Special Reviews

The Office of the City Clerk produced records showing that digital residential daily parking passes were included in a documented modernization plan for the Clerk's Sales Application Suite.

The August 2024 to December 2025 Statement of Work describes Digital Residential Daily Passes as a project intended to let residents purchase and activate guest daily parking passes on demand, without waiting for a physical sticker to be printed and shipped. The same statement of work says the system would be integrated with enforcement so that, when a license plate is scanned, enforcement can determine whether someone has a valid daily pass.

The project timeline listed Digital Daily Passes with a targeted completion date of October 2025.

The records also show other modernization work, including EzBuy Guest online sales, SMS renewal reminders, DataOne API upgrades, vehicle make and model assignment upgrades, system documentation, training, and support for the Clerk's Sales Application Suite.

A March 2025 supplemental statement of work said the 2024 budget period ended with an overage of $301,761.25 and requested $280,361.25 in additional funding. The stated reasons included implementation of legislation in the Sales Application Suite, Dog Licensing program complexities, and the DataOne API upgrade. The supplemental funding also included earmarks for EzBuy Guest Phase III, the Vehicle Make/Model Assignment Upgrade, additional maintenance and support, additional documentation buildout, and Google reCAPTCHA.

A January to March 2026 supplemental statement of work then extended support for the legacy Sales Application Suite and included WebServices security updates, technical and project documentation, EzBuy accessibility updates, and minor EzBuy and OTC enhancements.

This does not prove from these records alone whether digital daily parking passes fully launched, were delayed, changed in scope, or remain in progress. It does show that digital daily parking passes were part of an official modernization plan, had a target completion date, and were connected to broader technology work that continued into 2026.

In its September 25, 2026 FOIA response, the Illinois Secretary of State released agreements and supporting documents describing the Chicago City Clerk's access to driver and vehicle information.

In a July 22, 2024 letter, the Clerk's Office states that its Data Services and Audit and Verification divisions use Secretary of State databases for license plate, registration, and driver's license verification. The letter also describes using registration information to identify vehicle owners and title information to determine when residents become subject to the wheel tax.

The release includes a 2022 bulk-data agreement and a separate online-access agreement with signatures extending into May 2025. These are distinct forms of access. The older bulk agreement alone does not establish the current status of bulk-data sharing.

The records also describe resident-service uses. A 2022 statement says the office uses state information to support online sticker sales and proactively verify age for senior discounts.

The Clerk's published instructions allow in-person purchasers to present either a courtesy renewal reminder or a state vehicle registration card, along with photo identification and proof of current address. For creating or correcting a vehicle record to enable online purchasing, the office asks residents to submit registration and identification documents.

When can the Clerk verify vehicle information through its existing state-record access instead of requiring the resident to supply a registration document?

The records reviewed do not explain which purchase channels or employees can perform that verification, when an electronic match is sufficient, or which circumstances require additional documents.

Chicago Municipal Code Section 3-56-030 requires an applicant's name, address, a vehicle description, and any other information the City Clerk may reasonably require. That section does not expressly require the applicant to present a registration card.

This review has not established when the registration-document requirement was adopted or whether it originates in another ordinance, an administrative rule, or an office policy.

Existing government records may offer opportunities to reduce paperwork when information can be reliably verified. Additional documentation may still be necessary for recent purchases, conflicting information, out-of-state records, or other circumstances. The office's criteria for making that distinction remain unclear.

I submitted a FOIA request to the Department of Finance seeking existing records about whether parking-permit modernization ideas could interact with Chicago's parking meter concession agreement.

The request focuses on whether proposals such as digital permits, prepaid parking access, daytime corridor permits, special access permits, bundled permit options, or other resident-focused parking reforms could trigger compensation, valuation, change-in-use, or other issues under the parking meter deal.

The goal is not to relitigate the entire parking meter agreement. The goal is to understand what room the City has to modernize everyday parking services for residents without creating avoidable financial or legal problems.

This matters because Chicagoans should be able to ask practical questions about parking reform before proposals are dismissed as impossible. If there are limits, residents deserve to know what those limits are. If there is flexibility, the City should use it carefully and transparently.

The current snow plan says that when less than about half an inch of snow is expected and icing is not expected, DSS may respond with about a dozen trucks working their regular shifts.

But the overnight policy is what caught my attention.

On September 24, 2026, the Department of Streets and Sanitation reported no responsive records for our request concerning snow and ice operating practices during the 2009-2010 and 2014-2015 winter seasons. DSS stated that the requested timeframe falls beyond its records retention policy.

The response does not identify the applicable retention schedule, specify a retention period, or explain whether historical materials may be available through another repository. This production therefore does not support a comparison of operating practices across those winters and current operations.

Source: "9_24_26_Schulz_FOIA_Letter_Signed (1).pdf," page 1.

DSS requested five additional working days on a separate request received September 18, 2026, stating that the requested records had not been located during its routine search and that additional efforts were underway. The letter does not state an explicit response date.

Extension received; records search ongoing.

Source: "9_24_26_Schulz_Extension_Letter_Signed.pdf," page 1.

In Kooperman v. City of Chicago, 2019 IL App (1st) 171056, the Illinois Appellate Court addressed a street-cleaning ticket issued after a driver had parked legally before temporary signs appeared.

The court rejected the interpretation that posting a sign on the day of ticketing was sufficient. It interpreted the street-cleaning ordinance to require at least 24 hours of posted notice before ticketing, providing reasonable notice to drivers who had parked legally before the restriction was posted.

This is a notice requirement for the City. The decision does not expressly direct residents to inspect their vehicles or nearby signs every 24 hours.

The holding concerns street cleaning. This review does not assume that the same ticketing rule automatically governs every kind of temporary parking restriction.