WHAT ASSETS COULD THE CITY SELL?

WHAT ASSETS COULD THE CITY SELL? In the Mayor’s preliminary 2010 budget he raids the $320 million “rainy day fund” of $267.7 million. This fund was created from the sale of the lease for the privatization of Chicago parking meters. When the City sells assets like future revenue from parking meters or tolls from the Skyway, we can never recover the economic opportunity lost of all those quarters being paid to an outside stakeholder. The city needs to sell public assets that do NOT cost us potential revenue by their sale. By that I mean we should sell naming rights to buildings, streets and departments that have their names in the news a lot. The resultant publicity and advertising would be a benefit to the company that bought the name. For instance, the name of the seat of Chicago government on La Salle Street could be bought by a well known greeting card organization and be re-named City Hallmark Cards. Wacker Drive is named after Charles H. Wacker. Chairman of the Chicago Plan Commission, Wacker endosed the Burnham Plan in 1909 to unify the city's urban design and increase its physical beautification. So when the roadway was completed in 1926, they named it after him. Besides his family and some historians, who cares what the double-decker roadway is called? I found two billion dollar companies that might be interested: Wacker Chemie AG and Wacker Neuson, a global manufacturer of high-quality light equipment and compact construction machines. If Willis the insurance company paid to change the name of Sears Tower, maybe one these “Wacker” companies would pay to have the street name amended. Another possible source of revenue is to charge businesses a “licensing fee” if they use the word Chicago in the name of their company. Oprah does not allow people to use her name without permission, why should the City of Chicago allow it? If a for-profit business wants to proclaim that they are in Chicago it should cost them. I have a friend named Cindy Park. If she could collect enough money maybe she could get the Chicago Park District’s name changed to the Cindy Park District. She’s an attorney at Drinker, Biddle. It sure would give her great name recognition in rainmaking! Everything is for sale. We all have a price that just needs to be determined at a particular moment in time. Posner Pier sounds good; I wonder if $1,000 cash would do?