional $2,191,326 in “True-up Revenue” through the end of 2010.
TheExpiredMeter.com has a very in-depth report on how all these costs are being calculated and Chicago is getting stuck with astronomical additional charges.
A year or more back, someone sent us a series of pictures of streets where literally, hundreds and hundreds of meters had been installed, but never seem to be used - 13th Street or 14th Street between Ashland and Western - in what was supposed to be the new medical district. Does anyone know if these spots are playing into some future payout to the Chicago Parking Meter LLC people? Because the minute someone starts building a new hospital or research facility over there, those meters can be labeled "out of service" and the city will be on the hook for how many millions more?