As we leave behind the difficulties and tumult in local government during 2010 for the hope and opportunities of a new year, we offer the following quotes from among our favorites for your delectation, indifference, or revulsion…depending on your point of view:
“That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.” Thomas Jefferson
“The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.” John Kenneth Galbraith
“A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.” Theodore Roosevelt
“Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits.” Edmund Burke
“The [big] lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.” Joseph Goebbels
This coming year also brings with it the election for all seven members of the Park Ridge City Council and for various members of the boards of Elementary School District 64, High School District 207, and the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District are only 95 days away. Which means you have 95 days to get to know the candidates so that you can exercise a meaningful choice at the polls on April 5th.
Remember:
“It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.” Justice Robert H. Jackson
Happy New Year!
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7 comments so far
Happy New Year to you, PW.
I would interpret your selection of quotes as (1) encouraging smaller local government (2) through a different way of thinking about it (3) and an honest, realistic way of talking about it (4) that recognizes the limits on our resources and (5) the big lies we’ve been told (6) because our citizens start paying attention and keeping our local governments from screwing up.
How’d I do?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Not bad.
VG
How is it that the Aldermanic “races” are so uncontested as compared to the Park Board or the School Board races? With 4 uncontested races and one race with no one on the actual ballot I/we are left to wonder where are all of the folks who bitched about the airport, city finances, homeless shelters, the state of the TIF; the list goes on.
How are we to get to know those running in the uncontested races since, with no opposition, they have little incentive for them to get out and talk about themselves or their views? I guess you have to give them all some credit for tossing their hats in the ring and going for it but how are we to know what we will get until we get it? I guess in 5 cases it really doesn’t matter.
Here is hoping people at least get out and vote, regardless.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Well, the 3rd Ward has gone from a history of having only one candidate running uncontested to having no candidates running at all. Well done, 3rd Ward. And we are aware of only one contested race in the 2nd Ward in the past 10-15 years, in 2003, so that’s no hotbed of democracy, either.
Nevertheless, we hope that those candidates running unopposed make a reasonable effort to communicate their positions on the issues with their constituents; and that they take part – albeit as private citizens – in debates on the issues that occur in the Council between now and election day.
“Well, judging from Taste Inc.’s first-ever Form 990 [pdf] filing in March of this year, Taste Inc. is sitting on $65,221 in surplus assets just from last year’s TOPR event. If Taste Inc. does that well this coming week, it theoretically could have a $130,000 campaign “war chest” with which to help finance aldermanic candidates in next April’s municipal election”……………Gee, I am going to have a hard time picking from all the TOPR financed candidates!!!!!!!!!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Since the last pre-election contribution reports aren’t due to be filed until July, whether or not any candidates are “financed” by Taste Inc. (or by Taste Inc. “insiders,” whether or not using Taste Inc. funds) won’t be known until then. And if Taste Inc. stays on last year’s schedule, its 2010 IRS Form 990 won’t be filed and made public until March, so we won’t even know how big its “war chest” is until then.
Of course, if Taste Inc. hadn’t elected to voluntarily dissolve its original 501(c)(3) corporation in 2009 (after 4 years of operation without appearing to ever have filed an IRS Form 990 despite generating gross revenues in excess of the $25,000 threshold for which filing is legally required) and then re-incorporating a few weeks later as a 501(c)(6) corporation that is legally permitted to use its funds for campaign contributions and for lobbying, there wouldn’t be the kind of circumstances that raise such suspicions.
Taste is typical – they’re all for small government when the needy are concerned but they’ll happily take public funds to help finance the repuglican candidates they support.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve never heard the folks who run Taste Inc. speak in favor of “small government.” To the contrary, Mr. Iglow (Pines) seems quite fine with the City’s spending $50K or so to improve the facade of the building his establishment inhabits, which doesn’t sound like “small government” to us.
For that matter, we haven’t heard Messrs. Iglow, Galus or Bruno express any opinions publicly that might identify them as either Dumbocrats or Republican’ts. And we still haven’t discovered even one City issue that has/had a clearly-defined “D” or “R” position to it.
Jim Bruno is listed as a “past” committee member on the ToPR website
That’s what I said: They’re in favor of themselves getting public monies.
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