The City Clerk's office press conference Monday morning immediately went to the dogs.
The theme of the 2009-10 Chicago city sticker is "Dog Friendly Chicago," and this year's winning design, courtesy of Corliss High School senior Denise Ferguson certainly reflects that.
In fact, the city had a 12-week-old dog, Bert, on hand to further emphasize this point.
But as City Clerk Miguel del Valle began his press conference, the Doberman/German Shepherd mix puppy, unfamiliar with press-conference protocol and, of course, still not house broken, decided to do his business right on floor of City Hall.
The Clerk, to his credit, hardly skipped a beat as the offending interruption was quickly cleaned up to polite laughter, and he went on to officially introduce the city's new and vastly improved city sticker for 2009-10.
The biggest and most impressive improvement is that the new city sticker also includes your residential parking permit (if applicable to your residence). So instead of having two decals on your windshield, now you have one.
In addition, the new sticker is bad news for counterfeiters, as the Clerk's office has introduced three main improvements.
First, like in the above graphic, your license plate number will be listed on the sticker. In addition, if you are in a residential permit parking zone, that number will be listed, too.
The sticker also has some reflective printing and bar coding to make sure it's legit. So you may want to think again if some squirrelly dude in a dark alley has a few "extra" city stickers to sell you for cheap.
The only problem with a city sticker with your license plate printed on it will be if your license plate gets stolen. The police recommend, in the instance of a stolen plate, you replace the plate with a new plate number, so the former plate won't get you in trouble once it's reported stolen.
However, the Clerk's office will replace the sticker with the old plate number at no cost to the driver, according to information coordinator Kristine Williams.
"The person must bring in proof of originally purchasing a sticker (receipt) as well as police report documenting the stolen plates and bring in their new license plate information," explained Williams. "We can then replace the sticker at no cost."
The Clerk's office has made some investments in technology that will allow for faster printing and delivery of city stickers and guest passes. Starting this year, your city sticker will come in a self-mailer.
The 2009-10 city stickers will be available for purchase online via the City Clerk's Web site, Wednesday, May 20. Del Valle is hoping to double the number of sticker purchases online from last year's "sticker season."
Next week, nearly 1.3 million renewal letters will go out to current city sticker owners in the largest renewal mailing in city history, according to del Valle.
Another new improvement for this year is that drivers living in residential parking zones will be able to purchase daily guest passes online.
Or, if you're old school, you can still purchase your sticker in person starting in the beginning of June by coming to City Hall or to any of the city's payment centers. In addition, for an additional $5.50 fee, you can obtain your city sticker at your local Currency Exchange or at participating Dominick's and banks.
Aldermanic ward offices will also host city sticker sale dates. Check the schedule here to buy your city sticker at your alderman's office.
Ultimately, the goal of the Clerk's office is to offer staggered expiration dates on city stickers like license plate stickers, so as to not be as stressful or chaotic as a one-date deadline every year.
"We want to move away from a one time annual sticker purchase," said Williams. "Depending on how this year goes our goal is to have [staggered expiration dates] out in the next two years. This (improvement in printing and purchasing technology) is the first step to get us to that point."
Check out The Expired Meter for even more information and advice about parking, fighting parking tickets and red light tickets in Chicago.