Private Company Stepping Up Parking Ticket Citations

The private company that paid the City of Chicago $1.15 billion over 75 years to take over the city's parking meters is stepping up its efforts to issue parking tickets for parking violators.  The company, Chicago Parking Meters, LLC., was forced to stop issuing tickets last year after a slew of complaints starting coming in from the public about faulty meters and a flawed system.  However, they have recently hired a private firm to start issuing parking tickets.  From June 21 to July 14 they issued 1,345 parking tickets, mostly in the downtown Central Business District.  What's interesting is that these tickets were issued by 5 ticket writers.  The company is planning to hire 15 additional ticket writers by the end of this year.  All of the fine collected by these tickets will go to the city.  The company is hoping that the ticket writing campaign will increase compliance with the parking meters, which currently stands at about 75%.  In recent years, the number of parking tickets issued by employees of the City of Chicago have been dropping.  This has been happening at the same time that the economic slowdown has caused a hiring slowdown with the Chicago police.  The trend has been continuing this year. Through June 30, 225,838 parking tickets have been issued by City of Chicago employees.  During the same period last year, 258,057 parking tickets were issued.  In spite of these figures, the deal to privatize the meters has been a financial success for everyone involved.  The company is expecting to bring in more than $73 million this year.  Before the deal, the city was bring in about $20 a year from the meters.

For more information about the Chicago criminal defense attorneys at Legal Defenders, P.C., visit us at www.thelegaldefenders.com or call us anytime at 1-800-228-7295.