Letter from the Alderman (10.5.26) Β Dear Neighbors, Β In 2008, the City Council handed control of roughly 36,000 parking meters to a private company for 75 years in exchange for about $1.2 billion upfront. The Council approved that deal just days after it was announced, with hundreds of pages of documents and almost no time to read them. Rates climbed after the private operator took over, the city paid millions every time a meter went out of service for a street festival or a construction project, and by the end of 2025 the operator had reported about $2.2 billion in revenue. For eighteen years, Chicagoans have fed those meters while the city collected no share of what they paid. Β On Tuesday, September 29, the City Council voted 46-3 to approve a new agreement that changes that. I helped negotiate it, and I want you to know what is in it and how we got there. Β Earlier this year, Chicago Parking Meters LLC agreed to sell the meter operation to Stonepeak Partners, a New York investment firm, for $2.5 billion. The city looked seriously at buying the meters back, and the administration ultimately walked away after concluding the financial risk was too great. That left one real opening: the sale needed the City Council's approval, and an approval the other side needs is leverage. Β Five of us negotiated the revised terms: Alderwoman Pat Dowell (3rd Ward), Alderwoman Nicole Lee (11th Ward), Alderman Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward), Alderman Gilbert Villegas (36th Ward), and myself. I spent years in private industry before I ever cast a vote at City Hall, and I've drawn on that experience many times on this Council. This was the time it mattered most. A negotiation like this rewards the person who has read every page, who knows which terms cost the other side little and the city. Β The agreement carries eight concessions for Chicago residents, and the first set brings money back to the city. The meter operator will pay the city 5% of its net operating income every year, all of it directed to city pension funds. That is expected to bring in about $375 million over the remaining 57 years of the concession. The city also receives a one-time $75 million payment to the pension funds when the sale closes, and any future sale of the operation will carry an additional 2% fee, also directed to pensions. A share of profits is only as good as your ability to check the math, so the city will audit every year how convenience fee revenue is divided between the operator and Chicago. Β Pension money can sound like an accounting matter until you put a face on it. The bus driver who retired after thirty years, the firefighter, the librarian down the block are all counting on funds this city has struggled to keep whole for a generation. Every dollar that reaches those funds from the meters is a dollar residents do not have to make up in some other way. Β The agreement also looks after the people who will do the work. The operator must follow all state and federal labor law, along with new protections written into the agreement. Employees who are survivors of domestic or sexual violence, or whose family members are, will have access to unpaid leave. At least half of all jobs must go to Chicago residents, and the operator will report what share of its workforce lives in the city's disadvantaged areas. Those reports matter, because a hiring commitment nobody measures tends to become a platitude. Β For the residents who park at these meters every day, a new binding rule bars Stonepeak and the operator from sharing customers' personal or financial information with federal immigration authorities or other outside agencies, except where the law requires it through a legal process. Paying for parking should never turn into an intrusion on anyone's family. Stonepeak also committed to selling Omni Air International, a charter airline owned by a Stonepeak-controlled company that has flown deportation flights for the Department of Homeland Security. The company reported that the airline was sold on Monday, September 28, so the firm running our parking meters will no longer profit from a business tied to those flights. Β The last set of changes reaches the curb itself. Seven annual events will now get extended meter closure windows of more than 10 hours without penalty, while every other closure keeps the standard 6-hour limit. The agreement also changes how the city calculates what it owes when parking spaces are temporarily taken out of service, which is expected to reduce those payments. Finally, a new working group will study adding electric vehicle charging stations to the meter system, so the curb we're locked into until 2083 can keep up with the cars that will be parked at it. Β A child born in the 27th Ward this year will be 57 years old when this concession finally ends, old enough to have children and perhaps grandchildren of their own. The 2008 Council signed that agreement before this child was born, and for eighteen years every quarter Chicagoans fed into those meters left the city for good. We could not erase that signature, but we could change what it costs the next generation: a share of the profits every year, $75 million to our pensions at closing, an audit to keep the math honest, and protections for the workers and families who call this city home. Chicago spent years believing this deal was untouchable, and we have now proven otherwise. The people who inherit it deserve someone who keeps watch over every term we just won, and I intend to. Β Β Β Sincerely, Alderman Walter Redmond Burnett 27th Ward |
