City To Use Parking Meter Money To Help Plug Budget Deficit

Chicago Tribune:

The Daley administration will have to further dip into proceeds from the city's much-maligned parking meter lease to cover a budget shortfall that could soar as high as $300 million before the year's out, city officials said today.

Read the whole story: Chicago Tribune

Comments

[Ladyrantsalot]

And what will they use to plug next year's budget deficit? And the deficit after that? Did the city government sell the city's rights to its own streets for 75 years in order to plug 4 years worth of budget gaps? If you are going to sell a valuable municipal asset to the lowest bidder, don't waste the principle. Make the tough decisions now with regard to the deficit and at least use this meter money wisely.

[thrashertm]

As usual, the corrupt and ineffective city government must resort to extraordinary measures to cover their incompetence. Last year it was raising the city sales tax to 10.25% - the highest in the country. Then they sold control of the parking meters to Morgan Stanley for $1.2 billion up front for 75 years to close the budget gap. That's just $20M a year, giving a private company the right to rape us in Chicago by jacking up the rates on all the meters to $1 per hour, where before in many places meters were 25 or 50 cents per hour. Another huge tax hike courtesy of this stupid administration. Furthermore, the swine on the city council rubber-stamped the Daley admin's proposal without even reading the damned thing!

This is exactly why Chicago should NOT get the 2016 Olympics. You know that Daley and his cronies will bilk the hell out of the public expenditures. I say this as a Chicago resident.

Read more about the parking meters here if you care.
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/apr/23/local/chi-city-council-23-apr23