Chicago parking meter lawsuit may leave city with a 9-figure fine

(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The City of Chicago may be on the hook for a parking ticket worth more than $100 million, due to action taken by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration during the pandemic.

In 2008, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley made a deal with the private company Chicago Parking Meters (CPM), under which the city was required to compensate CPM for meters taken out of service for things like street festivals, repairs or new bike lanes — which costs the city about $10 million per year with some consistency.

The deal, though, also included a clause that the city could be held liable when city action leads to a reasonable expectation of drops in the entire parking system’s value. CPM says that happened at least twice during the height of the pandemic, due to Lightfoot’s supposed lax enforcement of meters and the former mayor’s decision to alter designations between city and CPM revenue for thousands of spaces.

City appraisers say those factors resulted in an estimated $120 million drop in the system value, but appraisers for CPM say the drop in value was more than $320 million, according to the Chicago Tribune .

CPM demanded payment in a lawsuit the company filed against the city in April 2024. On Friday, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration released a statement that read, in part, the city was vigorously defending itself in the matter.

Arbitrators have already awarded $2 million, plus interest has already been awarded by arbitrators over Lightfoot’s decision to halt parking meter enforcement in the early days of the pandemic, a ruling that the Tribune reports is being challenged by Johnson’s law department.

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