Drivers Get Warnings Night Before, Morning Of, To Move Car
First ward Chicago alderman Proco Joe Moreno may have been in office only four months, but he’s already ahead of his aldermanic colleagues when it comes to technology.
Just a few days ago, Moreno’s office debuted a new text alert system to warn constituents when street cleaning [...]
Most people in line don’t give the gentleman in the crisp pressed shirt and tie a second look.
He points, quickly reviews some paperwork a young women offers him before speaking to her for a few moments, then motions to the next person waiting in line.
These drivers standing in line, just trying to get [...]
That ear drum shattering sucking sound you hear is $1.16 billion dollars going down the drain.
According to a front page story in today’s Sun-Times, as of the end of 2009, only $180 million of the $1.16 billion Morgan Stanley paid for a 75 year lease to operate Chicago’s parking meter system.
When the lease deal was [...]
Local news organizations over the past few days has been spending a lot of time hashing out the latest poll numbers on Mayor Daley.
The most recent Chicago Tribune poll shows an incumbent mayor with some pretty low numbers.
In fact, Mayor Daley’s weakest poll numbers ever.
One of the key issues that has put the Mayor’s favorability [...]
In a surprising 6-3 vote a week ago Tuesday, the Naperville city council decided to put an end to enforcing right turn on red violations at the three red light camera intersections in their town.
According to the Daily Herald, city staff members tried to persuade council members of the benefits from retaining this enforcement. Most of the city council was convinced by statistics, that rolling through a right turn on red does not cause accidents.
Due to the deluge of rain and subsequent flooding over the weekend, Streets & Sanitation Commissioner Thomas Byrne has called for a three-day suspension of scheduled street cleaning services.
Streets & Sanitation personnel are being taken off street sweeping and recycling pickup duties in many areas of the city to assist with the aftermath of the weekend flooding according to an e-mail alert from 33rd ward Alderman Richard Mell’s office.
With just a few days left before Chicago city vehicle sticker sales end, lollygaggers need to get their butts in gear.
The two week extended grace period, due to defective city stickers, comes to an end on Friday, July 30th and is the last day you can purchase your $75 city sticker for 2010-2011 in person from a City Clerk’s office and most Department of Revenue payment centers.
You can still purchase city stickers on Saturday, July 31st without paying a late fee from the Dept. of Revenue payment center at 400 W. Superior or Currency Exchanges and Dominick’s grocery stores.
But if you don’t have your sticker on your windshield before August 1st, you chance a $120 ticket.
So here’s the Geek’s lowdown on getting your sticker with the least amount of pain, along with some good news and information.
Sooner is better than later
Lines for in-person city sticker sales will build through out the week, of course peaking on Thursday and Friday. In other words, if you don’t like waiting for hours in line, get down to City Hall, one of two other City Clerk locations or to a Dept. of Revenue payment center–NOW!
Avoid peak times around lunch time from 11 AM – 1 PM. Get in line early in the morning.
First ward Chicago alderman Proco Joe Moreno may have been in office only four months, but he’s already ahead of his aldermanic colleagues when it comes to technology.
Just a few days ago, Moreno’s office debuted a new text alert system to warn constituents when street cleaning is scheduled for their block, so they can remember to move their cars and avoid tickets.
Residents of the 1st Ward can use their cell phone to sign up for this free service by texting a specific code number that reflects their geographic position on a map. The night before and the morning before street sweepers hit your street, you’ll get a text message reminding you to move your car.
The idea came out of the frustration of the typical complaint of parking tickets for street cleaning that constantly flow into aldermanic ward offices all across the city.
UPDATE: Hey! If you missed Saturday night’s show, here’s the podcast.
It was a lot of fun and much thanks to Nick and his producer extraordinaire Andy Hermann.
We talked city stickers, Ald. Moreno’s new street cleaning text alert system, City Clerk del Valle and doled out some insipid parking ticket advice.
Did I mention it was really, really fun?
UPDATE: Some intersections have traffic lights out due to last nights storm.
At Irving & Kedzie, a traffic light was knocked out of commission by a vehicle around 5 AM.
One lane of traffic south of Irving on Kedzie is blocked due to the light in the street. Despite a cop on the scene, traffic is backing up for nearly a mile in each direction on Irving. Eastbound traffic due to the Cubs game is especially nasty. Avoid both streets in that area if you can.
Traffic is being worsened by the policeman’s refusal to direct traffic.
Transformers 3 Filming
This is getting a little monotonous.
But, Transformers 3 continues to film downtown.
Over the weekend, Wacker Dr. is tied up from State to Wabash. Streets re-open Monday morning at 5 AM.
Wabash will also be closed from Wacker to Lake.
Milwaukee Ave. Arts Festival
This relatively new festival will have Milwaukee Ave. closed from Diversey to Logan no doubt messing up traffic in that area.
Reader Dana Kupper captured a photo of this handmade sign in the 4100 block of north Ashland reminding drivers to move their cars so they don’t get ticketed for street cleaning.
Seemingly, this sign hanging hobbyist must be frustrated with the lack of signage by CDOT on that block or perhaps hates seeing drivers getting ticketed so often.
“We need more citizen heroes like this!” Kupper says via e-mail. “Those permanent signs about (weekly) street cleaning on the bigger streets are tricky and hard to see. It would be great if it caught on, I know I have seen people be the victim of not looking up at the signs at 7am and running into a coffee shop or something and coming back to find a great big fat ticket.”…
Chicago City Clerk Miguel del Valle assists a women purhasing her 2010-2011 city sticker at City Hall
Most people in line don’t give the gentleman in the crisp pressed shirt and tie a second look.
He points, quickly reviews some paperwork a young women offers him before speaking to her for a few moments, then motions to the next person waiting in line.
These drivers standing in line, just trying to get their Chicago city sticker before the July 30th deadline, simply want to get in and out of City Hall as quickly as possible.
So it’s not a surprise most don’t recognize the soft-spoken man helping them out as Chicago City Clerk Miguel del Valle.
“Clerk del Valle is very hands on and has been in the hallway helping people during sticker season for four years, ever since taking office,” says City Clerk spokesperson Kristine Williams. “Many times people recognize him, but that isn’t the reason he is in the hallway. He wants to help people get their stickers as quickly as possible, as all of us do.”
It’s taken five years.
But finally, a few hundred drivers are getting some city sticker justice.
CBS 2 News’ Pamela Jones has the story on the 10 PM news about a class action lawsuit (Jeffrey Saltz vs. City of Chicago) filed in 2005 on behalf of over 400 drivers who were improperly ticketed for city sticker violations.
These drivers were ticketed while parked in private garage. At the time in question, between 2003 and 2005, there was not legal for cars to be ticketed for city sticker violations while parked in a private garage.
That ear drum shattering sucking sound you hear is $1.16 billion dollars going down the drain.
According to a front page story in today’s Sun-Times, as of the end of 2009, only $180 million of the $1.16 billion Morgan Stanley paid for a 75 year lease to operate Chicago’s parking meter system.
When the lease deal was originally sold to the city council in December of 2008, the plan was to use approximately $300 million of the original amount to fill a deep budget hole in the 2009 budget. Of the remainder, $320 million was designated for a “rainy day” fund and $400 million was put into a long term reserve fund.
But it seems, in just one year after the lease deal was signed, $1 billion of the sale–90% of the total–has disappeared into Mayor Daley’s black hole of a budget deficit.
In retrospect, one sees the meter lease deal as the first easily understandable indicator that Mayor Daley has completely mishandled the city’s finances. During the mayor’s tenure, he had the good fortune of a robust economy and a booming housing market. With the downturn in the economy and the collapse of the housing market, revenues to the city have essentially slowed to a standstill.
But due to the Daley administration’s poor planning, only a few thousand dollars of rainy day money had been put aside for times like this. For this reason, when William Blair & Company brought this idea to the mayor with the promise of fast cash, he jumped at it. The mayor knew he had a big budget deficit looming and this was the only solution to the problem.
This is why back in December of 2008, speed was so important. The Daley administration gave the city council less than 72 hours to ponder this complex, billion dollar sale of a valuable city asset. With so little time, none of the important questions weren’t asked or were glossed over. In the city’s desperation to plug the budget hole, the lease deal got them their needed short term fix. But it was only a temporary solution to a much larger long term problem and created a slew of other issues.
With a $700 million budget deficit looming for 2011, no one expects that remaining $180 million to be around for very long.
And the meter lease deal continues to get worse and worse for Mayor Daley.
