Vandalized Meters at record levels!

The number of Chicago Parking Meters being vandalized since Daley’s sell off of the Chicago Parking Meters earlier this year has grown to record amounts. As you might recall, Daley and his cronies pushed through a deal which leased the Chicago Parking Meter concession to a group called  LAZ Parking which is owned by Morgan Stanley.  In a deal that will cause the city of Chicago to lose up to 4 billion dollars over the course of the 75 year lease, Daley managed to get the sign off by all but 5 Aldermen on a deal that was not put up for public scrutiny.  In addition, the Daley administration allowed LAZ to increase the meter amounts to record levels, hurting the cash strapped citizens and who live or visit Chicago.

Is it any wonder that people have started to rebel? Daley has once again thumbed his nose as the citizens of Chicago by not looking out for the best interest of the people.  Daley seems to think that it’s his city!  The next election will tell!

The Attorney General is currently looking into this sweetheart deal that Daley pushed through. Hopefully this deal can be rescinded before it’s too late. In the mean time, if you come across a meter that is broken, call the number on the meter and they will give you a code that you can put on your ticket to get it dismissed. Hmmmmm, sounds like a good deal to me!  One simple call and you get a free pass to park all day? Who said you can’t beat city hall?

Chicago Fire Fighters in the line of duty

The below letter was written by Jim McMahon, a retired lieutenant with the Chicago Fire Department in response to an I-team report between Chuck Goudie and Alderman Beale:

I sent this e-mail to Chuck Goudie and Alderman Beale yesterday morning. So far, no response from either one of them.

From: McMahon351
To: ward09@cityofchicago.org
Sent: 4/10/2009 12:14:54 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: To: Chuck Goudie and Anthony Beale

Someone just forwarded an e-mail to me with a link to a video of an I-Team Report: A Buried Treasure – 4/02/09 – Chicago News – abc7chicago.com by Chuck Goudie. This report interviews Anthony Beale, the 9th Ward Alderman from Chicago. Its subject discusses how the rank & file of Chicago’s Police and Fire Departments get issued a clothing allowance and duty availability pay somewhere to the tune of 4 to 5 thousand dollars a year. To paraphrase Alderman Beale, he feels this is excessive and should be taken away from these public servants to save the city money. He also claims there are no other places to cut city services to save money. I watched this blatant hypocrisy is disbelief and thought to myself, “This type of rhetoric doesn’t even dignify a response.” But I’m weak, so here ya go…..

Nothing could be further from the truth. Seeing that the roughly 18,000 men and woman of the Chicago Police and Fire Departments have been working without a raise or a current contract since 2007, the old worn out excuse that “we are currently in tough economic times” doesn’t hold any water any more. The economy was doing just fine back in 2007 and the Police and Fire Departments should have been given a contract with a raise back then, just like all of the other city departments did.

Of course everyone knows that an on time contract with a raise will never be a reality in Chicago because that would prevent Mayor Daley from earning millions of dollars in interest on the Policemen and Fireman’s money, and giving him the ability to eventually bribe them into accepting sub-standard raises with reduced benefits,……..with their own back pay. As is stands now, it would be fiscally irresponsible of the city to be fair with the Police and Fire Departments by giving them a timely contract. After all, who wouldn’t like access to all that interest free money to invest at their discretion and earn dividends for several years?

So where else can we save some more money in Chicago? That shouldn’t be too hard to do. Here’s a few suggestions we could start with;

• Eliminate 50% of the “top heavy” upper echelon jobs in ALL departments city wide.
• Reduce the astronomical maintenance costs of repairs and the destruction of millions of dollars in Police and Fire vehicles with all the out of control running of these rigs. Almost every Fire Apparatus in Chicago does about 15 runs a day responding to false alarms and non life threatening incidents. Without even factoring in the fuel costs for these responses, these vehicles come with a price tag of around $500,000 each and will only last a few years because they’re too big, too heavy, and not built for this kind of abuse. It would make perfect sense to have 2 men respond in a small $25,000 SUV or pickup truck to most of these EMS calls to scope them out first, and 95% of the time they wouldn’t even have to call for additional manpower.
• Make the abusers of these city services pay for this, not the taxpayers.

Now let’s compare 2 major American cities’ and see how much money we can save on our Aldermen;
The City of Chicago is approximately 228 square miles with a population of about 2,837,000 people. If the population of all areas were equal, this would give Chicago a population density of about 12,443 people per square mile. It is broken into 50 political Wards with an Alderman in each Ward, serving about 56,740 Constituents each.
With a base salary of over $110,000 and an expense account of $73,000, that puts them at about $183,000 per year without benefits or pension expenses. Not too bad for a part time job!

New York City is approximately 305 square miles with a population in all 5 Boroughs of about 8,275,000 people. If all of their areas were equal, this would give it a population density of about 27,131 people per square mile. It is broken into 51 political districts with a City Councilman in each one, serving about 162,255 Constituents each. They are earning somewhere around $112,000 per year, and in addition to that some also receive stipends with the highest one being somewhere around $28,000.

In square miles, New York City is a little more than one third larger than the City of Chicago is, it has almost 3 times the amount of people living there with over twice the population density, yet they manage to get by just fine with only 51 City Councilmen. What? Is this true? How can this be? Let’s look at this for a minute, shall we?

Here’s the numbers;
Chicago has 50 Wards, serving 56,740 people each, for a total of 2,837,000 people.
New York City has 51, serving 162,255 people each, for a total of 8,275,005 people.
These numbers are fairly accurate and I’d encourage anyone to verify them.

Now let’s look at this a different way;
If Chicago has 50 Wards, but has to serve 162,255 people for each Ward like New York City does, they could serve 8,112,750 people. But we don’t have anywhere near that many people, do we? No we don’t! So why don’t we just eliminate 32 of these part time Aldermen and let the remaining 18 serve 162,255 people each? That would total up to 2,920,590 people, which is much more like it. And I’m sure this is doable because Chicago ’s Aldermen get a substantially higher salary than their east coast counterparts do, and I don’t know of any City Councilman in New York City that has been worked to death yet,……..do you? I doubt it, but the worst that could possibly happen is our Aldermen might have to work a little closer to 40 hours a week like the rest of us.

In summary, Chicago’s Alderman are paid more than 2.5 times the salary for doing a part time job, than a Police Officer or Firefighter earns for working full time, under some of the most hazardous and deadly conditions imaginable. The truth of the matter is that we could very easily get by with 18 Aldermen, and eliminate 32 without ever missing them. Wow, that’s about 65% less Aldermen and nobody would die, nobody would be without city services, and I’ll bet that nobody would even notice. I’d like to see what would happen in Chicago if you eliminated 65% of the Police and Firemen. And at $183,000 per year, not including benefits and pension calculations, Chicago would save at least $5,856,000 annually on this simple budget cut alone. Oh look at that Alderman Beale, I found somewhere to cut some more “city services” without any negative results and don’t forget, “we ARE currently in tough economic times!”

And while I’m at it, here’s a few more facts;

While in the performance of their duty, I have never heard of any City Council member:
Saving anyone’s life
Prying anyone out of a wreck
Chasing an armed criminal down a dark alley
Working to total physical exhaustion
Running into, or on top of a burning building
Getting paralyzed
Getting 2nd and 3rd degree burns
Getting disfigured
Diving into the lake, river or lagoon at night…..in all seasons
Had someone die in their arms
Putting dead victims in body bags
Getting buried in a building collapse
Comfort an abused child
Catch a communicable disease
Being exposed to deadly carcinogens and other health hazards
Subjected to random drug and alcohol screening
Shot at, stabbed, spit on or assaulted
Getting killed in the line of duty

But I do know of thousands of Police and Fireman that have, and do all these things on a daily basis without hesitation, and all they’ve ever asked for is a little respect and a living wage to raise their families with. The average person couldn’t, or wouldn’t do these jobs effectively, and would never even consider putting themselves in harms way and risk their life for someone they don’t even know, not for any amount of money.

Before anyone passes judgment on the members of the Chicago Police and Fire Departments, I’d challenge them to see if they could last one week alongside these dedicated men and women, and just stay with them, no matter what, and do what they are asked to do, in a moments notice! This challenge extends to every Citizen, Journalist, Alderman, or any other politician in the City of Chicago, including our Honorable Mayor, Richard J. Daley.

Jim McMahon
Retired Lieutenant
Chicago Fire Department

Is this Chicago time?

It was just going to take a few minutes. You dug deep into your pockets or purse and all you could find were a couple of quarters. Not giving up, you searched the ashtray, glove compartment and even under the seats. You found two more quarters a couple of stale Cheetos and a fur covered skittle. Great, that treasure hunt just bought you several minutes of precious parking time in the, “city that works”.

You make a mad dash into Starbucks to grab your latte. After standing behind Ms. Indecisive as she labors over her choice du jour, you finally get to order, pay the tab, get your fix and keep the change instead of tipping the barista so that you’ll have more quarters in case you need to park again.

Just as you round the corner, you see ORANGE!?! Yep, you just got a parking ticket. You plead with the troll that gave you the ticket, but all they do is point out that the meter shows expired. Then just to add insult to injury, they lecture you on obeying the laws of King Richard and his merry team of minions. It doesn’t matter that the meter is fast and that according to your watch, which is synchronized with the atomic clock and is accurate to within 1/1millionth of a second, the troll tells you to pay the fine.

“The hell I will”, you think! “I’m going to fight this! I’ll have my day in court!!!”

So you check the box that you’re contesting and write a brief fact filled description of what happened. You find a postage stamp, (almost as difficult as finding quarters in your car), and drop your ticket in the mail. “That’ll show em”, you think!

Imagine your surprise when a month later you receive a notice saying you owe double the fine. Sixty dollars! That latte was good and lord knows without it, you wouldn’t have made it through the day, but sixty dollars??

You request a hearing and in speaking to an “administrative assistant”, you tell them what happen. You mention to this stone faced assistant, that you mailed in your explanation over a month ago when you were given the ticket. They sarcastically ask, “did you send it certified mail”? Silly you! How could you not know that Chicago’s Postal system is as non functional as the rest of the city that works! And so it goes… Guilty as charged… pay the fine!

When are the next mayoral elections?

Parking meters are springing up faster than spring flowers in the “city that works”.  The Daley administration sold off the interest in parking meter revenue for the next 75 years to a private organization, (LAZ Parking, I believe it’s pronounced Lay Zee Parking). One billion something dollars we received. While I’m sure for right now, that money can go a long way towards bringing the 2016 Olympics here, (Daley’s master plan),  what does the city do 20 years from now? 50 years? 70 years?

The deal is that the city get’s all revenue from the parking tickets generated from the short times and excessive fees that the meters will be adjusted to. We as citizens and taxpayers in the city of Chicago, no longer have any power to complain about meter rates. I suppose we never really had any power anyway. The politicians never listened to us. They put up a good front around elections, but we don’t really have a choice of who we vote for in Chicago, the Daley machine decides who will get in.

So now when we complain to our appointed officials, they can shrug their shoulders and tell us that they empathize, but that they don’t control it. It is a private enterprise. Funny, I don’t remember voting on selling those rights to a private enterprise. Oh, that’s right, my vote doesn’t count anyway, how silly of me.

So now parking meters are being placed everywhere. There are no parking meter holidays and there is no Sabbath to keep holy. You must pay the meter every day! Seven days a week. 365 days a year! No exception!

So what if I don’t pay it? I mean, come on what’s a private company going to do to me? Ticket me? Well, now that’s the part that I’m confused about. The police are now meter maids for this private company. The police? I didn’t think they could work for a private company yet still be paid via tax dollars.  I guess Chicago is like Wonderland, you have to suspend all reason and go along with the Mad Hatter, (Daley).

So now with the city not bringing on additional officers, in spite of being short staffed Daley has decided to let this private company benefit from our tax dollars and use our police department as their own personal meter maids.  Ok, ok… I know they did this task before it was privatized, but now that someone else owns it, why do we, as taxpayers have to foot the bill?

I would hope that now with someone else taking this over, that our fine men and women in blue, (and the occasional 14 year old that can sneak in and play officer for a day),  would be free to actually patrol the streets and take care of criminal activities. But where is the profit in that I suppose. Gosh, living in Wonderland is confusing!

This is wrong in so many ways. Another of which is that monopolies are supposed to be illegal, (with the exception of governmental monopolies). Parking meters are now a monopoly! I don’t have a choice. If I want to park on a public street paid for by my taxes and maintained by the gas taxes reaped in the city, I have no choice but to pay what LAZ, (remember, pronounced Lay Zee), demands.

Well, I’ll show em! I’ll start to take public transportation! I’ll walk! I’ll ride my bike, (if I can find it)!  Say, maybe this isn’t so bad after all. It’s still a pretty sleazy deal, but perhaps, we  the people,  can actually make a difference by not using the meters! It’ll save on traffic congestion, gas, emissions and cause me to lose a few pounds. Now with each defiant step I take I’ll sing, I’m off to see the wizard…. oops, wrong fairy tale.

Check out The Expired Meter for more info on Chicago’s Parking Meters .