Despite $1.9 million investment, Cook court parking fees abandoned

No one was fond of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle's plans to charge a parking fee at the county's six courthouses, but it was the unions that finally got her to relent.

“It became a collective bargaining issue,” Preckwinkle said during a budget presentation this week. Union employees balked at paying to park, so “we're not doing it,” she said.

But the work has gone on.

County officials have spent $1.9 million at the parking garages of the five suburban courthouses, including those in Rolling Meadows and Skokie, and at the main criminal courts building at 26th Street and California Avenue in Chicago. And more work remains.

Preckwinkle defended the ongoing project as a way to make the parking facilities more secure and less susceptible to vandalism.

“To date, all civil work has been complete,” Preckwinkle spokeswoman Karen Vaughan said. “The only remaining work required to control and restrict access will be installation of gates at the entry and exit points, and some signage.”

Defense lawyers decried Preckwinkle's plan when it was introduced nearly four years ago, arguing their clients would be the hardest hit by the planned charge of nearly $5 a day at the Rolling Meadows courthouse.

“There's no other place to park and we don't have the wealth of public transportation options one might see in the city,” defense attorney William F. Kelley said. “What were these poor people's options other than to park at that garage? It's not as if parking is limited there. In my 30 years, I have never been unable to find parking.”

Assistant Public Defender Calvin Aguilar said the paid parking saga rattled a lot of cages at the courthouse when it was introduced. Even as various public employee groups and visitors like jurors and witnesses were made exempt under newer plans, the grumbling continued.

“My understanding was we weren't going to be exempt,” Aguilar said. “Not only were they looking to charge indigent people, but that's a steep price for a public employee.”

The county board approved the Parking Access and Revenue Control System in 2011. It was intended to make money from county-owned parking lots that weren't already charging motorists, which included hospital lots.

It's unclear how much of the $1.9 million the county has spent so far went toward improvements at the suburban courthouses' parking facilities.

At Rolling Meadows, a few concrete islands have been constructed where electronic gates will eventually be located. There's a covered stall where visitors can pay for a locker to store computers, phones and other electronic devices forbidden in courtrooms. There is new fencing and gates for the judges' parking lot.

There's also a “parking operator building,” but now no one will be hired to staff it, Vaughan said. The prefabricated units will be “repurposed” and sent to county-owned parking lots that do require on-site attendants, she said.

The contract also called for a number of electrical and paving upgrades. But the paid parking was intended to eventually cover the cost of all the new installations.

“I know they're always looking for ways to make money, so of course they'd try to pass it along to us,” said Julie Damasky, a legal assistant for a private law firm who visits the Rolling Meadows courthouse two to three times a month.

“I'm glad they're not doing it now.”