Like Captain Ahab chasing the great white whale, former Park Ridge mayor Ronald Wietecha was obsessed with O’Hare International Airport, and especially its expansion plans.

During his 12 years in office his Homeowners Party (“HO”)-controlled City Council voted to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Suburban O’Hare Commission (“SOC”). In 2002 the Council also rubber-stamped the Wietecha-directed wager of $650,000 of city funds on a long-shot plan for developing another airport in Peotone. This scheme was advertised by Wietecha and his Council allies as an “investment” that would be fully repaid with interest.

But when several aldermen independent of the HOs were elected in April, 2003, and began asking tough questions about the Peotone deal, Wietecha abruptly resigned on a Friday night in early September, 2003, and promptly ran off to Barrington.

The task of finding out the truth about the $650,000 “investment” was given to then-Second Ward alderman and SOC/Peotone supporter John Benka, in his role as the chairman of the Council’s Finance & Budget Committee. In the year-and-a-half leading up to his retirement from the Council in May of this year, however, Benka did nothing. Zip. Nada.

Questions remain both as to Benka’s being assigned that task and as to his neglect of it. Was it all just a ploy to minimize any embarrassment of him and his fellow sitting aldermen who happily endorsed this waste of our tax dollars? If so, it succeeded: The “lid” stayed on the investigation until now only two of the HO aldermen who voted for the Peotone “investment” remain on the Council (Ald. Rich DiPietro and Ald. Andrea Bateman), the rest of the “Yes” voters either having been defeated in their re-election bids (Ald. Steve Huening and Ald. Frank Bartolone, in April 2003) or, like Benka himself, having chosen not to stand for re-election.

Or was it an attempt to cover for the possible failure by the City to cross the t’s and dot the i’s on the contract documents to lock in the deal that Wietecha promised? Ever since Wietecha’s disappearing act, the city attorney has taken a decidedly passive role in getting the necessary information about the “investment” from Bensenville and Elk Grove Village officials, let alone making Park Ridge’s case for getting the deal that Mayor Ron and the Council claim they approved.

So whither the $650,000?

Newly-elected 4th Ward independent alderman Jim Radermacher has been authorized by newly-appointed Finance & Budget Committee chairman Don Crampton to take charge of the investigation into the Peotone project. Radermacher already has been furnished with contract documents that purport to be the final terms of the City’s deal with the other two communities, a small but significant first step in getting to the bottom of this mess.

For the past two years, finding out the truth about Peotone has been like a “Mission Impossible” episode, so it seems fitting that we wish Alderman Radermacher a hearty “Good luck, Jim,” while at the same time hoping the documents and records he needs don’t disappear in a wisp of smoke.