Ex-governor brought in amid parking-meter flap
Jim Thompson among big legal guns being hired
Under fire and investigation from all sides, Chicago’s embattled parking-meter contractor is bringing out the big legal guns.
Former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson said today that he and four other lawyers from the law firm of Winston & Strawn were hired this week by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure and Chicago Parking Meters LLC to “interact with the mayor's office, the City Council and the attorney general.”
LAZ Parking, the designated operator of the meter system, has hired the clout-heavy law firm of Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw,Thompson said. Mayer Brown partners include two former Daley chiefs-of-staff and once included the mayor’s brother, Bill Daley.
At a City Council hearing last month, the contractor was represented by attorney Jack Guthman, whose expertise is in zoning.
“Our immediate concern is responding to the appropriate requests for documents from the attorney general, the City Council and the mayor’s office,” Thompson said. “After that, we’ll turn to what happened and why. I hope, as a lawyer, to look at it in a calm and rational way …. I haven’t been on it long enough to assign responsibility for anything. Ultimately, we’ll come to the right conclusions. But you’ve got to give us a few days.”
Steep rate hikes and operational problems ranging from over-stuffed and improperly calibrated downtown meters to broken pay-and-display boxes have turned the deal into a nightmare for drivers and a political headache for aldermen who approved the deal by a 40-5 vote.
Last week, Attorney General Lisa Madigan jumped into the fray, launching a consumer-fraud investigation and issuing subpoenas to Morgan Stanley, Chicago Parking Meters LLC and LAZ Parking.
That investigation was launched at the request of Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th), a former assistant attorney general who has accused the company of fraud for continuing to take money from people who parked at meters the company knew were mismarked and overcharging.
On Tuesday, city Inspector General David Hoffman issued a blistering report that concluded that Chicago’s 36,000 parking meters were worth nearly twice as much as the $1.15 billion Mayor Daley got for the city when he pushed through a 75-year lease, without, according to Hoffman, analyzing what the system would have been worth had the city raised rates and kept the meters.
Running for cover from angry drivers, some aldermen have suggested cancelling the parking-meter deal.
Asked today whether he thinks there are grounds to terminate the agreement, Thompson said, “I have no idea. I don’t think the mayor is interested in cancelling the contract, from what he said. Obviously, the mayor would like all operations to run right. That’s the desire of CPM and Morgan Stanley as well.”
William Daley Jr., the mayor's nephew, works for Morgan Stanley Public Finance as an executive director and investment banker. He has said that is a separate entity from the parking-meter group and that he played no role in the meter deal.
Morgan Stanley was also chosen to lease the city’s underground parking garages downtown, under a 99-year lease for $563 million.