Unforced Errors

Definition: Errors Chicago politicians make due to their lack of skill and incompetence – and what they coulda shoulda done instead.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was forced to drop out of the $3B fight to buy back the city’s remaining 57-year parking meter lease, covering 36,000 meters, sold in 2008 in a lopsided deal for just over $1 billion to a consortium led by Morgan Stanley, Allianz Capital Partners, and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund. The city handed over 75 years of control for $1.15 billion. The investors pulled in about $2 billion in a single recent year and just flipped the lease to another private company for at least twice what they paid. Parking that cost $3 an hour in 2008 now runs $7 — and Chicagoans are still paying the price.
Meanwhile, Johnson has blown hundreds of millions on questionable migrant vendor deals and even more on shelter operators widely criticized as slumlords. Had the mayor actually managed the city’s budget over the past three years instead of burning cash, Chicago might have been in a position to buy back the meters and start putting the city back in the black.
Instead, taxpayers are left holding the bag while private investors walk away rich — a forced error that could’ve been avoided if City Hall had simply done its job.