For the many Park Ridge residents who welcomed an end to the wrong-headed efforts of the Park Ridge Ministerial Association (“PRMA”) and Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark to bring a PADS to HOPE, Inc. (“PADS Inc.”) homeless shelter franchise to Park Ridge, last week’s announcement to that effect was good news.

But before the opponents of that flawed shelter plan declare victory, they may want to look at what the City’s Human Needs Task Force is up to.  Because “PADS” appears as an item on the agenda [pdf] of that group’s meeting tomorrow morning (Nov. 11, 8:30 a.m. in the Mayor’s Conference Room).

But even more interesting is what’s reported in the draft minutes [pdf] of that group’s October 14th meeting, in which – with Frimark’s encouragement – they tentatively approved sending a letter to the City Council endorsing the PRMA’s efforts to bring a PADS shelter to Park Ridge.  

That group also wanted to include a plea that the homeless shelter go into St. Paul of the Cross “without restriction or license,” but that point was abandoned when it was suggested that it might “make it difficult to get this project to move forward.”

What’s disturbing, however, is how the Task Force – in what was an open meeting – nevertheless attempted to cloak it’s plan for a PADS endorsement letter in secrecy by getting PADS opponent Missy Langan to agree “not to discuss this letter with anyone”! 

Whether Langan actually agreed to that bit of deception or went along with it is not currently known.  But those minutes reveal yet again how the Culture of Secrecy permeates local government, especially City government under the administration of Mayor Frimark – in this case, with an assist from former 2nd Ward Ald. John Benka, who should have known from his Council days that the Illinois Open Meetings Act doesn’t permit such secrecy. 

And those minutes also suggest that the Human Needs Task Force members may have their own agenda to keep the PADS shelter issue alive for the foreseeable future, waiting for just the right opportunity to help bring it onto the front burner and push it through.

Meanwhile, one of our readers provided us with a copy of “Fr. Carl’s Corner” [pdf] from yesterday’s St. Paul of the Cross bulletin, in which Fr. Morello once again uses the church’s “pulpit” as a forum for his personal political views on PADS and to pat himself and his PRMA associates on their collective backs.  Especially amusing is his admonition: “do not judge others.”

Do you mean like accusing people with whom you disagree of engaging in “thinly-veiled racial and economic bigotry”?