It takes a lot to grab our attention twice in one week, but Park Ridge Alderpuppet Robert Ryan (5th Ward) has done it with his letter in yesterday’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate in which he offers his excuses for what last week’s H-A article and editorial called the worst attendance record on the City Council – and which prompted our Monday posting (“Saving Ald. Ryan?” June 23).

Ryan’s “defense” to the H-A’s critique is pretty much just more excuses, including his continuing insistence that he’s a really busy guy, albeit with a new twist: he argues that even if he misses his committee meetings, he still attends other (unofficial?) meetings related to City issues. 

Once again, we remind Mr. Ryan that Council rules don’t give him the right to pick and choose which of his job duties he wants to perform, or give him the right to engage in “make up” meetings of his choosing in lieu of attending the meetings of the committees to which he is assigned.  And once again, we say to Mr. Ryan: Do what the job requires, or step aside and let somebody else do it. 

While Ryan’s I’m-so-busy excuse is merely flimsy, his proposal that the City Council’s four main standing committees be effectively handed over to a cadre of appointed “subject matter experts” on whose “expert unbiased recommendations” the Council can rely for its decision-making, is substantially more troubling.  In short, Ryan envisions a City government run by un-elected appointees, legally accountable to no one, who get their positions of power because (at best) they may have technical “subject matter” expertise; and/or because (at worst) they enjoy the political, social and/or financial favor of the elected official(s) who will be appointing them.

Ryan’s proposal, while revolutionary for City government, isn’t really all that novel.  It’s the main argument raised in defense of special-interest lobbyists whose sponsors point proudly to all the specialized knowledge and expertise they provide to the poor ignorant legislators and their overworked and underpaid staffs.  It almost sounds patriotic – until you consider the lobbying scandals and the billions of tax dollars arguably wasted on “pork barrel” projects the lobbyists support.

Frankly, we haven’t seen a whole lot of value from all the “experts” (i.e., the hired-gun consultants) the City and the other local governmental bodies have utilized over the years.  As best as we can tell – because nobody in local government ever really tries to quantify such things – the benefit to the taxpayers of all the “expert” recommendations runs from modest to zero.

Why would we expect any better performance from volunteer “subject matter experts” from the community, especially in light of Mr. Ryan’s own observation that we can’t expect all that much from “volunteer” elected officials? 

More importantly, the American form of government was founded not on a lemming-like reliance upon the opinions of appointed “subject matter experts” but, instead, on the reasoned judgment of elected representatives (as James Madison writes in Federalist No. 10) “whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.”

If we really do need “subject matter experts” on any City committees or commissions doing the decision-making on significant issues, that’s probably a pretty good (or bad, if you prefer) sign that at least some members of the City’s paid staff are not providing an appropriate standard of competence and diligence.  And the same might also be said about our elected officials, especially the Frimark Aderpuppet majority which has dominated the Council for the past year.

But as to the latter, we won’t be able to tell until we first know for sure that they’re all actually showing up.