City clerk says Lightfoot nixed plan to abolish her office in favor of working together to reduce punitive fines

Mayor Lori Lightfoot campaigned on a promise to abolish city stickers along with the office that sells them.

But, City Clerk Anna Valencia declared Friday that Lightfoot has abandoned that cost-cutting promise, in favor of working together with the clerk to eliminate the Denver boot for non-moving violations and bring equity to an overly-punitive ticketing policy that has unfairly targeted minority motorists and forced thousands into bankruptcy.

“Everyone … who has run for mayor has said abolish the city clerk’s office and city treasurer’s office. It’s something that people talk about in political and campaign speeches. But, once you get into governing, it’s a lot different than campaigning,” Valencia told the Sun-Times.

“Mayor Lightfoot and I had a lovely discussion a couple weeks ago after the swearing in. And there are a lot of things that we want to work on together. Fines and fees, reforming some of the city sticker practices. … I think she has a lot of other things going on. We’re in a really good place.”

Does that mean Lightfoot has given up on the idea of asking the General Assembly to abolish the offices of city clerk and city treasurer now held by two other women of color?

“I think so. If she’s going to Springfield, I think it’s going to be making sure we get capital money,” Valencia said.

Lightfoot was non-committal when asked about her cost-cutting promise to fold the two elected offices and transfer their responsibilities to existing city departments.

“We have to figure out ways that we can find efficiencies wherever,” she said.

“We’ve got a very good working relationship with both the treasurer and also the city clerk. And they know this is an issue of great concern to me. I don’t like redundancies. So we’ll be talking about ways in which we can work cooperatively going forward.”

Earlier this week, a task force spearheaded by Valencia gave Lightfoot a roadmap to reform the city’s punitive system of fines, fees, ticketing and towing.

Their recommendations included:

• Eliminating the Denver boot for non-moving violations.
• Reducing the $200 city sticker ticket and, perhaps, basing the fine on a motorist’s ability to pay and establishing a so-called “fix-it” ticket where motorists have time to comply before facing fines.
• Lowering the bar for entering into a payment plan — either by reducing the down payment or basing it on ability to pay.
• Re-evaluating the late-fee structure and ending the punitive practice of doubling tickets for non-payment.
• Eliminating the overnight winter parking ban on more than 100 miles of arterial streets and imposing it, only when it snows or when snow is forecast.
• Eliminating the “employment barrier” that has prevented city scofflaws from being hired by the city or any other agency of local government.

On Friday, Valencia made the case for all of those changes and more.

“What you’re trying to do is get people in compliance. For non-moving violations, why are we going so hard on people — whether it’s booting or impoundment? Selling their cars for $200? License suspensions? All because you didn’t buy a city sticker or you had a non-moving violation?” the clerk said.

“If you’re driving under the influence or you’re speeding, you should be held accountable. But if you’re parking in a zone and it didn’t have the proper signage or there was weather,” the policies are too harsh.

To underscore the point, the clerk recounted the sad story she heard during a town hall meeting on the West Side.

A CTA bus driver with a wife and five kids got a city sticker ticket, then another one. But, they weren’t coming to his house. They were going to the wrong address. By the time the violation notices arrived at the right address, the bus driver had nearly $5,000 in city sticker debt because of compounding penalties.

“He had to get 50 percent down to get on a payment plan. That’s $2,500. Who has that laying around?” Valencia said.

“When that didn’t happen, he lost his CDL license and lost his job as a CTA bus driver. How is that fair? ... And how does that help the city to have that family on the West Side without a job?”