Last week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate carried both an article (“City Council attendance rates vary in Park Ridge,” June 19) and an editorial (“Who’s missing city meetings?”, June 19) on the attendance of our City Council members since the Council was reduced from 14 aldermen to 7 as the result of a 2006 referendum masterminded by Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark to give himself a Council he could control with only 4 votes instead of 8. 

Kudos to Aldermen Rich DiPietro (2nd Ward), Dave Schmidt (1st Ward) and Frank Wsol (7th Ward), who were singled out for their fine attendance records. 

And then there’s 5th Ward Alderman Robert Ryan, who also was singled out…for the worst attendance among all the aldermen.  Ryan missed only one Council meeting but was MIA for a whopping 12 committee meetings in his first year in office even though he chairs no Council committees and does not serve as a Council liaison to any other City committees or commissions.  As the H-A editorial pointed out, he has “one of the lightest loads on the council.” 

Ryan serves on only two committees, Finance & Budget and Public Works, but they are arguably two of the most important ones.  As the H-A editorial noted, missed committee meetings can cause missed explanations on issues “which can impact decisions on many subsequent cases” because it’s at committee meetings that aldermen “ask technical questions,…consider input from the public…[and] discuss issues in detail.”

Ryan’s many absences have not deterred him from making decisions on significant City issues, however, and his decisions have often been contrary to the expressed desires of his constituents.  He bucked an outpouring of opposition from his 5th Ward constituents when he voted to give the politically-connected developers of Executive Office Plaza a variance to add 8 units more than what the is permitted by the City’s zoning code.  He also bucked his constituents living near St. Mary’s Episcopal Church with his support of a PADS homeless shelter there. 

In addition to ignoring his constituents, Ryan also supported the crackpot give-away of as much as $2.4 Million of City money to Napleton Cadillac, before General Motors made that a moot point by pulling Napleton’s franchise.  He also has expressed support for increasing the size of the area available for R-5 zoning, portions of which are in his ward.  And while he was missing 12 of his own committee meetings, he was able to attend the April Public Safety Committee meeting where he pushed for the construction of a big new police station without any explanation of how we can pay for it.

Not surprisingly, Ryan’s absences don’t concern his political master, Mayor Frimark, maybe because Ryan still ends up voting exactly the way Frimark wants him to vote.  And they also don’t seem to concern Ryan, whose response to comments about all his missed meetings was: “This is a volunteer job and obviously I’ve got to put my business first.”

No, Mr. Ryan, that’s not the way it works.  You’re the only representative the people of the 5th Ward have to represent their interests in the City Council.  When you don’t show up, they are unrepresented.  When you show up unprepared and ill-informed, they are under-represented.  And when you make a statement like that, they are disrespected.

The position of alderman was a “volunteer job” when you ran for it, and nothing’s changed since that time.  If you don’t want to give your aldermanic duties the time and attention your constituents deserve, then maybe it’s time you un-volunteered.