Chicago City Council OKs $15M payout to settle parking meter dispute
CHICAGO - The Chicago City Council voted to approve a $15.5 million settlement with the company Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, ending years of legal wrangling about a controversial parking meter lease agreement.
The city’s Law Department said the payout is far less than the $322 million the company was seeking during expensive legal proceedings.
The council also approved tens of millions of dollars in settlement payouts to the victims of alleged police misconduct.
Parking meter disputes
The backstory:
The parking meter company claimed the city owed it money after not sufficiently enforcing meter violations and changing how the citation revenue was distributed between the company and the city.
As part of the settlement, the city agreed to hire 10 parking meter enforcement employees. While each full-time position will cost the city $52,000 in salary, each worker is expected to yield about $490,000 in ticket revenue.
A parking meter in Chicago's Near North neighborhood on June 24, 2021. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
During a committee meeting on Monday, multiple aldermen voiced support for the hiring of new enforcement officers as a way to generate more revenue.
The parking meter company also claimed it was owed $2 million because the city stopped enforcing some violations during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Still, several aldermen praised the city’s lawyers for working out a deal that would end up costing taxpayers less than the revenue the city generates from issuing tickets.
Police misconduct settlements
What we know:
The City Council also approved more than $62 million in settlements related to police misconduct cases.
The bulk of that money, $48 million, will go to three men who spent 35 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted for a 1986 arson that killed two brothers.
Arthur Almendarez, John Galvan, and Francisco Nañez said they were coerced into their confessions and faced physical torture and mental abuse by their interrogators.
A judge eventually overturned their convictions, the charges were dropped, and they were released in 2022.
A Chicago police badge hangs in front of the City of Chicago Public Safety Headquarters on December 1, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Galvan and Almendarez will each receive $20 million, and Nañez would receive $8 million.
Another $5 million settlement was up for consideration for a woman who claimed Chicago police officers refused to help her after she was locked out of her home in the cold in February 2021.
Briana Keys, the plaintiff, said she was wearing a bathrobe and was experiencing a mental health crisis, although that was not known to officers at the time.
She was later diagnosed with frostbite. Both of her legs were later amputated below the knees. A city attorney said there was conflicting testimony over whether officers actually declined to help Keys.
The council voted 36-13 to approve the settlement amid a lengthy debate over the state of millions of dollars in police misconduct settlements paid by the city. The total settlements approved so far this year have already exceeded the $82 million budgeted.