Hosey: Mayor’s landlord lands ‘loser’ parking deck

Maybe it was true that nobody else was interested in buying the Scott Street parking deck besides the mayor’s landlord, but it didn’t look like anyone tried too hard to find out.

A few months ago, the mayor’s landlord, developer John Bays, was pretty close to buying the parking deck. But at then the council got cold feet and decided they should at least make the appearance of letting others know it was up for sale, not that it made any difference.

“We received no inquiries whatsoever from any other business or entity even interested in acquiring this property,” said City Manager Jim Capparelli.

That did nothing to stop the city council from opening the deal up to bidders, of course, but why complicate matters when Bays was already right there with his wallet out?

Besides, the parking deck is supposedly in such a state of disrepair that the repair bill will approach $1 million. Or as Capparelli put it, “There’s a certain point where an asset becomes a liability, and at this point we’re not selling an asset, we’re divesting ourselves of a liability.”

Yes, divesting the city of this liability by letting Bays buy it without anyone else even submitting a bid was such an obvious course of action that even Councilwoman Jan Quillman voted for it, and we know how she feels about landlords. Or maybe it’s just landlords of single-family residences. Or Quillman might only take issue with landlords who are foreigners.

Either way, Bays doesn’t have those problems. He’s an American who speaks English, and he got Quillman’s vote along with those of four other council members.

Bays only had to pay $151,000 for the parking deck, which doesn’t seem like much. Especially when you look at the way they paid $49,000 more than that just to get fired City Attorney Marty Shanahan to go away. But it’s a buyers market when there’s only one buyer, and that one buyer didn’t seem to think much of what was for sale.

“This parking deck is a loser, mayor, you know that,” Bays said. “It’s always going to be a loser.”

But losing, like winning, isn’t everything. Not when you’re trying to make Joliet great again.

“I put my money where my mouth is,” Bays said. “I put back in the — mayor you know that. You rent from me. I spend millions and millions of dollars trying to help you, because I know you want to rebuild your city. I’m just trying to help you before my days are over.”

How many millions of dollars has Bays spent trying to help? Well, he’ll tell you.

“I have spent $150 million in Joliet in the last eight years,” Bays said.

Wait — $150 million in eight years? That seems like an awful lot. After all, the New York Mets only paid two time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom a little more than $82 million for the last eight years, at least according to Baseball reference.

On the surface, it seems as if the Mets got more for their money than Bays did for his. And now he’s ready to drop another million just to straighten out a “loser” parking deck, one his tenant the mayor cleared the way for him to pick up on the cheap in what might not have been such a bad deal after all.

“I will make the parking deck beautiful for you,” Bays told the mayor and city council. “You’ll see. It’s going to be way better than any parking deck you’ve got.”

• Joe Hosey is the editor of The Herald-News. You can reach him at 815-280-4094, at jhosey@shawmedia.com or on Twitter @JoeHosey.