Chicago Tax Revolt

It has begun.

“After more than 20 years here I’m done, just done. Our condo is for sale and when it does, we’re outta here. In one last act of defiance, my wife is going to drive our car and intentionally get a red light ticket with photo/video - we’ll have the plates disguised. When the video/photo is viewed, they’ll see my bare ass pressed against the back window accompanied a couple middle fingers. We’ll then drive out of town for the last time.” - Chicago Tom

When I lived on Clark and Belmont, there was a spot on Clark Street that had no parking meter. It had been ripped off or something. That was the aptly named “coveted spot.” When I was able to get that spot, usually on a Sunday morning at 6:00 AM, I’d find any way to not move that car. I'd walk more, turn down work, whatever it took to keep that spot. It was the proverbial “Free Parking” spot on the Monopoly board that is the City of Chicago. That was in 1996. It's gotten a whole lot worse.

Today, my friends in Chicago are faced with an increasing burden to fill the coffers of a perpetual budget shortfall. The tax burden is taking Chicago from a remarkably fun and livable city into a hostile battleground for wallets.

• Between the unjustified 10.25% County Sales Tax - which is the highest in the country.

• The privitization of parking meters - where the fines and fees were in place before the infrastructure to accommodate those changes.

• There's a proliferation of Robo-Camera-Cops who's aim went from red light runners to insurance checks to speeder cams in the course of a half a week.

• The streets are a sea of unfilled holes - a result of scaled back snow removal, unless, that street will be on the path of a visiting Olympic Official. Of course.

• All in a State that is increasing income taxes and fees faster than they railroaded Rod out of office.

Why? Well somebody has to pay for all the cousins and cronies running the city, right? Clout, graft and corruption doesn't pay for itself you know? Hey, Just last week Streets and Sanitation chief Al Sanchez was found guilty of four of seven counts of mail fraud, having been accused of reinventing hiring rules to reward political allies.

There's a swell of backlash that's building.

It's not "vote with your feet" which, since the housing situation, has been harder to accomplish. Vote with your feet has been the historic American response.

This backlash is more violent this time. And it's only just begun.

By handing over municipal parking meters to a private company, the City of Chicago has given its citizens a colossal case of sticker shock. The cost of most meters will quadruple by 2013.

By playing by the rules, a driver in Chicago who inserts a quarter to their meter will find that it now only buys seven minutes. A single meter might require 28 quarters to park for two hours. (Sun Times). That meter might have been a single quarter for an hour a week or two ago.

In the deal, Pharaoh Mayor Daley II rammed through his pliable City Council in 48 hours allows the foreign company, LAZ Parking, to keep all revenue from the meters while the city keeps all cash from parking tickets when meters expire.

Parking tickets reap six, seven, even eight times more than what meters bring in. But - what if people start refusing to park at meters, or boycott them, how will they get ticketed? And how can the city hope to rake in that revenue?

And what about those folks who are forced to park at meters? At first, it seemed just random or coincidence when a broken meter was spotted. There’s no big surprise in finding a broken meter in Chicago–they’re everywhere, just like when I lived in the city.

But the number of broken meters seem to be increasing. Websites and Facebook updates are littered with folks advocating everything from a simple boycott, to using pennies or nickels to fill up the meters to capacity and render them inoperable–at least temporarily.

But then it shifted. That's when it went into another direction.

Spray paint.

An entire block of parking meters, numbering nearly 20, were spotted along west Irving Park in the Albany Park neighborhood, that had both the front and back of their heads spray painted black. Once spray painted, these meters are unreadable by Parking Enforcement Aides and therefore, vehicles can’t be ticketed as it’s impossible to see if the meters were fed or not.


Defacing, or Decal Removal

LAZ Parking’s new decals have been removed in a concerted effort along Lincoln Ave. and other streets in the Lakeview neighborhood, leaving long stretches of meters without any instructions on how and when to feed the meters. This leaves the meter without the proper information required by law to be an operational parking meter. A motorist could easily contest any expired meter ticket on these meters because it doesn’t exhibit the proper information.

“In some cases, these decals just peel right off the front of the meter with little or no effort. When these stickers were originally applied, the weather was very cold and it seems the adhesive didn’t adhere correctly. These stickers just come right off. They also appear to be too big to fit into the recessed area they are being placed in. Yet another case of someone in charge not knowing what they are doing.” - Brian

Super glue, Meters broken or damaged, overfed with pennies

One individual calling his or her self “Illinois Patriot,” is calling for direct vandalism attacks to disable parking meters.

“WE, the people, need to start fighting back! Here are some ideas to fight back:,” states Illinois Patriot in a communique to The Expired Meter.com. “A good shot of expanding foam should feed the meter’s coin slot nicely. Don’t get caught… Epoxy putties and VHB sided foam tapes show additional promise for field expedient mayhem and merriment.”

Now, we at Blasphemes NEVER condone the destruction of property or vandalisim. However, we seem to have not the beginning of a boycott... it looks more like the beginning of - dare I say -

ALL OUT REBELLION!

Rock on.

Hey, wasn't someone in Chicago talking about a tea party the other day?