Heads are going to roll in Chicago over a memo written in city hall to the effect that there weren’t enough parking tickets being written and therefore not enough income to balance the budget.
There are so many problems on so many levels it’s hard to start. Here are a few:
- Parking fines are supposed to be to ensure that parking rules are followed, NOT to pay for the mayor’s limo.
- If they want to raise taxes, just do so. Why should the city be built on the shoulders of people who were three minutes late getting back to their cars?
- My guess is that the first person to complain about citation officers having quotas will be the author of the memo.
- Did it occur to anyone in Chicago’s city hall that perhaps they were spending more than they were making?
- The citizens of the city of Chicago are in near revolt over the new parking meters, the group running them, higher on street parking fees and the like. Is now the time to ratchet up ticketing?
- This memo was from the same administration that took 90% of the 1.2 Billion Dollars they received from leasing out the onstreet parking operation and used it to balance this year’s budget, conveniently forgetting that they were supposed to use most of it to pay of long term debt and for a “rainy day fund.” Maybe Mayor Daley is praying for a drought.
You get the picture. All pretense is gone. Beat on the parkers, generate revenue, balance the budget.
Parking citation revenue is not a tax, it is a punishment for breaking the rules. It is being used to replace a tax because politicians know that voters won’t stand for another tax.
My guess is that the pols in Chicago may be pressing for more parking money at their peril. The people there are looking for pitchforks and torches and may just find them in the form of ballots in the next election.
JVH
