* 9:45 pm - The Senate passed the Meeks/Cullerton income tax increase (2 percentage points for individuals, 0.2 for corporations, expanded sales tax to services) by a vote of 31-27-1. Some good quotes from the debate are here.
The bill moves to the House, which has its own tax hike bill preferred by the governor.
* 9:51 pm - The Senate is now moving the House-approved appropriations bills from last week that captures federal stimulus money and funds employee union contracts.
8:15 pm- The Senate is currently considering a tax increase bill. And House GOP Leader Tom Cross is shocked that the Senate is considering raising the income tax to 5%…
* 8:25 pm - Cross cracks wise about reports that former GOP governors Thompson and Edgar have been calling House Republican members about the tax hike vote…
* 6:35 pm - I’ve been posting a bit at Twitter today, so you might want to check my page every now and then.
The four legislative leaders and the governor are meeting at this moment. We should have a report and video soon after the meeting ends.
We’ll also post a video here of Gov. Quinn talking about the budget in a few minutes. Check back then.
* Patterson headlined this one: “Jim Edgar makes House calls.” Cute …
Gov. Pat Quinn called Edgar to ask if Edgar would call Republican lawmakers to get a real pulse on whether any of them could vote for an income tax increase.
Edgar said he would but told Quinn that Quinn needed to cut more from the budget before asking for one. Edgar talked to one Republican who said the same thing.
That pretty much matches what Edgar told me earlier this year when I called him up to get his take on the budget mess Quinn was inheriting. Edgar said there was likely no way out without a tax increase but that it had to be paired with unpopular budget cuts.
* The Senate has advanced another tax hike bill. A couple of good points from McDermott…
- The latest proposal would raise more money for the state than Quinn’s plan (by about $1.5 billion), thus giving lawmakers more of a reason to go out on the limb of supporting a tax hike. […]
- No one actually expects this new proposal to go anywhere; they just want to vote on something that will allow them to go home to their constituents and claim they fought the good fight on behalf of education, without actually having to institute a politically dangerous tax hike.
Sen. James Meeks on the Senate’s tax hike bill. He claims he’s close to passage…
Meeks also believes his bill is superior to the governor’s tax hike plan…
House Democrats today advanced a 50 percent increase in the state income tax for two years, but final approval remains very much in doubt as the General Assembly nears its Sunday night adjournment deadline.
Democrats have been unable to find enough votes in the House to raise the income tax to help plug a major budget hole and Republicans have said they aren’t ready to vote for a tax hike yet. House Democrats met for a couple hours behind closed doors on Friday but abruptly left the Capitol without taking a vote.
The proposal, approved with all Democratic votes at a House committee, would generate $4.5 billion a year to help stave off massive cuts in state services, according to House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago).
The Illinois House today sent state senators a plan prompted by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s ouster that could lead to voters getting the chance to recall future governors from office.
Gov. Pat Quinn watched as the House voted 109-6 on one of his top reform priorities, a proposal to add the recall of governors to the Illinois Constitution. The state Senate still has to act to put the proposal on next year’s November ballot. Then voters would have to ratify the amendment.
Because of a timing issue, the earliest the Senate could give its approval would be Monday. That would mean the spring legislative session went into overtime past the midnight Sunday adjournment deadline.
Springfield’s own U.S. senator was back at the state Capitol today but not about to get involved in the mess facing state lawmakers.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, shook hands and talked with officials and onlookers at the Capitol today, as lawmakers aim to wrap up their spring legislative session tomorrow night.
* The gaming bill has more trouble in the Senate. Unless the Republicans jump on, opposition from elements of the Black Caucus could sink it. This story was posted earlier today…
With tax hikes stalled at the Capitol, one suburban lawmaker said gambling expansion should be reconsidered as a possible state budget fix.
“I think it should be very strongly considered because we need some kind of revenue to get out of here,” said state Sen. Terry Link, a Waukegan Democrat and gambling expansion advocate.
* 6:52 pm - Governor Quinn spoke with the media shortly after the recall amendment proposal passed the House. The lack of House support for a tax increase and the budget were the dominant topics. Edgar’s decision to lobby Republican lawmakers on Quinn’s behalf was also a popular topic of discussion.
[John Jackson, visiting professor at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale] said the stream of state officials accused of corruption, such as Thursday’s indictment of Chicago alderman Isaac Carothers on bribery charges, would keep post-Blagojevich reform fresh in the public mind.
“Are these guys paying attention to what’s going on?” Jackson said of Carothers. “What does it take?”
The City of Chicago has a campaign contribution cap on vendors. Carothers allegedly got around that when a developer funneled a contribution through somebody else…
It was further part of the scheme that in order to disguise and conceal the extent of Grand Central Center’s campaign contributions to defendant CAROTHERS, defendant BOENDER directed an employee of Grand Central Center to make a $1,500 donation to the New 29th Ward Democratic Organization and reimbursed that employee for that contribution.
It was further part of the scheme that when defendant CAROTHERS asked defendant BOENDER for his financial support of Candidate A’s campaign, BOENDER, in order to curry favor with defendant CAROTHERS, made campaign contributions to Candidate A in excess of the maximum allowed under federal election law. In order to disguise and conceal the fact that he was making campaign contributions to Candidate A in excess of the maximum allowed under federal election allow, BOENDER directed at least two individuals to make $2,000 donations to Candidate A and reimbursed those individuals for those donations.
Meanwhile, the House did not send along to Quinn contribution-cap legislation that passed the Senate on Thursday over strong objections from government watchdogs and former federal prosecutor Patrick Collins, head of a Quinn-appointed panel charged with cleaning up state government.
More than a dozen House Democrats withheld support in a rare act of rebellion against Speaker Michael Madigan, who negotiated the package with Quinn and Senate President John Cullerton.
“We’re expected to follow along like lemmings and take a loyalty test over and over. This question isn’t a loyalty test,” said Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Evanston), who was among 15 Democrats and 46 Republicans to press Madigan to discharge a tougher plan from his tightly controlled Rules Committee.
The protest didn’t work, and a spokesman for the speaker indicated Madigan intends to push forward with the package he, Quinn and Cullerton negotiated to cap individual contributions at $5,000 and corporation and labor union contributions at $10,000.
At times, reform efforts were stalled by battles of ego and arrogance on both sides. Legislators dismissed outsider ethics advocates as trying to paint them all as corrupt. But some self-described good-government advocates portrayed their agenda as a “my way or the highway” approach and attacked those who opposed any of their reform proposals as supporting the status quo.
Good point Number Two…
In many ways though, the reform push was treated to the same political gamesmanship and horse-trading that typifies any major issues at the statehouse. Most Democrats, who control the House and Senate, hailed their efforts to change the ethical climate in Illinois
Number three…
“Reform never starts from the top and dribbles down,” said Rep. Bill Black (R-Danville). “Those at the top have a vested interest in what got them to the top and what keeps them at the top. If you really want reform, it has to start at the bottom and work its way up.”
As in “voters.”
* The Daily Herald looks at the meat of the reform bill that passed the Senate…
Unions, businesses and other special interests would be banned from spending money on behalf of candidates under a campaign finance law advancing toward the governor’s desk, a move that substantially restricts outside influence on politics but not without consequences.
Every campaign season, scores of business and labor workers get paid to staff Republican and Democratic campaigns across the state, a practice that would be prohibited effective Jan. 1, 2011 under the reforms.
But the practical impact could be that campaigns become more reliant on the political leaders in each party to provide the paid foot soldiers and staffers that once came from elsewhere. Neither the Republican nor Democratic party organizations would face similar prohibitions.
Despite intensive lobbying by Gov. Pat Quinn, Illinois lawmakers remained unwilling Friday to a 50 percent state income tax increase.
The Illinois House abruptly ended its work day Friday afternoon without voting on the income tax hike, as Quinn had expected earlier in the day.
“There’s not widespread support, there has not been widespread support and there continues not to be widespread support for a tax increase,” said Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago. “He’s (Quinn) asked to defer that for the past several days, and that continues.”
A House committee is scheduled to consider a tax hike bill this morning, although there is no indication when, or if, the bill will get a vote in the full House.
House members said it was increasingly possible that lawmakers would approve what money is available and then adjourn, leaving state agencies to limp along without a complete budget.
“We’ll run out of money. That’s the truth,” warned Rep. Linda Chapa Lavia, an Aurora Democrat who chairs one of the House’s appropriations committees. “We’re going to hit a day of reckoning where there’s not going to be any more money to pay the employees of the state.”
Earlier Friday, Quinn had predicted a House vote on a two-year hike in the income tax, increasing the rate from 3 percent to 4.5 percent. But Republicans opposed the plan, a cornerstone of Quinn’s 2009-’10 budget.
And only 39 House Democrats expressed support for the temporary tax plan in a closed-door caucus, leaving it 21 votes shy of the 60-vote threshold it needs.
“We are hopefully optimistic we will turn the corner,” Quinn spokesman Bob Reed said late Friday.
Rep. Art Turner (D-Chicago), a top Madigan lieutenant, summed it up: “We’re looking for courage. We’re close. We’ve got it spelled C-O-U-R, but we’re looking for the rest of it.”
Senate Democrats have predicted a tax increase would have an easier time in their chamber and on Friday an even bigger tax plan emerged, courtesy of Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago).
The proposal — which could raise upward of $6 billion — would increase the income tax by 67 percent and expand the sales tax on services such as dry cleaning, video rental, dating services and carpet cleaning. The theory is that a larger tax bite would mean fewer cuts.
A spokesman for Quinn would not comment on Meeks’ proposal. Earlier in the day, Quinn signaled his willingness to support a temporary version of his own tax-increase proposal, calling Friday “D-Day” for approving a budget.
Carol Stream Republican state Rep. Randy Ramey said Republicans are prepared to wait for a seat at the bargaining table and he’d be fine with a government shutdown when the current budget runs out at the end of June.
“Kentucky shut it down for one day, got it solved. Pennsylvania shut it down for one day, got it solved,” Ramey said. “So I think there’s enough pressure out there that we can then sit down and negotiate and get things accomplished.”
Developments are happening quickly. What appears to be the end game now could be vastly different from what actually happens when it’s all said and done.
* Related…
* Cigarette tax hike lacks support in House: Tax and fee increases already approved by Illinois lawmakers may thwart a push to raise the tax on cigarettes. State Rep. Karen Yarbrough, who is sponsoring the legislation in the House, said there is not enough support yet to approve the tax increase. But she added legislators may change their mind by Sunday, the last scheduled day of the spring legislative session.
* Too many moving parts: Across the rotunda, Sen. John Sullivan, a downstate Democrat, said as the day progressed, it appeared more likely that the legislature would resort to a budget based solely on revenues available. But he wasn’t happy about it. “If we go past the 31st without a full budget being passed, all we’ve done is put off the inevitable,” he said. “We’re going to have to come back at some time and face reality.”
The jobless rate in the metropolitan Chicago rose to 9.9% in April, a level that hasn’t been seen since January 1984.
The seasonally unadjusted April rate, released Friday by the Illinois Department of Employment Security, was 4.5 percentage points higher than last April, when the unemployment rate came in at 5.4%. It was 0.6 percentage points higher than March, a sign that layoffs were continuing to pummel the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet statistical area.
IDES estimated that there were 171,300 fewer people employed in the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet metro area in April, compared with the year-earlier month.
The unemployment rate for just the city of Chicago was 10.6%, up from 6% last April, according to IDES figures.
Kane and Kendall counties have each hit the double-digit unemployment rate of 10.4 percent, higher than the rate of Cook County, the state and the nation.
Not only did Kane and Kendall’s jobless rates nearly double from April 2008, but Kane and Kendall also lead neighboring counties on the rate of unemployed.
Will County’s rate is at 10.2 percent, and DuPage County is at 8.2 percent, according to unemployment data released Friday by the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
Illinois State University was awarded a record $22.3 million in grant funding last year, and its fund-raising efforts for private gifts also fared well.
Despite word that he wore a wire for federal investigators, Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th) said Friday that he would fight the charges against him and had no plans to resign his seat.
“I’ll be at work Monday morning,” he said a day after federal prosecutors indicted him on fraud, bribery and tax charges.
Carothers, a longtime ally of Mayor Richard Daley, declined to discuss the charges, but he defended the Galewood Yards real estate project at the center of the alleged bribery as well as his work as a public servant.
“These allegations are based on things from 2004,” he said. “I’ve been alderman for five years after that. I think we’ve been effective.”
City pension officials have been hit with subpoenas from a federal grand jury trying to determine how a start-up company co-owned by Mayor Daley’s nephew won $68 million in pension investments.
The grand jury issued the subpoenas Wednesday, nearly two months after city pension officials refused to comply with similar subpoenas issued by the City of Chicago’s inspector general, David Hoffman.
Hoffman said Friday that he and federal investigators are now jointly investigating the pension fund investments with DV Urban Realty Partners, a minority certified business co-owned by one of the mayor’s top African-American allies, Allison S. Davis, and Daley’s nephew Robert Vanecko.
City pension officials refused to comply with Hoffman’s subpoenas, arguing he had no authority to demand records from them. The federal grand jury stepped in, demanding records from the pension plans for Chicago municipal employees, laborers, police officers and firefighters, even though the firefighters pension fund refused to invest any money with Davis and Vanecko.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has opened an investigation into the implementation of Chicago’s parking meter privatization deal.
“Our goal is to determine if consumers have been defrauded,” said Madigan spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler, who stressed that the office is not investigating the City of Chicago.
Subpoenas were sent May 19 to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure, the winning bidder for the city’s parking meter franchise; Chicago Parking Meters LLC, a consortium led by the infrastructure group, and LAZ Parking, which is operating the franchise for CPM.
In response to questions, a spokeswoman for Chicago Parking Meters issued a brief statement Friday saying the company, Morgan Stanley and LAZ Parking would give their “full cooperation” to Madigan’s investigation.
Last year, for instance, Illinois State Police troopers seized more than four tons of drugs – 8,320 pounds worth — on Interstate 55.
“Narcotics go in one direction, and cash goes in the other direction,” said Capt. Scott Compton, spokesman for Illinois State Police. “Interstates are certainly the fastest way to get somewhere, and there’s lots of traffic, so you can blend in pretty easily.”
* As part of its “Clout goes to college” series, the Chicago Tribune sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the U of I asking for various information on how state legislators and other politicians backed student applicants. The university has now made those documents public.
Much of it is a bit muddled and difficult to get through, but these two in particular show notes and e-mails on specific politicians about applicants. I have only skimmed them, but perhaps you’d like to help with the research….
Hardy said the list - dubbed “Category I” - contains more than 100 potential students each year whose applications legislators and trustees have been asked to check on by constituents, typically parents or other relatives of the applicants. This year, there are about 160 on the list, he said.
He said only some of those are admitted and noted that other universities keep similar lists.
The Tribune says 1,800 pages of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show 77 percent of the 800 students placed on list since 2005 for admittance to the Urbana-Champaign campus were accepted. Meanwhile, the acceptance rate among other applicants stood at 69 percent. […]
Students accepted from the list who were freshman in 2008 on average ranked in the 76th percentile of their high school class, the Tribune said. The same year, the average high school ranking among all freshman was in the 88th percentile.
* The House is expected to vote on an income tax hike today…
A proposed 50 percent increase in the state income tax could be voted on in the Illinois House as early as Friday.
With the clock ticking down on the Legislature’s spring session, the vote will signal whether lawmakers are ready to raise taxes or cut massive amounts of spending.
In the Senate, only five Democrats support the Quinn income tax hike, said a spokeswoman for Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago. No Republicans support the plan, said Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont.
Between 30 and 40 House Democrats are solidly for the plan, according to sources, with another dozen “leaning” toward voting for it. It needs 60 votes to pass, meaning some Republicans will have to vote for it to pass. Rep. Raymond Poe, R-Springfield, said he doesn’t know of any Republicans who would vote for the plan now, including himse
The guv thinks he has close to 50 in the House, but that means Speaker Madigan will have to twist some arms if it’s gonna pass today. The big question is: Does Madigan even want it to pass? Nobody knows for sure yet. More soon.
* I also believe the Sun-Times’ sources are right…
On another front, with Quinn’s push to raise the state income tax from 3 percent to 4.5 percent all but dead, his administration is considering a temporary income tax hike as a Plan B, legislative sources told the Sun-Times.
Publicly, however, Quinn showed no signs of backing off a permanent increase. “We’re hearing all sorts of propositions, but we are not for that plan,” Quinn spokesman Bob Reed said late Thursday when asked whether the administration supports a temporary income tax hike.
Gov open to temporary tax increase if that’s what it takes.
* The Senate Democrats have demanded that the House act first. There are various reasons for this, but here are a couple…
Illinois Senate President John Cullerton today said the fate of a state income tax increase lies across the Capitol in the House, where a significant number of Democrats in the majority are skittish about the political implications of voting to raise taxes.
“Most of the action, if not all of the action, is in the House,” Cullerton said after emerging from talks with House Speaker Michael Madigan and Gov. Pat Quinn. “Any effort on the income tax will be initiated in the House, and the Senate will respond.”
Cullerton is offering some political speak here. While Madigan, the powerful Southwest Side Democrat, holds considerable sway over his members and backs an income-tax increase, he also doesn’t want to put his Democrats at risk and knows that Republicans won’t be offering any votes on an income tax hike.
* The Tribune editorial page was in full swagger today….
Springfield, you’re asking for trouble with voters if you raise the income tax before you pass thorough and meaningful ethics and spending reforms. The results so far have been half-hearted. Put honest government first.
* And if the tax hike doesn’t pass? Well, here’s one option…
One option apparently still being discussed is to give state agencies lump sums of money and tell them they have to make it stretch, rather than lawmakers specifying how much should be spent on each item within an agency. “If you want to give the directors the ability to manage their budgets, they can probably get through to February or March of next year,” Mautino said.
Either that, or they have to cut more than $7 billion. Despite what the Tribune claims, there’s no way to do that. Not even close.
* Hopefully, we’ll soon get beyond the “He said, she said” reporting on the campaign reform bill that passed the Senate yesterday and into the meat of the bill. I told subscribers about this a couple of days ago…
One politically intriguing provision in the proposal would ban the Illinois Democratic Party from endorsing candidates in its primary elections as well as giving money to primary candidates.
Such a move would mean that House Speaker Michael Madigan, who also is state Democratic chairman, could not engineer the slating of his daughter, Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, as a candidate for governor against Quinn or use state Democratic Party resources against him.
That provision was apparently demanded of Madigan by Quinn. Heckuva move.
The language wouldn’t apply to the Illinois GOP because it organizes under a different part of the statute. But, there is a bill ready to go which would force the Republicans into the same organizational rules as the Democrats.
The heated debate came after other reform groups criticized a Senate Democratic plan to limit how much money legislative leaders can distribute to rank-and-file legislators.
Senate Democrats want to limit such transfers to $90,000 per year. But that’s far from the $30,000 per election limit recommended by Quinn’s commission.
Those are just cash transfers. “In-kind” contributions - goods and services - would not be capped at all. Here’s the Sun-Times’ take…
The other essential ingredient of real campaign finance reform would be caps on how much legislative leaders can transfer from their war chests to allies in tight legislative races.
It’s true that the reform proposal puts a $90,000 limit on those transfers. But — you guessed it — there’s a loophole. There will be no limit on how much legislative leaders can give in “in-kind contributions.”
That means they can spend as much as they want to send out mailers, set up phone banks and buy radio and television advertising to help out a friend in need.
And, remember, these are annual cash caps. A Senator with a four-year term could get $360,000 in annual $90,000 contributions from his or her leader. I explained more about those annual caps last night.
The measure also would permit the creation of “constituent service” committees to collect funds to help pay for operating lawmakers’ district offices.
Those committees appear ripe for potential abuse.
* The Tribune was its usual self, but made some valid points in its editorial today…
We’ve never had much faith in the notion that setting limits on campaign contributions would stop the practice of trading cash for political favors. Attempts to do so at the federal level have only shown that resourceful politicians will always find a way to keep the money flowing. Democrats in the Illinois Senate drove home the point Thursday by pushing a “reform” measure so full of loopholes that one government watchdog called it “worse than nothing.”
“Any 2nd grader could figure out a way around it,” said David Morrison, deputy director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. Morrison’s group strongly supports limits on contributions, as does the Illinois Reform Commission, whose recommendations looked like roadkill by the time the Senate Executive Committee took up the bill. Thus we were treated to the spectacle of Gov. Pat Quinn applauding a “landmark” bill opposed by his blue-ribbon reform panel.
The governor threw Pat Collins and the reform commission right under the bus yesterday. They appeared stunned at how fast things moved away from them.
* And even though the editorial boards will go nuts against this bill, Senate President Cullerton was probably right last night when he warned Republicans that voting against the legislation wouldn’t look too great during campaigns next year…
Cullerton also told Republican senators it was “crazy dumb” to oppose the bill. “But have at it. I look forward to next year,” he said.
* Related…
* Clout goes to college - Rezko relative is among those admitted to U. of I. in shadow system influenced by trustees and other insiders: Since 2005, about 800 undergraduate students have landed on the clout list for the Urbana-Champaign campus. It’s unknown how many would qualify for entry on their own, but their acceptance rate is higher than average. For the 2008-09 school year, for example, about 77 percent were accepted, compared with 69 percent of all applicants. That’s in spite of the fact that patronage candidates, as a group, had lower average ACT scores and class ranks than all admitted students, records show.
* The calls for US Sen. Roland Burris’ resignation are once again spiking at the editorial boards. He won’t resign, of course, but everybody wants their say and there’s nothing wrong with that.
It’s remarkable that he continues to open his mouth thinking anyone will believe a word that comes out. He even boasts of his ruses, claiming Wednesday that he was only trying to “placate” gubernatorial brother Rob Blagojevich during their now notorious November phone call.
We have listened to the recording and here is what we (and, we believe, almost anyone else) believe we heard: A desperate Roland Burris willing to do just about anything to become a senator, but not wanting to get caught doing just about anything to become a senator. He knows if he holds a fundraising event for the governor and gets the appointment, it’ll look like he bought it. And he knows if he doesn’t come up with money for the governor, he probably won’t get the appointment.
He didn’t come across as trying to avoid wrongdoing. He came across as trying not to get caught.
He didn’t say there was anything wrong with having a fund raiser for the man who would decide whether to fulfill his wish to become senator. He talked about what the press might do and “so many negative connotations that Burris is trying to buy an appointment.”
The more Burris talks, the deeper the hole he digs. He now acknowledges, for instance, that his sworn testimony in Springfield was incomplete because the “one thing you don’t do is to … volunteer information that wasn’t asked. … There was no obligation there.” Say what? “No obligation” for someone who wants to represent Illinois’ interests in the U.S. Senate to come clean under oath? Does he know what the meaning of the word “is” is?
Meanwhile, he insists with a straight face that “I’m not splitting hairs, I’m not walking a crooked line. … I’m as straightforward and honest as I can be.” If this is the best he can do, it’s not good enough.
Perjury cases are notoriously hard to prove, and the U.S. Senate is notoriously slow in dealing with corruption charges against fellow lawmakers. But it may be enough to kill off any lingering hopes on Burris’s part that he might get elected to the Senate seat.
“It’s a very heavy rock to put on an already wobbly canoe,” said Paul Green, director of Roosevelt University’s School of Policy Studies.
The call may not show Burris making his fundraising support contingent on getting anything in return. But it definitely paints a portrait of a relationship between Burris and the governor’s camp that was a lot more intimate and involved than anyone had previously let on.
Borrowers with good credit now make up the largest share of foreclosures as job losses and pay cuts exact their toll.
A record 12 percent of homeowners with a mortgage were behind on their payments in the first quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday. And the trend is predicted to continue until the end of next year, about six months after unemployment is expected to peak.
* Empress Casino in Joliet to reopen June 25, officials say - Fire closed casino in late March
Illinois parents will be able to continue using their health insurance to cover older dependent children beginning June 1.
State insurance officials say the new law will allow adding children up to age 26. It’ll also allow military veterans to be covered by parents up to age 30.
* Fiscal crisis shuts the doors on storied Driscoll Catholic
Mayor Richard Daley on Thursday blamed a “computer glitch” for a downtown parking pay-box meltdown.
That’s more than the company that took over running the city’s paid street parking system would say about why some 250 new cash-or-credit payment boxes stopped working for much of Wednesday.
Avis LaVelle, a spokeswoman for Chicago Parking Meters, said company officials have “some suspicions” but don’t want to speculate on the cause of the problem. She said it might be a few days before they announce findings.
Daley said he has asked the company, which leased the city’s 36,000 paid street spots for 75 years in return for a $1.15 billion upfront payment, to perform better.
Ald. Tom Allen (38th), chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, agreed that the city has little choice but to work with the contractor.
“It was a massive undertaking that we did with very little public comment and two days of deliberation. Now, what are you gonna do? We’ve already cashed their check,” he said.
“Had we not taken their money, there would be a pretty good appetite to revisit this thing. It’s been a disaster.”
Nearly 90 percent of the men arrested in the Chicago area last year tested positive for illegal drug use at the time of their arrests, according to a federal report.
The area’s 87 percent rate led among 10 metropolitan areas studied in 2008.
