Latest Indianapolis Parking Meter Report Proves Privatization Is A Public Rip-Off

Watching a recent meeting of the Public Works Committee of the Indianapolis City-County Council where members received a 2015 report on the revenues generated from the privatized parking meter assets, one would have gotten the impression the report was all good news. As the council members read over the report and discussed it with DPW Director Lori Miser, they were careful not to discuss the numbers out loud so the viewing public could understand what they were actually reading. The council members seemed thrilled with the report, but after obtaining a copy of it, Advance Indiana doesn't think the numbers look so great.

Total parking meter revenues in 2015 came in at $9.96 million, or roughly the same as what they generated in 2014. The City's share of the total revenues was pegged at $3.7 million; however, there is the matter of waived revenue. Under the terms of the 50-year parking meter lease with ParkIndy, the City is required to reimburse the private operator when meters are taken out of use for purposes other than civic-sponsored events. That provision of the lease agreement allowed the private operator to capture $266,831.00 of the revenues otherwise payable to the City, which means the City actually netted less than $3.5 million from the parking meters compared to the nearly $6.5 million the private operator pocketed. The City netted more than $3.3 million in 2014.

When the City originally privatized the parking meter assets, the private operator paid an initial $20 million concession fee to the City for the 50-year lease. As you may recall, about a third of that amount got kicked back to Ersal Ozdemir's Keystone Construction to build a new mixed use parking garage in Broad Ripple in exchange for all of the campaign contributions he showered on former Mayor Greg Ballard. The parking meter fund is supposed to be used for sidewalks and infrastructure improvements in the area where parking meters are located. So where was the more than $6 million paid out of the fund spent this past year?

You'll be happy to know that the largest expenditure from the fund went to Bollore's Blue Indy, that illegal and corrupt exclusive, electric car sharing business our former mayor awarded to the French-owned company as another kickback scheme for his corrupt cronies. Blue Indy received $2.757 million from the fund of the $6 million the City committed to awarding the company. The balance came from the Rebuild Indy fund. The fund also kicked back nearly a half million dollars to cover maintenance expenses on Georgia Street, the city street-turned private venue that is operated by Downtown Indy under a lease agreement that apparently allows the nonprofit to pocket all of the revenues while the parking meter fund is tapped to cover its maintenance expenses.

The City's parking meter fund also spent about $719,000 in sidewalk improvements for Milhaus Properties' private development project at the site of the old Bank One operations center. The fund also was tapped for $425,000 on improvements for three segments of the Cultural Trail along Washington Street, Alabama Street and Virginia Avenue. Over $521,000 was spent on street, curb and sidewalk improvements along Pennsylvania and Alabama Streets. Over $100,000 was spent on a study to determine appropriate timing for left turns/pedestrian crossings within the mile square. Over $110,000 was paid to attorney Robert Glennon in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain approval from the IURC in an IPL rate tariff case for LED street light conversion. Walker Research got paid $75,000 to conduct a parking study for Downtown Indy. About $30,000 was funded for streetscape improvements around the Artisty, Cummins and Flaherty & Collins 360 Market project. So I guess council members were so happy with the revenue report because their campaign contributors were being taken care of, even if the taxpaying public is not.