Since the beginning of this year, the PADS homeless shelter has been the “black hole” issue that seems to have sucked up more hours of City and citizen time and effort than any other.  We consider that a good thing from the perspective that it got a lot of people to start paying attention to – and start participating in – their local government, although it’s unfortunate that such a benefit has been achieved at the price of distracting the community from more important issues. 

That being said, the PADS end-game is now in sight, starting with tonight’s City Council meeting in the auditorium of Washington School (7:30 p.m.) which is scheduled to include a vote on both the zoning ordinance text amendment and a licensing ordinance for the PADS homeless shelter. 

Per the “Agenda Cover Memorandum” [pdf] by Acting Community Preservation & Development Director Carrie Davis, it appears that certain unidentified “changes” to those regulations are going to be discussed, although we can’t tell from Davis’ memo exactly what those are; and the minutes of the October 6 Committee of the Whole meeting (unlike the minutes of the “Regular” Council meeting of that date) are neither “attached” to her memo nor otherwise appear on the City’s website.

We also can’t tell from either Davis’ memorandum or from the meeting’s Agenda whether the Council will take up Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark’s suggestion that the PADS shelter be located at the City’s Public Works Service Center, as was announced in a press release dated October 16, 2008 [pdf]. 

If that ends up being the plan, however, then there would appear to be no reason for the Council to modify the zoning ordinance text amendment language from what was recommended by the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission back on September 8th.  And if, as Frimark’s press release states, the City is going to be a co-applicant for the necessary special use permit, we trust that the other required “co-applicant” will be PADS to Hope, Inc. (“PADS Inc.”), for whose benefit this entire sideshow and both of these ordinances have been specially designed.

But now that it looks as if the City is going to be the shelter host – a move which we find far superior to locating the shelter in the St. Paul of the Cross School gymnasium (a/k/a, the “Morello Parish Life Center”) – the taxpayers  deserve the right to weigh in on whether and how their tax dollars will be used to subsidize this PADS Inc. franchise.
This point is important because while Frimark and the City Council have been fiddling with this PADS issue, they haven’t been addressing the City’s $1.7 million deficit from last year or the similar deficit being anticipated for this year – thanks to make-them-up-as-you-go revenue numbers from former City Mgr. Tim Schuenke and the mindless rubber-stamping of those numbers by Frimark’s downsized Council.

And if that kind of budget deficit isn’t bad enough, the Woodstock Institute (a Chicago-based policy group that tracks home foreclosures in the Chicago area) is reporting [pdf] a whopping 61 foreclosures filed against Park Ridge properties during the first half of 2008 (Jan. 1 through June 30), up from 25 for the equivalent period of 2007.  That’s a 144% increase, which is the fifth highest increase among the 100 largest Chicago suburbs.  And all the “For Sale” signs popping up around town like mushrooms suggest that first-half 2008 foreclosure total may end up looking good compared to the second-half numbers.

We’re also hearing that a lot of those condo units in the “flagship” Uptown development project that were supposed to be owner occupied are turning into rentals, while some buyers are not even able to afford to close on their purchases and are walking away.  We also note that the City hasn’t been tooting its own horn about the success (as measured at least in part by the amount of sales tax generated) of what little actual “retail” has opened up in that development.

So where will the money come from that is needed to fix our roads, add relief sewers and/or more pumping stations to combat the flooding, improve our electrical power grid, and provide for those other infrastructure needs that have been neglected? 

We’ll give you one guess…it’s not from PADS Inc., the Park Ridge Ministerial Association, or the 20-30 non-Park Ridge homeless who have consumed the lion’s share of the public’s attention for the past nine months.