The New York investment firm seeking to acquire Chicago’s parking meters tried Thursday to endear itself to a skeptical City Council that must approve the deal.
James Wyper, a senior managing director at Stonepeak Partners, found himself on the same side as City Council members seeking to force Mayor Brandon Johnson “out of hiding” at the start of the Finance Committee hearing.
He did that by reiterating that Stonepeak had waived a non-disclosure agreement that Johnson has used to shield himself from questions about the bid he submitted — then abandoned — to take back the 36,000 parking meters that Mayor Richard M. Daley famously unloaded in 2008.
Citing “industry intel,” Wyper also disclosed that the Johnson administration offered the current owners of the city’s parking meters, Morgan Stanley, Allianz Capital Partners and the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Abu Dhabi, $3.3 billion to buy back the meters.
That’s triple the $1.15 billion that Chicago received from the 75-year lease in 2008, and $800 million more than the $2.53 billion bid submitted by Stonepeak.
Earlier this year, Johnson announced that City Hall had dropped out of the competition to take back Chicago parking meters after determining that the asking price “would have made a bad deal even worse.”
Wyper described the city’s bid as “imprudent given what we know about” the city’s precarious finances. The city’s bid would have been financed by “municipal bonds funded against the city’s cash-flow stream,” Wyper said.
“We were very surprised. We assumed for some time that the city wasn’t interested or capable of raising that quantity or magnitude of funds,” Wyper told the Finance Committee.
At least 22 City Council members sent a letter to Johnson June 8 saying they were planning to reject the sale after accusing Johnson of withholding critical information from the Council, and secretly agreeing to a June 30 deadline to authorize the transaction. The deadline has since been postponed until July 24.
Some of those alderpersons were furious to learn that Johnson submitted a bid that dwarfed Stonepeak’s — without a word to City Council members. Ald. Nicole Lee (11th) said that bid was made at a time when the Council was “fighting for every penny and loose quarter, and looking under every couch cushion” to close a budget gap.
“No transparency. No conversation with the Council. The heart of the problem that we’re having here is the lack of transparency and, I won’t even say degrading of trust. There isn’t any,” Lee said. “To put this before the Council with a decision this big — it’s really offensive.”
Wyper also threw the City Council a bone when it comes to the portion of the widely-despised parking meter deal that requires the city to compensate Chicago Parking Meters LLC, the private investment consortium formed by Morgan Stanley, Allianz and Sovereign Wealth, for every parking space taken out of service either for a special event or construction project.
He promised an “open line of communication” aimed at working with the city to reduce or even eliminate those annual payments, which topped $13 million in 2025 and cost taxpayers $41.4 million since January, 2019.
“That has not existed historically and does not exist today. It is crazy that, time and again, the city has not availed itself of the myriad existing abilities to avoid true-up payments,” Wyper said. “Correctly managed, we should be in tight dialogue about what the city wants, how we can better deliver that under the existing concession, and how we can help you all look good.”
The appeasement approach extended to the controversy created by Stonepeak’s 2025 acquisition of Omni Air International, which has provided “long haul” deportation flights for the Department of Homeland Security during President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration enforcement campaign.
“The activities of ICE under the current administration could not be more abhorrent,” Wyper said. “I have direct family who is a Latin-American, asylum-seeking immigrant in this country, whose parents could not come visit. I could not be more apoplectic… I hate this. This is not the business we bought. “
In documents provided to the City Council, Stonepeak has said it “continues to evaluate all other contractual and strategic alternatives available with regards to Omni, including the sale of our Omni subsidiary or its business with ICE.”
The pledge to explore a sale did not satisfy Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), co-chair of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus. Vasquez told Wyper to “spare me the bleeding heart routine.”
“I’m trying to understand why… you all haven’t just ended any contracts and any association if you hope to have a conversation, because for a sizable contingent of this Council, it is a non-starter to even talk about,” Vasquez said.
As the four-hour hearing drew to a close, Wyper apologized for what he called the “political situation” now confronting a City Council that must decide whether to accept or reject the sale of the remaining 58 years of the deal that Chicagoans love to hate.
“The way that it has all played out is the worst possible way. You all have not been informed adequately,” Wyper said.
“This is obviously an asset that has been controversial for quite some time… There is general consensus for how that played out for the city… We’re trying to buy some parking meters. We didn’t want you to take some heat… I’m personally disappointed and apologize… that we created a situation in which nobody wins.”
The soft sell seemed to work with Finance Chair Pat Dowell (3rd), who found the hearing “enlightening — not just on the proposed transfer but on the process.”
“I’m heartened that there seems to be an openness for how we can make this better for the taxpayers,” she said.