This, of course, is not the first time Daley succeeded in failing to privatize public utilities. His failure to sell Midway Airport and his selling of the Chicago Skyway after spending $250 million to repair it so that everyone, even people who do not live in the city, can feel the almighty pinch of big city politics and this new rate debacle all are just a small part of a long series of “controversies” (failures) caused by Mayor Daley. His lack of the ability to make tough cuts is what both keeps him popular and perpetuates his pattern of failure. By going for quick fix solutions such as leasing major public utilities for 75 years he gets just enough cash to put a very small band-aid on the states budget problem. I am not sure if the man does not care or is simply ignorant to the problems these leases cause and will continue to cause to the citizens of Chicago. Both businesses and the drivers will suffer as a result of these harsh rates which will result in nothing more than less revenue for both businesses and the city for the sake of a small patch on the states budget problems. Never mind the confusion and frustration from the phenomenally higher meter rates (somewhere around6.50 an hour at the loop), there’s plenty of clear reasons why the political blunder is a grave one indeed. Daley’s almost monarch like power has allowed him  to push through this seventy-five year leasing with only seventy-two hours for the city council to decide on it. Most (sane) people would say, “That’s crazy! That’s not enough time to make such an important decision in only three days”. Imagine if you were given only three days to work out a mortgage for your house! Most of us agree that’s not enough time for something so important, that more time and effort should be made to make sure that this is the best deal possible and that we’re not getting ripped off. But I guess that Alderman Richard Mell chooses to skims over the fine print of his mortgage agreements and insurance policies because, as he says, “How many of us read the stuff we do get, OK?, I try to. I try to. I try to. But being realistic, being realistic, it’s like getting your insurance policy. It’s small print, OK?”. I’m not sure if I agree with you Mr.Mell, since you are supposed to be looking after the interests of the people it is in your best interest to read the “small print” because if you or another political representative miss something important in the fine print then it’s not you who suffers, it is all the citizens you represent. At the very least, it seems that you should have given a week to the idea of leasing all the parking meters in the 3rd largest city in the United States. By rushing this lease they fail to realize that they sold the meters at 45% lower than their value to the city, could have made 1.54 billion by simply raising the rates themselves and should have found alternatives to the leasing of the cities meters for 75 years!

Of course if Daley himself had raised the rates this high he would have been kicked out of office because nobody would feel very happy paying 6.50 an hour just to park their car. So what does he do instead? He leases out the meters so, hopefully, when people are angry at these insane rates they will be too stupid to put together that he was the one who sold the meters in the first place. Basically, Daley is trying to avoid getting the heat from fixing the city’s deficit through budget cuts by leasing the meters for a measly 1.2 billion. He is looking out for himself instead of the people of Chicago, trying to make the voters think he’s looking out for them when he’s looking out for his role as Mayor. If Mayor Daley is really working with our interests at heart then why is he so murky about the workings of the leasing? “But even as city officials celebrated privatization agreements for Midway Airport and the meters, both worth billions of dollars, they refused to release the most basic information about how they’d been reached—such as which firms had bid, how much they’d offered, and short-or long-term cost-benefit analyses. Both plans were hustled through the City Council in less than a week. As one alderman told the Reader, but not for attribution, during a hearing on Midway: ‘Somewhere in this deal we’re getting screwed. I just can’t figure out where yet.’” If this is all in good faith then why not explain whats going on with the leasing of a public utility as important as parking meters. But this is not the case, he is trying to to prevent people from seeing just how recklessly he is leasing the meters out, how badly he wants to lease it out to “show” the people he is trying to fix the deficit. If there were actual transparency in Chicago politics this would have happened.

But without transparency people fail to see that there are other alternatives to leasing a public utility for almost a century. “Hoffman said city officials should have examined other alternatives, such as a shorter-term lease that split parking revenues with the private operator. A 20-year deal that divided revenues equally with the city would have generated an upfront payment of as much as $444 million. That would have plugged the budget gap while averting the “large long-term loss” the 75-year lease is causing”. This is clear example that there are alternatives to huge rate hikes and loss of business for the next 75 years. But who can blame the City Council? With only three days to decide on the lease I doubt anyone could have given much thought into alternatives. But of course Daley and his friends want it that way. By giving them only three days to view it was passed without second thought. By doing this Daley looks like he is trying to plug the deficit when really he just put a band-aid on it. He saves himself from making the tough decisions that he should be doing as Mayor such as cutting school budgets and public services or something else to actually truly fix the budget. While this would make him unpopular (as he very well knows) this is the only way to make a lasting dent in the budget. But instead we get a very poor (and short term) fix and Daley stays popular with voters while average people continue to suffer from these insane rate hikes!

But the results of this lease don’t end there. The consequences of this are far more than just angry Chicago citizens and higher rates. The results will be a loss of revenue for both businesses and Chicago. On June 30th 2009, the city of Oakland, California, decided to raise its parking meter rates from $1.50 to $2.00 an hour. A choice which had dramatic consequences. “Oakland is now one of the most expensive places to park in the Bay Area, and business owners said the changes have chased away customers. One of the hardest hit streets is Lakeshore, where business revenues have dropped by 30 percent, according to owners. ‘Shop in Oakland, and get a parking ticket, this is the city’s strategy,’ Michaan said.” This dramatic change in Oakland, resulting in many businesses struggling to make ends meet and pay the rent, were caused by a mere fifty cent rise in meter rates. Imagine the effect that Chicago’s 75 cent and, in 2016, $1.75 rate hikes will have on the city. The results could be catastrophic. And some politicians are still in the dark and continue to believe that this is a good thing for business ” ‘You cannot have a thriving neighborhood retail district with no turnover in parking spaces’, he (Thomas Tunney 44th district Alderman) said. ‘So we need to have more meters.’ ‘Meters are for customers. . . . Meters are for economic activity. Meters are to promote business.’ It seems that Thomas Tunney believes sky-high meter rates are good for businesses and that they are good for customers. He couldn’t be any far from the truth, higher rates only cause problems and hurt both customers and businesses and we can already see the problems this has caused. “Chicago is sending out its own mechanics—and billing the private company now responsible for operating parking meters in the city—in a belated effort to catch up on a torrent of problems that include broken meters and inaccurate signs about parking rates and enforcement, officials said Wednesday. Indications of a more urgent approach to fixing the problems became apparent Monday morning when the Tribune observed meter inspectors and repair personnel working downtown.” The problems will only get worse. This is the first part of a very long and painful time for retailers and customers in Chicago. At a time when a global recessions in place the city continues to make shopping in Chicago even harder by quadrupaling meter rates. We need to see that leasing out public property such as meters and roads is not the right way to fill the budget gap.

There is no turning back. The ink is dry and the lease is final. For 75 years the meters will be in the hands of corporate entities who will enjoy  monopolies on Chicago’s meters and hike rates as they please, while the customers and business owners of Chicago will suffer. What we must do is confront Mayor Daley and his friends with the fact that leasing something as important to the public as roads and parking meters with the purpose of filling a multi-billion dollar budget deficit will not work. We need to tell our politicians to stop dragging their feet make the tough decisions they need to in order to actually close the budget gap. If we continue down this path we will only see a future Chicago drowning in debt while its citizens struggle under the yoke of Skyway-high tolls, parking fees and maybe even traffic ticket violations. We need to tell politicians, like Daley, that we can no longer take these poor attempts at filling the budget which hurt everyone and only aid the politicians and the companies now in charge of the meters. We need to tell Chicago politicians that they serve us and are supposed to look after our interests not their own. If we do this we can make sure that we fix the budget without sacrificing the lifeblood of Chicago.

And when Frank Pasquale isn’t busy helping the lives of children who don’t exist, he spends his free time taking campaign contributions from red light camera companies! No need to double read that last sentence you read that right, “On April 3, 2006, HSBC gave $500 to the political organization of Frank Pasquale, the mayor of Bellwood, which was soon to become RedSpeed’s first customer. The banking giant had never before written Pasquale’s campaign a check and has never done so since, state records show”. Frank Pasquale, the mayor of Bellwood, who talked about how great red light cameras are and how helpful they have been, received a check for$500 from HSBC. Now you might be (and probably are) thinking, “What’s HSBC got to do with it?”. Well HSBC is short for The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, a banking group based in Britain. The connection is as such. The Sales Director of RedSpeed, the largest operating red light camera company in Illinois, Greg Zito has been a longtime lobbyist for HSBC in the Illinois area, meaning that he has both a good relationship with HSBC in terms of himself and RedSpeed. RedSpeed is also the exclusive operator of red light cameras in Britain and probably has business deals with HSBC (one of the largest financial institutions in the world). So what’s good for RedSpeed is good for HSBC, and if Pasquale took a $500 campaign contribution from HSBC he took a $500 campaign contribution from RedSpeed and told everyone how great red light cameras are. Sounds a little odd right? Now, I don’t think that neither Frank Pasquale nor HSBC or RedSpeed are involved in some kind of conspiracy to get the whole world to use its red light cameras. This is merely a clear example of the corruption that can occur with this poorly regulated system of letting municipalities place red light cameras wherever they please. There are multiple examples of corruption when it comes to red light cameras. It is clear that the current system is a wrong one that puts the cities and companies in front of the people who should always come first.

If you think that the red light cameras and $40 fines for taking your case to court is crazy then you should see the stuff that was too crazy to put in the bill! Frank Pasquale and McCampbell in their video about red light camera practices talk about the things they would want to be added to the bill later. 1.They want even higher fines for running red lights (and failing to turn on red) 2.They want to use the cameras to catch speeders as well. These may not seem to strange unless you compare them to what the new bill allows municipalities to do. 1.They no longer have to identify who is driving, all they need to do is see your license plate and then the bill gets sent to you 2.They can use it to check expired license plate stickers so now your not coming to a “full” stop on red just cost you an extra $100-150! 3.They don’t have to use the court system to deal with your fines. Instead the city makes an “administrative junction” (a sub-branch of their legal administration) which will gladly give you lots of wonderful tickets in a very quick and efficient (for them) manner. So if you put it all together you can be seeing fines of up to $500 or more for one trip to the grocery store. Sure the red light companies aren’t robbing you (technically), they’re just enforcing the  law. But where does it end? Perhaps the cameras should be used to catch jaywalkers who fail to “stop” and look both ways before they cross the street. Having a problem billing children? Not a problem. Simply create an “administrative junction” so that way it is not the child’s fault it will be the legal guardians problem for failing to teach them how to cross the street “properly”. Now your little student can bring back both a report card and a fun ticket from the city for “breaking” the law. Who will have some sense and decide that a system which tickets people a hundred dollars for violations that do not improve safety isn’t in the interest of the people, it’s in the interest of the city? Who will step up to the plate and say, “I don’t think it’s in our best interest to tax citizens for traffic violations without evidence that it helps improve safety”?

Well, luckily, some cities are finally seeing the truth and realizing that unfair taxing is wrong and have taken down at least some of their red light cameras or are reviewing their use. For example, Schaumburg’s Mayor, Al Larson, has taken down it’s biggest moneymaker and canceled plans for more of them. Due to, as the Schaumburg Freedom Coalition described, “political preassure”, the mayor ended the controversial plan after receiving many negative comments about the cameras as well as the genius of the Schaumburg Freedom Coalition in organizing protests and waging a campaign against the controversial plan (kudos to them). Des Plaines Mayor, Marty Moyla, has also made the right decision in questioning the legitimacy of red light cameras and has asked the Des Plaines Council to review the placement of it’s cameras. Even Illinois lawmakers are feeling the burn from drivers all over the Illinois suburbs and are considering changing the current law regarding the (questionable) placement of red light cameras in a way which Illinois Representative Jim Durkin described as, “strictly a moneymaking mechanism”. These are hopefully the first of many who will realize red light cameras need to be used to protect, not to swindle, the people of Illinois. If more groups like the Schaumburg Freedom Coalition were to protest in every city then the Mayors of those cities would stop counting their all their delicious red light money and remember that their job is to protect and look after the interest of the public, not the interest of the treasury.

This doesn’t mean that red light cameras are some kind of sin which needs to be purged from this earth. But what both sides need to remember is that red light cameras, when used correctly, can and will help lower accidents, save lives and yes increase revenue for the town in question. What people like Frank Pasquale need to do is make sure that red light cameras are placed in places with high accidents and in areas where red light running is a problem, not in places where large volumes of traffic move through simply to get large amounts of revenue. Review boards for red light cameras, eliminating court “fines” (extortion) for people who believe they did nothing wrong and lower fines for rolling stops at red lights is the right way to give municipalities a source of revenue without injuring the innocent citizen who did nothing wrong. By making sure that red light cameras are properly regulated we can save lives without hurting people and punish the drivers whose ignorance threatens the lives of others. Through regulation, we can change red light cameras from a tool for the city to a tool for the people.

A Quick Summary

• Recent legislation now allows towns in Northwest Illinois to Place Red Light Cameras at intersections to catch violators.
• 80% of Red Light Violations are rolling stops (as opposed to blowing through an intersection).
• Few accidents result from failing to stop before turning on red.
• Cameras are rarely placed at high accident locations.
• Traffic cameras are usually placed in areas where they are most likely to generate high amounts of revenue.
• Bellwoods questionable placement of red light cameras is proof of states using red light cameras for revenue instead of for safety.

Recent legislation in the Illinois House has allowed municipalities in Illinois to put red light cameras at intersections which if you fail to stop at a red light, you get a wonderful $100 fine. Isn’t that great? I think that everyone would love to wake up with a nice envelope from the city stating that yesterdays drive to work just cost them a hundred dollars (which if you work at McDonalds just cost you about two days worth of work). Cities say that the cameras are their only for our safety and “we wouldn’t put them there just to catch people“. However, I start to suspicious when 80% of these violations are from not coming to a full stop when turning right on red (also known as a rolling stop), a crime where an “average motorist could drive a billion miles — the distance from Earth to Jupiter and back — before being involved in an accident that resulted from a motorist making a rolling stop on a right-hand turn”. If places such as Bellwood are placing red light cameras in low collision areas to make money then they should just admit it. What their doing isn’t illegal, they are simply enforcing the law. Of course they’re not going to admit it because nobody likes to be paying a hundred dollars a ticket if they know it’s not making anything safer but simply lining the mayor’s pockets.

There’s a set of youtube videos involving Roy McCampbell, the manager of Bellwood, talking about the importance of red light cameras and the best ways to implement them. He stated that red light cameras are needed because of a recent accident at Manheim and Maddisson that killed four people, that because of this the “mayor and village board saw the value in continuing to pursue automated traffic enforcement in the general assembly”. And it seems that he would be right except out of the eight red light cameras in Bellwood none of them are at that intersection. Well Mr.McCampbell, that makes it sound like your not putting cameras up for the people as much as for the money. Folks, this is whole idea of red light cameras on every single streetcorner is a misguided scheme to help save lives at best, or a way to take money from your pockets at worst. It gets more suspicious when McCampbell states that people in Bellwood are given 40$ legal fee if they take their ticket to court and lose. Now he says the fine is for “legal fees”, but what I hear when he says that is “intimidation”.What kind of BS is giving people a fine if they don’t think they’ve violated any rules? Bellwood makes tons of money from citations given using the cameras and they can’t handle their own “legal fees”? If you make money from the cameras the first thing you should do is use the money to help people who fall through the cracks in your system, not punish them!

On the other hand, Bellwood does a lot of things most people wouldn’t agree with, such as spying on their own citizens. If you think red light cameras are bad imagine 200 cameras down your street, on every corner and in every store all being monitored and recorded by your favorite people the police. That’s right folks, if you take a walk down Bellwood you may notice that there are wireless cameras in every conceivable location except the inside of your house. If you thought President Bush’s wiretapping program was an invasion of privacy how about the ability to record everything you say and do in every location outside of your home. Of course don’t assume you have privacy once you step into a cafe or a grocery store because they can watch you in there too. If anyone wants to have a George Orwell festival I would recommend Bellwood. Because now for your “safety” police officers can turn on their computers and see what you’re buying! If you enjoy having privacy in your life I would recommend shopping in Bellwood with a bag over your head. At least until they put fingerprint scanners on all public surfaces. And it’s these same people who are saying that now cameras are needed at intersections too for civilian “safety”. All I’m trying to say is what works in Bellwood might not (and probably wont) work outside of Bellwood.

However like most politicians, Frank Pasquale, the mayor of Bellwood, tries to put a positive spin on it by saying “We would not put them on streets just to catch people” and that it is “key to strategically place (red light cameras) by schools park district as well as intersection where we’ve had several accidents”. And if you’ve been living in a cave or stuck on a desert island for a while then you would think that what he says is true, all red light cameras are not simply their to catch people, they’re in places where pedestrian safety is key, and that people like Mr.McCampbell “dont want to see abuse of this system”. If you were to actually go on the Internet (or make a computer out of coconuts) you would see there’s multiple pieces of evidence showing red light cameras are being placed mro for money and less for safety. And that they are, quite often, in place “just to catch people” and have been placed with as much strategy as a three year old playing chess. The greatest example of this is when Mr.McCampbell talks about the red light camera near the center of Bellwood, more specifically 25th and Harrison. He uses this intersection as an example of the revenue that red light cameras can generate for cities because 25th and Harrison generates 5000$ every day per direction, he compares it to the “lotto or casino type operations”. On the surface, it would seem Bellwood found a way to make money by enforcing the law. But if you looked up the history of 25th and Harrisson you would find there’s little need for a camera there. First of all it only intersects three ways instead of four, reducing the chances of collisions. And the back of it faces an elementary school, which was one of the arguments for the placement of the lights. But there’s only one problem with that, the school has been closed for a year, no school, no children and no need for a light. So how exactly is this intersection raking in so much cash? The answer lies in its close proximity to the Eisenhower Expressway. Most of the people who go through the intersection are either coming or going to or from the expressway and since most of the people coming/goin through are not from the city they are, as Mr.McCampbell stated “less likely to return and complain about it”. Considering that 50% of the infractions from this intersection are right turn on red infractions and since statistics show that right turn on red has an insignificant effect on pedestrian safety it’s obvious that there is no real safety reason for putting this camera here. Congratulations to Mayor Pasquale, now the lives of many imaginary elementary school children will be saved thanks to this traffic camera and of course the $70,000 monthly revenue can now be used for more safety improving projects like wireless cameras in your kitchen to make sure you’re only deducting taxes on things that are actually used in your business (where cameras already are) or putting fingerprint scanners on every piece of public property so the police can actually get real time data on what a criminal is currently touching and little chips that go under the chips of children so parents can have more time for themselves instead of keeping track of their children.

Part Two Coming Soon