Regardless of the specifics of the deal, signing a 75 year deal with a single company is anti competitive. How did it get up? Weren't all the other parking companies outraged?
Around here, deals like that never last more than years. They have to be re-tendered frequently.
It would be interesting to have a 10 year cap/sunset agreement on ANY government agreement.
The Fed Chair already has a 10 year appointment, so extend it to contracts, leases, and even laws.
There are a few things that might need longer but in those cases, buying or going without (where someone doesn't want to sell) might be a better option.
But who's going to invest in parking meters if you have to recoup that in 10 years? It would seem the only way out is by placing it in the hands of the body that actually needs it, the Chicago administration in this case. But that didn't work, bringing us back to square 1, or measures from a higher authority, effectively overruling the city's voters.
Parking is a subset of transportation and transportation is a core competency of a city administration.
There needs to be deeper questions asked of why can't Chicago fulfill one of it's core competencies. And why is that that a outside, private investment firm can do a better job than the city itself.
The answer can't be "well they just can't do it, so go ahead and outsource it". What next? we outsource elections and schools? Lord knows we already outsourced criminal justice in the form of private prisons). Where does our society end in 100 years of this path?
100? You're an optimist. But the only way is placing strict rules on governance, both public and private, and enforcing them. Once the corrupt politicians and bribing CEOs are sent to prison, changes will come.
As others have said elsewhere, most government contractors that require a private entity to outlay millions of dollars have a similarly long term (75 or 99 year are both common) to prevent the government from just changing its mind after the capital improvements have been made. As the article states it took a decade for CPM to make back the $1.16B it spent on the contract, which probably doesn't include any actual improvements they made, if any.
Chicago doesn't stand for corruption, they demand it, yet voters continue to approve and send the same people back, so Chicagoans must also approve of the corruption.
I hate to get political. But the candidate leading in the polls by a wide margin for one of the major political parties has 91 indictments hanging over his head and loved by the “Christian right”.
People don’t care about the ethics of their politicians.
You can see examples of this in all parties over many years. In a few cases you can find an example of people who decide to care, but overall if the corrupt person is mostly on their side humans will ignore corruption as "just a minor thing", while corruption on a different side is a major problem.
I hope you take the above and examine everything closely to make sure you are not falling for it. Fight corruption where ever it is found, even if it is on your side.
Just so this doesn’t come across as a beat up on Republicans post, while I don’t agree with everything my states governor - Kemp -has done as far as policy, I’ve got to give him and the Secretary of State credit for not kowtowing to the crazies in his own party and standing behind the DA of Atlanta when the state legislators are trying to remove her to protect Trump
Chicagoans only care that the streets are clean of trash and snow, that the poor people stay in their place, and the police keep up the security theater around where they live and work.
Around here, deals like that never last more than years. They have to be re-tendered frequently.