How You Can Help

NEVER AGAIN

Major budget decisions need to be made with as much transparency and public input as possible.

Sign our petition to the Chicago City Council to make sure that the Chicago City Council hears that the public wants to see more government transparency, especially when it comes to the privatization of public assets, which can have long-term implications for taxpayers and government as a whole. Take action.

Overview

The privatization of Chicago’s parking meters – allowing a Morgan-Stanley backed set of investors to reap the profits for the next 75 years from the city’s parking meters – sparked public outrage as parking rates quadrupled overnight in some parts of the city, meters malfunctioned, and critics, including the city’s own Inspector General, argued that the city received hundreds of millions of dollars less for the meter system than it was worth.

All of these factors have led some streetwise Chicagoans to wonder what was really behind the privatization deal. The fact that the city spent millions of dollars on consultants hired via no-bid contracts to arrange the deal, rushed consideration of the plan through City Council in only three days, and offered the public no way to scrutinize the deal or voice its opinion add to the sense of suspicion. In fact, City Hall was working on this deal months before the public – or even the City’s aldermen – knew about it.

Now the city is broke again and considering the sale of more taxpayer assets, like our water system.

Illinois PIRG is working to reform City government by demanding greater government transparency and more citizen input in important budget decisions like privatization deals.