It looks like rookie 1st Ward Ald. Dave Schmidt and fellow 1st Ward resident David Kemerer might not be exchanging Valentine’s Day cards this year.

In recent weeks Kemerer and Schmidt have waged a war of words via letters to the editor of both local newspapers, starting out with Executive Office Plaza’s zoning variance and Schmidt’s push for an ordinance that would let Park Ridge voters recall their elected officials.  Lately, however, those debates have morphed into questions about the EOP-related conduct of 5th Ward Ald. Robert Ryan and Schmidt’s alleged lack of “civility” in performing his aldermanic duties.

Measured by the benchmark of 20 years of sleepy Park Ridge rubber-stamp government dominated by Homeowners Party “partisans” (with the notable exception of the last four years), Schmidt probably does qualify as a firebrand – but one with an infectious populist enthusiasm tempered by a solid conservative foundation.  From what we’ve seen, he hit the ground running; and he has been a strong and vocal advocate for positions that we believe represent mainstream Park Ridge values and opinions. 

That’s why we are alternately entertained and bemused by many of the comments contained in Kemerer’s most recent indictment of Schmidt [pdf] – except for Kemerer’s defense of 5th Ward Ald. Robert Ryan’s private meeting with EOP’s developer (we hear it was with one of the project’s investors who regularly attended the Council meetings whenever EOP matters were on the agenda), which shows a total disregard for the serious problems presented by “A Culture Of Secrecy” in Park Ridge government.

Our citizens deserve, and have every right to expect, that official City business will be done on the up-and-up and openly at public meetings rather than in secret.  A private meeting between an alderman and a developer to discuss that developer’s project while it is awaiting final Council action just plain looks and smells bad…like a judge meeting privately with only one of the parties to discuss the case he’s hearing.  That Ryan “voluntarily disclosed” the meeting after the fact still doesn’t let the rest of the Council, and the public, know what was said by whom and to whom.  Attorney Schmidt gets it; why doesn’t attorney Kemerer?

The bottom line is that whatever information Ald. Ryan or any other alderman needed or wanted about the EOP project should have come either from the developer through City Staff to all aldermen, or directly from the developer to the aldermen in the course of a public meeting.  Because if the information Ryan got in private was so important and persuasive that it caused him to change his “No” vote to a “Yes,” then the public also deserved to have the benefit of it.