The Agenda for the Park Ridge City Council’s June 21, 2010, meeting contained three different items related to the City’s O’Hare Advisory Commission (“OAC”), including a resolution for the adoption of an advisory referendum question for the November 2, 2010, election about whether the City of Park Ridge shall support the efforts to stop the expansion of O’Hare Airport; and a discussion about hiring legal counsel for that effort.

No member of the OAC addressed the Council on any of those items.  In fact, it appears that no member of the OAC was even in attendance.

So yesterday’s article in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Airport panel feels shut out of referendum decision,” June 29) causes us to wonder more than a little about the motives, and even the good faith, of certain members of the OAC.

According to that H-A article, OAC Chairwoman Jennifer Perry and members Christine Kutt and Gary Ziols were highly critical of the Council for not consulting with OAC on the referendum question.  Kutt suggested the OAC was formed to create “the illusion that [elected officials] care,” while Ziols said he intends to resign from the OAC in disgust that the Council has not acted on OAC’s proposed mission statement.

So why weren’t any of them at the Council meeting on June 21 to express those sentiments?

It can’t be because they didn’t know about it, as these items were on the agenda.  The City Staff’s liaison to the OAC, Steve Cutaia, even authored the memo about the resolution.  And we can’t believe Ald. Don “Air Marshall” Bach – or Ald. Jim Allegretti, who wanted to give OAC $250,000 in this year’s budget – wouldn’t have given them a heads-up.

So why weren’t they there?

Perry’s complaint about the referendum question as passed by the Council focuses, not surprisingly, on the inclusion of the $500,000 figure – even though that was the figure OAC had hoped to get in the City budget this year!  She believes (along with Alds. Allegretti, Bach and Wsol) that such a dollar amount will turn off the voters and prevent them from letting the City Council know their view on the really important issue: whether O’Hare noise solutions are important to residents.

Well, Ms. Perry, while the referendum is still over four months away, we’ll clue you in: O’Hare noise solutions are important to residents…but only if those solutions are realistically achievable, and without bankrupting the City.  And guess what?  Noise solutions have been important to a lot of residents for those many years prior to November 2008, when it first became important to you and many of your fellow Belle Plaine corridor folks. 

But we get the sense that most residents aren’t all that impressed with the likely effectiveness of much of what the OAC has proposed, especially when what we all would like – less noise and pollution – is vigorously opposed not only by the City of Chicago, but also by the State of Illinois and even the federal government (as evidenced by that recent $410 million for O’Hare runway construction).  While Air Marshall Bach says we need to fight O’Hare with “everything we’ve got,” we get the sense most residents feel we’ve already “been there, done that” during the decade-plus reign of O’Hare-obsessed Mayor Ron Wietecha and his rubber-stamp Councils.

Which means that while many of those residents oppose O’Hare expansion, they don’t want to give OAC or the officials sitting around The Horseshoe at City Hall a blank check for another tilt at the O’Hare windmill.  But all you OAC folks (and you, too, Gene Spanos) have the next four months to persuade the voters otherwise. 

But first you might try showing up at City Council meetings where OAC issues are being discussed and voted on.