City stickers: naming rights, commemorative versions among money-making suggestions from aldermen

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to raise taxes on gasoline, computer services and property, followed by annual property tax increases tied to inflation, has aldermen wracking their brains for revenue-raising alternatives.

SHARE City stickers: naming rights, commemorative versions among money-making suggestions from aldermen
Two of the 10 designs submitted by high school students in 2010 for a new city vehicle sticker.

In 2010, the city held a contest for the design of its vehicle sticker and residents cast their vote for one of 10 designs by Chicago high school students. Now, aldermen are looking at what appears on the stickers as a chance to bring in revenue and avoid raising taxes.

Sun-Times file photos

If companies like Guaranteed Rate and United Airlines are willing to spend millions for the naming rights to sports stadiums, why not ask driving-related businesses if they’d be willing to pay for the right to put their name on Chicago city vehicle stickers?

Northwest Side Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st) posed that question to City Clerk Anna Valencia Tuesday as the clerk took her turn on the hot seat at City Council budget hearings.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s pandemic plan to raise taxes on gasoline, computer services and property taxes, followed by annual cost-of-living property tax increases has aldermen wracking their brains to find revenue-raising alternatives.

“For years, we’ve had kids and people design our city stickers. Would it be feasible or even possible by contract to offer that to major corporations? Some of these corporations pay millions and millions of dollars to put their names on a stadium for a five-to-ten-year contract,” Napolitano said.

“It would be a way to generate revenue for the city of Chicago if an industry could put their name on the city sticker as a sponsor for a year contract and have their logo on hundreds of thousands of vehicles.”

Valencia responded: “That’s a unique idea. I don’t think I’ve heard that one.” She promised to explore the idea and “get back to” Napolitano.

Ald. Nick Sposato (38th) had another idea.

“Somebody recommended to me that, just like the license plate, we do commemorative city stickers. Is that something you’ve ever considered or would you consider that? It could be a multitude of different things, just like the license plates are. You’ve got a multitude of different license plates you can get,” Sposato said.

“It would be zero cost to us and it could be a revenue generator for us and help various causes.”

Once again, Valencia said she has never considered Sposato’s idea, but she was open to it. She promised to “get back to” the alderman.

Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) chimed in with a proposal for “graduated” city sticker fees and residential parking permits. The more vehicles you have, the more you pay for each. Lopez called it a way to discourage families from having “five or six vehicles” that “seem to go nowhere.”

In 2005, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley asked a consultant to draft a game plan for a host of “municipal marketing” ideas.

They ranged from selling the naming rights to libraries, senior citizen centers and the Chicago Skyway — before it was leased to private investors for 99 years — to putting corporate logos on snow plows, salt spreaders, pay and display boxes and solar trash compactors and electric light boxes that operate streetlights.

Five years later, Daley tried to launch the program by turning bridge houses along the Chicago River over to private companies during major holidays to decorate and display their corporate monikers.

None of it ever happened.

Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2012 budget assumed the city would rake in $25 million in revenues from “municipal marketing” and sponsorship deals that turn city assets into money-makers.

He subsequently took a political beating for wrapping the Wabash Avenue bridge house in a temporary Bank of America ad that architecture critics considered cheesy.

Emanuel responded by appointing an eight-member panel of experts to pass judgment on specific sponsorship deals.

That’s the process that allowed a pair of advertising giants to put up 34 electronic billboards along Chicago area expressways and a host of advertising at O’Hare and Midway Airports.

Also during Tuesday’s budget hearing, aldermen from across the city sang the praises of the municipal ID known as the CityKey, even though many of them opposed Emanuel’s decision to create the program.

“I was totally against it. Now, it works so well,” said Ald. Carrie Austin (34th).

Aldermen Harry Osterman (48th) and Maria Hadden (49th) suggested expanding the ID program to include high school students, calling the ID invaluable. Lopez suggested the city start charging $5 for the CityKey to reverse deep cuts in her proposed budget. Valencia rejected that idea, but said she’s open to a corporate sponsorship.

Valencia also outlined her three-year, $3 million-to-$5 million plan to bring the City Council into the 21st Century.

Phase One includes creating a “digital portal” allowing aldermen to introduce ordinances and seek co-sponsorships electronically and cast their votes electronically.

Phase Two includes data sharing with city departments that now inundate the clerk’s office with paperwork that takes “two or three days” to process. Phase Three would bring “real time electronic voting” to City Council committee meetings and tackle the language barrier for Chicagoans who don’t speak English.

The Latest
Busch found an unconventional way to score in the Cubs’ loss to the Rangers.
The acquisition of Tamarack Farms makes Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge a more impactful destination and creates within Hackmatack a major macrosite for conservation.
The man was found unresponsive in an alley in the 10700 block of South Lowe Avenue, police said.
The man suffered head trauma and was pronounced dead at University of Chicago Medical Center, police said.
Another federal judge in Chicago who also has dismissed gun cases based on the same Supreme Court ruling says the high court’s decision in what’s known as the Bruen case will “inevitably lead to more gun violence, more dead citizens and more devastated communities.”