Facing the worst city budget crisis in decades, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is gambling on parking meters -- and the bet could prove expensive for Southern California drivers.
Villaraigosa hopes to auction off meters as well as six city-owned garages and use the money to save his effort to expand the Los Angeles Police Department and preserve other city services.
The mayor points to Chicago, the only other major city to follow that privatization path. That city's mayor, Richard M. Daley, has turned four parking garages, 36,000 parking meter spaces and the Chicago Skyway toll road over to private companies, receiving $3.5 billion for the long-term leases.
But to make their investment profitable, those companies raised meter rates to $3.50 an hour in choice spots earlier this year, triggering a driver uprising that left meters mangled by tire irons and coin slots filled with Super Glue.
Some Los Angeles City Council members, who will begin considering the mayor's plan Monday, are skeptical of the Chicago experiment. A year ago, the council approved a rate increase for L.A.'s 41,000 meters -- the first in two decades. Auctioning the meters off now would be foolish, some members say.
"We're selling property at the bottom of the market; what a stupid idea. If we were stockbrokers, we'd be in jail with Bernie Madoff," said Councilman Greig Smith. "This is fool's gold."
Some members are also reluctant to part with $28 million in annual meter revenue that helps pays for parking projects in their districts
So far, the council's budget committee has proposed closing the city's $530-million shortfall by laying off 800 city workers, mandating 26 furlough days and eliminating further police hiring. Because of normal attrition, a freeze on hiring would lead to roughly 500 fewer police officers within a year.
Villaraigosa calls that unacceptable and has pushed the lease idea as an alternative. How much it could bring in remains uncertain. Villaraigosa plugged an $80-million figure into his 2009-10 budget, but administration officials expect the gain to be substantially larger, depending on how much property is auctioned and how the deal is structured.
Along with the meters, Villaraigosa's lease proposal includes city garages in West Los Angeles, downtown and Hollywood, as well as structures at Pershing Square and Hollywood & Highland.
