Friday’s New York Times has a very nice piece revealing more tawdry details of Chicago’s parking meter lease deal.
Former Chicago Tribune city hall reporter Dan Mihalopoulous does a bang up job on the story.
Here’s the full story, “Company Piles Up Profits From City’s Parking Meter Deal.”
Check it out and tell us what you think.
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What’s interesting here is how much profit CPM is making on the deal. Despite the massive drop in usage of metered spaces and their fairly sizable investment buying the pay boxes, CPM is making more money than the city did… So that can only mean one thing–the city mismanaged meter revenue (no surprise). Figure by 2014, CPM will probably be making a $100 million profit/year. Using actual $ calculations (ignoring net present value), they’ll probably break even by 2024 (15 years)–and will be laughing at our ineptitude for the 60 years after that…
We got screwed by “Richard and the Alderlemmings”. (Sounds like a name for a ’60s cover band).
“The people own the asset to be used today for this generation of people and not for 2050,” Mr. Daley said soon after the Council’s parking meter vote last December. “Our responsibility is to help the generation right now.”
In other words, “your kids and grandkids can ram it.”
This is quite a departure for the mayor for whom it’s always about the children. Guess that script won’t work in this instance.
An interesting counterpoint can be found at Reuter’s:
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/11/23/chicagos-good-parking-deal/
Facts-
You are quickly becoming one of my favorite commentators/contributors to this nutty website.
I totally missed this. I think this guy is wrong, but I definitely will post this.
Thanks for the tip Facts. And I very much appreciate your input–especially when you school me and others on the law.
Keep it up and thanks again.