Ever a sporting fellow, mayor Daley musters his best "insurgent face" for the cameras, as if to show how dastardly alleged terrorists can appear, especially without thier Metamucil.
Chicago's Mayor for Life, Richard M. Daley, has sent his emissary to Washington DC to lobby President Obama to house the Gitmo prisoners in Chicago. The undisclosed emissary has the Mayor's agreement to grant the 240 prisoners work-release jobs in the new parking meter concession for the city. Mayor Daley has dubbed his latest profit-seeking offering "Git Mo' Chicago".
Daley plans (with Obama's help) big things for these offshore prisoners. They will become the method by which the city drags itself out of the financial crisis it is in. One parking meter at a time. Each detainee will first be renamed by the Mayor's Department of Culture. They will be responsible for all collections and the installation of new meters in their districts.
The city has over 5,000 meters at present, most of which are working somewhat the way they should. Each of the new 240 districts will be asked to "find" new meter locations. Suggestions that will easily double the number of $2/hour meters will be in the parking lots of churches, side street strip malls, libraries and hospitals.
Lining up after this initial parking lot take-over by the city will be all the grocery store lots for Jewel-Osco, Dominick's, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.
But, with the help of the city's new parking consultant, Dick Cheney and his new consultancy, H2O Board, there will be a concerted effort to bring back the former parkers on Chicago's business district streets. These people, who still park in residential streets close by the businesses they frequent, will be expertly led back to parking at the city's meters. Details of the methods of convincing which will be used by the detainees were very first-draft sketchy when presented by Mr. Cheney at a news conference in city hall. The phone hook-up from his undisclosed location faded in and out during the conference.
When asked by EBBQ about what types of incentives would be offered to the former parkers, Mr. Cheney answered "I am not at liberty to say currently, but I can assure you that this will not be my normal shotgun approach to matters." And then the video transmission seemed to fade out into quite a snowstorm on the screen.
When connections were reestablished in City Hall, Mr. Cheney continued "These men have been schooled at their previous location in the finer details of control, to say the least. My associates at H2O Board have made sure of this. There will be very few parkers who will not want to return to their previous on-street metered parking. In fact, I can now guarantee that there will be a marked two-fold increase in the amounts of time they will spend in their parking spaces. Chicago can take that to the bank. I am currently writing the standards for the use of deterrent devices to convince parkers where they will want to park."
As the video went to snow again, Mr. Daley came to the microphone himself and smiled at the assembled press. "I am so hopeful that this campaign will be accepted by the President. It will put to rest the abhorrent amount of torture that these men have endured in their sad lives. But the silver lining here is the gigantic increases in parking revenues that Chicago will receive."
Another question was offered to the mayor. "What incentives will you give to the churches to hand over their parking lots to the city for parking?"
"Well," began the mayor, "we will give back half of the parking revenues during church hours. It will be just like a collection plate works. People will pay half of their parking fee to the collection plate in the church and then they will pay the detainees the other half as they drive out of the lot going home. We think that's very fair for the church."
A follow-up question followed. "What about use of the lot during the rest of the non-church hours?"
"Ah, yes. That will bring in revenue only to the city. The detainees will collect all of the meter whenever a church is not in session."
A new press question: "Mr. Mayor, that's well and good for the church issue, but what about the other lots where usage isn't as infrequent as the church? Hospitals use their lots 24 hours a day. Libraries and strip malls use more normal business hours. How will you incentive these places?"
"Of course, we will need to have a way to make these places happy. I see your point. I wish that our link to Mr. Cheney hadn't been lost. I know he will have a great solution to this issue. May I get back to you on this?
"Wouldn't you guys rather talk with these two detainee girls we've hired to publicize our campaign? They are ready to answer any questions. More so than I am."
