With the exception of Alderman David Schmidt and sometimes Alderman Frank Wsol, all these elected represtatives, and I use the term very loosely, seem to forget how much they didn’t know before Frimark personally annointed them as his. They also seem to forget that even with Frimark’s personal blessing they were, in fact, elected by the people from whom they are now keeping all this information. The very same people whose ranks they will eventually return to after their stints in office. Maybe they liked being ill informed before they were elected. Maybe they like the feeling of the petty power they now get from being in on all the secret information. Maybe they look forward to returning once again to their blissful ignorance when they’re out of office, or maybe they think they will always be in on the insider info? Who knows. However, their conduct is short sighted and dumb, and they should remember that eventually new people will take their places. You would think that for the benefit of all of us, including themselves, they would want everyone to be as informed as is possible. I guess not though, or they would be conducting themselves more openly.

People who want to do devious things try to do them in the dark, or when they think nobody is watching. Closed sessions are what passes for darkness in government. WE should just assume that every time anybody goes into closed session we’re getting railroaded.

I hope and pray Ald. Schmidt is there tonight to take on the forces of darkness.

Will all the secrets and trickery ever end? It seems like the only Council member who fights for us on this stuff is Schmidt. Don’t any of those other guys have the decency not to hide from us or conceal information from us? Are they that much under Frimark’s control, or are they acting like this on their own?

My goodness anon 12:42 AND 1:13…What is this a Schmidt rally? Just because some of us think Schmidt is standing up on our behalf doesn’t mean he wouldn’t flip if it didn’t better his campaign. He’s a politician…get over the admiration and do your own standing up for yourself. Don’t campaign for him – stick to your own position on your own shoulder. Why keep giving him your power? You sound like a love sick fan.

Sell Out: From what I have read about him in the newspapers and on the blogs, Schmidt is the only alderman who acts like he’s his own man and not a puppet for the mayor (which probably explains why the blogs refer to them as “alderpuppets”). Is he a politician? I don’t know for sure, but DiPietro, Ryan and Wsol talk and act like politicians, and Schmidt doesn’t act like them. So on that basis alone I have to disagree with you.

Sell Out, I think you have missed the boat, and the point. You said anon should not be giving me his or her power. You are wrong. The only power I have derives from the people. And it is for the benefit of the people that I wield that power, so much of it as I have. I do not do business with anyone in town, so there is no possible “pay to play” involved on my part. I raised a whopping $300 or so for my 2007 campaign from people giving 10 bucks a pop. So, I owe no one any favors and I expect no favors from anyone either. That leaves me free to represent the interests of my constituents without worrying about how it will affect my livelihood or my political coffers. It’s a nice spot to be in, both for me and my constituents. ‘Nuff said.

Sell out, you’re rather snotty about things. Why shouldn’t people rally around elected representatives when they stand up on our behalf? I believe it’s rather idiotic not to rally around them, when they cast the votes that decide our fates.

The rest of the Aldermen never stand up on our behalf, they are the ones who “flipped” on us. They said they wanted the job to represent the people, but they have really done is represent special interests and Frimark’s contributors, and keep information about what they are doing secret from us.

I miss all the fun! I must remember not to stay away too long.

I do agree with Remarkable, we should support elected officials who support our ideas and opinions. It’s that whole democracy thing in action.

Remarkable, the other aldermopes didn’t “flip” on us because they were always Frimark tools. They just started flipping us off, which is what we should do to them.

As the St. Mary’s neighbors just showed us, activism can work even in a locked-down Frimark town like ours if people organize and show up, loudly and insistently.

Not meaning to be the difficult blogger but I am really against all the political agendas even when the statements support my position. I am so burnt out on the process all together. Regarding the PADS issue I think the PRMA did exactly what the neighbors asked, they entertained another site that addressed their safety concerns. So now why should we all have issue with them again? They can’t please us all and when they do exacty what we ask we find something else to attack. We seem like the ones flipping here if we say…St. Mary’s has poor lighting, it is in a residential setting, our children walk past the church on their way to school, etc., etc. and it has no parking lot…”we don’t worry about what happens in the site only outside of the site” was said time and time again and now the PRMA addresses those concerns, takes us seriously and responds with respect and does exactly what we asked and now we all attack them again? This is silly and unfair.

Perhaps you were only listening to the arguments that suited your purpose and desire; simply changing the location of the proposed shelter.

I, as a non-neighbor of St. Mary’s, have plenty of issues with the PADS program, specifically, and a homeless shelter opening in Park Ridge, generally.

Sorry to disappoint you, but your contention that opposition now is silly and unfair is simply wrong. There are issues beyond parking, lighting, a residential setting, children and other pedestrians, etc.

The PRMA has most definitely not addressed what happens outside the site, as they have not addressed what happens when the PADS guests are hustled out of the site and onto the streets for the rest of the day…which is decidedly not taking serious consideration for concerns and the rest of the community.

However, since you have admitted to being burnt out on the process, then pershaps it would be best if you let others address the issue and the process, as your own fatigue would allow remaining issues to be ignored, and the only strength you can muster is criticism for those stronger and more determined than yourself.

Well said Ms. Markech.

Ms. Markech,
I am not at all disappointed. Opposition is not silly or unfair. What is silly and unfair is the chameleon like shift when the neighborhood coalition’s concerns were met and now new concerns are brought to the table. At first everyone was saying that it wasn’t that “we at PR didn’t want to help the homeless that were already existing on our streets. We just thought the location was bad due to it being in a residential neighborhood.” In response…location was changed to a church that the neighborhood coalition suggested. It was also said that at that location the issues of lighting, parking, sprinkler systems, and a security system was an issue. In response…the new location has all that in place. Also, to clarify, PRMA did in fact address what happens to the homeless when they are “hustled” out the next day. The new and hopefully final location is right next to a bus stop and two blocks from the train station and has ample parking for those with vehicles. Thus, three modes of immediate transportation at the “hustled” homeless’ fingertips. Just because I am burnt out listening to those who really just do not want to see that there are people less fortunate than they are and in response want no shelter in their community so they do not have to address the issue does not by any means mean I will not stay in the fight. It also by the way does not mean that I am less strong or weak in any way. I am as determined as you are to do what is right. I refuse to conjure up additional concerns when my voiced ones have been met. I refuse to be a hypocrite. You state that there are additional concerns. Since the response to “what does PRMA do when the homeless are hustled out of the site” is actually addressed, what are your specific additional concerns Ms. Markech? I believe that the PRMA are people who are concerned for the “rest of the community” . In fact, they are concerned for ALL of the community. Those with and without homes.

Sell out on 06.03.08 5:04 pm:

Don’t apologize for being a “difficult blogger” – that’s what we’re here for.

But we here at PW are really FOR “political agendas” no matter what they are – so long as the people who have them are up-front and public about them rather than dishonest and secretive.

In fact, we tend to wonder about people who don’t have “political agendas” for the same reason we wonder about people who brag about not being “judgmental”: We wonder whether the former actually don’t care enough about anything to create an “agenda” for themselves, and whether the latter can’t (or won’t) discern “the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.” (as Charles Grosvenor Osgood wrote in 1917 about the supreme goal of education).

As for the PADS shelter, the neighbors didn’t want it there at all, but because the PRMA and St. Mary’s weren’t willing to go somewhere else, the neighbors had to frame their objection to that specific facility in the context of the city’s zoning code.

What we believe is “silly and unfair” – as well as obnoxious and offensive – is for a group of religious leaders (who were not elected by the voters of this community, and in many instance not even by the members of their own congregations) shamelessly trying to dictate “moral” and “social” values to the entire community.  But at least the PRMA has provided us with a keener appreciation for the Founding Fathers’ insistence on the separation of church and state. 

Re Sell Out’s comment from 8:17 today – From what I’ve seen since this PADS thing started, the PRMA are as big a bunch of self-righteous cowards as I’ve found in this town.  They hide behind their collars and play the “religious ministry” card because there’s no logic or reason to putting a PADS shelter in Park Ridge, where the only homeless are the ones who come here from other places.

Until Rev. Amity, Fr. Gunderson, Rev. Larson, Fr. Morello, and all those other PRMA leaders commit to staying in this town and investing their life savings in a home here, they shouldn’t try to mess with mine. As been said here at PW or at PRU before, if they care so much about the homeless let them take a homeless person into their home every week.  Walk the walk, baby!

Sell out,

Despite your contention that you are not disappointed, the entirety of your comment indicts your contention.

You characterize continuing concerns as a “chameleon like shift”. I must tell you again, you were clearly listening to only those concerns that suited your purpose and desire. While the St. Mary’s neighbors most prominent and vocal concern was the location within an almost exclusively residential area, other concerns and issues were raised by them; the concerns and issues you are now choosing to ignore and/or characterize as a “shift” of concerns.

Further, you seem to treat the St. Mary’s neighbors as some single-voiced monolith, without varying degrees of difference or nuance. Again, that is your choice, but it is wrong.

The proposed location was changed for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is that SPC has deeper pockets and far broader connections to the inside-circle-jerks of City government.

Your contention that the “PRMA did in fact address what happens to the homeless when they are “hustled” out the next day” by offering that the “hopefully final location is right next to a bus stop and two blocks from the train station and has ample parking for those with vehicles. Thus, three modes of immediate transportation at the “hustled” homeless’ fingertips” is an absurdity I find almost too ridiculous to address. Are you saying the PRMA members, or their PADS agents, will force the homeless onto buses or trains, or into their cars and demand that they exit Park Ridge? Are you at all aware of the laws governing public places? Locating a shelter near public transportation is hardly an address of the concerns of the community for what might occur when a greater number of imported homeless “guests” are hustled out of the shelter and onto the street. But one might suggest that the business owners, now located in closer proximity to the proposed shelter, will be less than pleased with their new “customers”, and their regular customers might be much less than pleased.

Your own admitted burn out does not trump the greater strength and determination of those willing to more fully vet the issue of a need or desire for a homeless shelter in Park Ridge. And I believe it is your own admitted burn out that causes you to leap from consideration of that greater strength and determination to accusations of “those who really just do not want to see that there are people less fortunate than they are and in response want no shelter in their community so they do not have to address the issue.” Who’s being silly and unfair?

You further claim that those who have the greater strength and determination to address their continuting concerns are “conjure[-ing] up additional concerns when [my] voiced ones have been met.” This may come as a surprise to you, but your own concerns having been met does not mean that everyone’s concerns have been met. Your concerns having been satisfied by the change in proposed location does not mean that everyone’s concerns have been satisfied.

You might “refuse to be a hypocrite”, but you also seem to refuse to recognize the rights of others to pursue issues further and more fully than yourself…and that is, somewhat hypocritical on your part.

My additional concerns are many. We can start with the anemic performance of the PADS/HOPE crowd to produce anything more than a transition of 39 people out of homelessness…and zero follow-up reporting on, for lack of a better word, the “recidivism” rate of their “clients”. And in order to reach that 39-client level of success, they spent $700,000.00 dollars.

The PADS program has requested money from nearly every municipallity in which it operates a shelter. I am concerned that the dunderheads in our local government will give even more of our hard-earned tax dollars to these buffoons who produce virtually nothing in the way of success in their program. And PADS will be duplicating services and competing for contributions with other long-established Park Ridge social service organizations.

Another concern is that the HOPE clinic’s director, Beth Nabors, haughtily claimed that Park Ridge is “out of their PADS service area” while the PRMA claims their is a “gap in services” for the homeless in Park Ridge. Well, which is it? Are we in the PADS service area and must fill the gap? Or are we being added to the PADS service area, at the request of the PRMA? Why would we or should we want to do that, anyway?

I’m concerned that Park Ridge has been chosen for a new proposed homeless shelter because PADS/HOPE has “lost” 6 such shelters in the past number of years. PADS is “down” from 24 to just 18. It seems to me they are looking to rebuild their base, and certain saps in the Park Ridge community are too witless to even ask why 6 shelters have been closed.

I also believe that Beth Nabors and her staff are system milkers; willing to use the homeless and that cause for furthering their own personal gain, in whatever form that personal gain might take…monetary, emotionally, spiritually, you name it. But it boils down to nothing more than self-aggrandizement…or their clinic model would not reflect the over-worn and useless paradigm of what the homeless have a right to without addressing what the homeless are capable of and responsible for.

You can believe whatever you choose to believe about the members, individually and collectively, of the PRMA. I assure you, our respective opinions of them are quite different, and mine is probably not even close to being as flattering of their number as yours.

Jeannie,

And to think some have given you the label of a liberal!

: )

Wow! I can sure say your vocabulary works well for you while constructing your angry position. As a retired teacher and one with a internet posted poem showing such love and tenderness for the birth of a child, I am sad to see this side of you come forth. I think there is definitely a way to be strong with ones opinion and not attack with such anger and hatred. Do you know this Beth Nabors? Have you met her or talked to her? Have you visited the center? By the way, she isn’t the Clinical Director -she is the Executive Director. Why not ask her why they have re-sized the shelters? I believe I also found out from those involved that Journeys from PADS to HOPE did not venture this way – they were asked by the mayor and the PRMA.

Sell out,

I believe you might be projecting your own anger onto me, but then again, we have established that you really are rather self-absorbed.

I have many facets to my personality, but my ability to strongly challenge foolishness and state my beliefs should be nothing new to anyone in the Park Ridge community…anyone who’s been paying any attention.

I have watched and listened to Beth Nabors. That is as close to “knowing” her as I’d like to be, without the accompaniment of a hazmat team.

I did not call Beth Nabor the “Clinical Director”…but perhaps you are unfamiliar with the use of apostrophies.

If you know why “they” have “re-sized” their shelters, why don’t you share that information here and now? Or is this another item from their top-secret volunteer training manual that you (and they) refuse to discuss in public?

I am not a retired teacher.

That poem is lovely, even if I do say so myself. I wrote it for my sister-in-law’s baby shower. Thank you.

Laughing,

Make no mistake about it, I am a Liberal…capital “L”…but apparently not the sort for whom that label is generally used.

I think the PRMA and the PADS supporters are a distinct minority in Park Ridge, but we’ve got an election coming up in November that could tell us exactly what the voters think in an advisory (not binding) referendum: “Shall the City of Park Ridge encourage and accommodate the creation and operation of homeless shelters within the City limits?”

I’m betting at least 60%-40% “No,” even with PRMA thumping the tubs for it.

I think if we should probably have a homeless shelter for those within the city limits, those who are drug addicted, drunk, mentally ill should be in institutions and not wandering around and we should not bring in those who don’t live here.

OK…show me my anger in my statements…I am curious. And while you are at it – define how I am self absorbed. I would venture to say that besides the shelter issues, we may possibly be aligned on many things because you are dealing with yet another liberal – capital “L” here too by the way! I am a liberal who runs a small business and I care about my community very much. I am just as invested in the lives of my neighbors and community as you appear to be. However, our tactics vary considerably. I am not a volunteer for the agency and a while back knew very little about the agency. I did research, I asked questions and I voiced my concerns. I feel differently than you regarding their responses to the community’s concerns and I am not willing to attack you because I see things differently than you do. I am also not willing to attack an agency that is slowly and methodically picking away at a problem that is very complicated – homelessness. You are right, the stats don’t seem really impressive on the first read but when you sit down and really take the numbers off the paper and in to a discussion about specifics, you get a better picture on how long they work with someone to stabilize them…it sometimes takes years. The hardest population are the vets and those with multiple issues. By the way…there are more in support of this proposed shelter than I think you are aware. They might not be as vocal or willing to put themselves out there but they are there none the less.

Yours is an interesting offer, but I’m sorry to tell you that you simply aren’t an interesting subject…so I’ll have to take a pass on role-playing the shrink to your couch potato.

I am opposed to the PADS program entering Park Ridge under cover of “ministry” to suck up our resources and produce nothing more than a reason for the PADS/HOPE crowd to crow themselves blue with “progressive-minded” slobbery…and for all the reasons I have previously stated.

And good for you…you got everything you wanted out of voicing your concerns. Now how about you let others have their turn…or is that how your “tactics vary” from others…as long as your concerns are satisfied, no others’ conerns matter?

There are other paradigms out there, and they aren’t awash in the anemically offered entitlement thinking I find among the PADS/HOPE crowd.

Finally, and I truly mean it because you are dense and my patience is limited, you are as entitled to your opinion as anyone else. However, you do not get to dictate when a matter is settled simply because you’ve settled the matter in your own mind.

Wow…you are quite a pleasant person.

Oh, now I get it…you’re one of those sorts that think women should “fake it”? Not me. You get the real deal, always and all ways.

fake it…sounds like you haven’t had it.

Riiiight. Nice try.

If there were a public vote on the matter I would vote no. Having said that, I get very frustrated by the arguments used to back up that position.

Location, while a minor victory for those living near St. Marys, is not the issue – as if moving them 3 blocks is a dramatic change in location.

PADS is not the issue. I agree with many of the negative comments about PADS I have read but the are an imperfect program serving an imperfect population. It is as if people are saying that if PRMA would have gone with ACME homeless rather then PADS we would be OK with it!! What exactly is the new paradigm you are suggesting?

Then come the personal attacks. I have never met Beth but my guess is that if she weren’t involved,the issues would still be the same.

The issue as I see it is this. In light of this picture I have in my head of what a homeless shelter will do in PR (whether true of not) do I want “them” here? Yes or no?

If the answer is yes, there are plently of ways this can be worked out. If the answer is no, there are plently of ways to shoot holes in it.

It is sometimes painful to look at it that way but I feel like I am being honest with myself.

There are plenty of people in PR who support the PADS shelter-helping those who need help. Those in favor just don’t go around loudly and obnoxiously forcing our opinions down others throats with scare tactics and misinformation. Putting the matter to the taxpayers/voters in November to decide would be the best way to handle whether or not to host a PADS site anywhere in PR.

If you all are so worried about maintaining your property values then look no further than city hall for who is responsible for that. The PADS is not the only issue. It is a mayor and his supporters who give our tax money away to their friends and family. It is a city government who has ruined our city with over development, excessive multi unit buildings and too many teardowns. It is a city government who is failing to provide us with safe streets to drive on and sewers to hold rain water and adequate snow removal. It is a city government that in a very short time of being in office has managed to so negatively impact our town. Yes and the angry division the PADS program has created is part of the wrong they have inflicted on this town.

All the energy toward the PADS shelter-pro and con-should be used to find a competent mayor and city council who will not hide in secret sessions to make decisions but will begin to address the true needs of this town. How did things go so wrong so fast?

Anonymous on 06.06.08 2:43 pm posted:

“There are plenty of people in PR who support the PADS shelter-helping those who need help. Those in favor just don’t go around loudly and obnoxiously forcing our opinions down others throats with scare tactics and misinformation.”

That’s right. You’ve got the PRMA to do that.

As to the rest of your comment…agreed.