Availability Bias:

The decision to privatize the parking meters seems to be plagiarized with an

overestimation of the probabilities of privatization as the city's longtime mayor, Richard M.
Daley, is such a keen enthusiast of privatization and he has promoted privatization as the
budget solution for every government in the land. In recent years, Chicago Mayor Richard
Daley has implemented groundbreaking privatization strategy relying on long-term leases
of city assets, generating billions of dollars to boost the city's fiscal health. Hence in the
current economic crunch, when faced with situation of higher tax increase or dramatic
reduction in services offered by the government, the Mayor Richard Daley has been able to
turn parking meters into an attractive private sector investment. Daley’s “hurried, high-
pressure” argument was that “the money was needed to fill a gaping, two-year budget gap”
and "If they start leasing public assets—every city, every county, every state and the
federal government—you would not have to raise any taxes whatsoever, You would have
more infrastructure money that way than any other way in the nation." , but the Chief
Financial Officer Gene Saffold reports that the Mayor was swayed by temptation of entering
into privatization in order to receive large, upfront payments that solve short-term financial
problems without considering the other viable options and their implications. Thus motivated by
the previous memorable events, i.e. the success of the Skyway privatization, the Mayor Daley
entered into parking meter deal, thus biasing his decision on the availability of previous evidences.

Hindsight Bias:

The Mayor Daley words that “the transfer of the Chicago Skyway and the downtown
parking garages to concessionaires had proceeded without incident and that if the city did
not have the cash infusion from the parking meter concession, "you're talking about a
serious economic crisis for Chicago”, seems to reflect an hindsight bias about the
predictability of success of the privatization deals. While the mayor boasts his
groundbreaking privatization strategy, Comparatively, on July 31, 2009, just six months
after the infusion of privatization funds into the city budget, Mayor Richard Daley's
administration predicted a gaping hole in next year's budget that will eclipse the current
financial problems -- even after the city exhausts its brand-new $320 million rainy day fund
reserved from the privatization deal. Furthermore there is little or no evidence as to the
long term implications of the deal. This clearly reflects the Mayor’s overestimation about
the predictability of the success of the deal, and the decision to privatize thus suffers from
hindsight bias.
The decision process: Individual vs. Group

An inherent feature of the governmental proceedings is the mandatory group decision

making process which entitles the benefits of greater knowledge input and higher level of
commitment. The decision to privatize the parking meters was meant to be a collaborative
process requiring comprehensive utilization of various resources and attaining the optimal
decision through majority ruling. On the contrary, most elements of group decision making
was ignored in this process. The “gathering step” of group decision making, which involves all
participants acknowledging each other's needs and opinions and tends towards a problem solving
approach in which as many needs and opinions as possible can be satisfied, was totally ignored. As
many aldermen pointed out, there was little time left for public discussion or scrutiny of the
parking-meter lease agreement. Only one City Council Finance hearing and one full Council meeting
were devoted to the lease’s discussion. There was no public hearing where City residents, civic
organizations, or other interested parties could comment on the lease. Another element of group
decision making process, Sub-committee, which involves assigning responsibility for evaluation of a
decision to a sub-set of a larger group, which then comes back to the larger group with recommendations
for action. But, on the contrary, as critiqued in the IG report, the ordinance that approved the lease was
not completed until one day before the City Council Finance Committee voted on it. The only
documents the City Council received were the lease itself, the ordinance enacting the lease, a 10
page PowerPoint presentation that provided a general overview of the lease, and a flow chart
detailing the corporate structure of Chicago Parking Meters, LLC. The decision to enter into long-
term leases of the City assets is something that cannot be done behind closed doors if the public is
going to have full faith in City government. In order to evaluate the administration’s decision-
making, both the City Council and the public need time and detailed information to study potential
agreements. Furthermore, there was no participatory element in the decision process. There was
only two days between, the announcement of highest bid and the city council approval process
which thwarted any meaningful scrutiny of the deal. The absence of these vital elements frustrates
the basic foundations of group decision making processes. Despite being clothed with the 40-5
majority approval for the deal, in reality the decision was highly influenced by the dominant clique,
Mayor Daley, and it can be critiqued as being an individual decision process rather than a
collaborative effort. Having foregone the elements of group decision process, there was no
thorough independent review of the deal, as well as there is a lack of transparency. Transparency is
a highly crucial factor when the public interests are at stake; hence this lack of transparency raises
questions about the validity and integrity of the deal. Furthermore, the high centralization in
decision process leads to under utilization of resources as well as suffers from perception biases of
the decision maker.