Three-Ring Parking Meter Circus

In ring #1, on the heels of Tuesday's blistering report, issued by the city's Inspector General's Office, the Chicago City Council met to debate and ultimately approve a 15-day period of review on any future large-scale privatization deals.

Originally, the proposal introduced by Ald. Tom Allen, was for a 30 day review period and the IGO's report recommended a 60-day period to discuss this type of proposal, but before bids were submitted.

Super-heated discussions by council members, on the broader subject of the parking meter lease deal, basically broke along party lines. Obviously, since there's only Democrats sitting on the city council, the party lines refferred to are between Daley loyalists and independents/less loyal Daley supporters.

Next, the spotlight moved over to ring #2, where Mayor Daley came out to respond to the IGO's critical report and the way his administration pushed the parking meter lease deal.

Daley claimed, despite giving the City Council two days to debate and vote on the lease deal, and withholding pertinent data and financial analysis, that the process was transparent and not rushed through the council.

Finally, in ring #3, the Sun-Times reports that Chicago Parking Meters, LLC and LAZ Parking is bringing out the big legal guns to help guide them through the parking meter mine field they've stepped into.

CPM/LAZ has hired the law firm of Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, and specifically, brought former Gov. Jim Thompson to represent them.

"Our immediate concern is responding to the appropriate requests for documents from the attorney general, the City Council and the mayor's office," Thompson said. "After that, we'll turn to what happened and why. I hope, as a lawyer, to look at it in a calm and rational way .... I haven't been on it long enough to assign responsibility for anything. Ultimately, we'll come to the right conclusions. But you've got to give us a few days."

Finally, even though the audiences had left this parking meter big top, and the cleanup crews were pushing brooms to sweep up the sawdust and animal dung, Inspector General David Hoffman late in the day came back to answer Daley's earlier remarks.

"We stand by our report and encourage people to read it." Hoffman said in a one-sentence statement, according to the Tribune's Clout Street blog.

Whew! What a day.