Public Watchdog.org

Thank You, Mr. Egan!

12.10.08

As has been previously reported, Ald. Dave Schmidt’s motion for a resolution to put the issue of the proposed new police station on the April 2009 ballot as an advisory referendum died for want of even a second (“Frimark, Council Stiff Voters On Cop Shop Referendum”).  None of our elected City officials other than Schmidt want to give the voters of Park Ridge even the opportunity to advise (but not bind) the Council as to its plans for a big, expensive new cop shop that will put the City multi-millions in debt for the next 20 years or so.

Given that kind of arrogance and disregard for what those taxpaying voters think, resident Joe Egan has started up a citizens petition drive to put the issue of a new cop shop on the ballot anyway.  As reported last Thursday on Park Ridge Underground (“Comment in the Spotlight”), Mr. Egan is seeking recruits to help him get the required number of signatures.

We have repeatedly challenged the need for a new cop shop – as opposed to a remodeling/renovation of the current space, with or without a modest addition – and the wisdom of incurring more than a million dollars a year of debt service on such a facility that will burden our taxpayers for the next two decades, especially given all the more immediate infrastructure needs that are not being met, such as street paving and relief sewers. 

We have also criticized the less-than-forthright way the proponents of the new cop shop are going about justifying their fiscal recklessness: That they won’t be raising taxes for the new cop shop because all they really will be doing is just “extending” the annual debt service payments that the City has been making (using our tax dollars, of course) for the past 10 years or so on the bonds that financed the Public Works Building, after those bonds are paid off next year.

We also don’t agree with Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and his Alderpuppets when they claim that they were elected to make these kinds of decisions, presumably without first measuring their constituents’ views on such a project in the best way available: By votes cast on the issue itself.

What a crock!

We encourage everyone who thinks there are better ways to spend our tax money, and/or that the voters deserve to be heard at the ballot box on such a significant and expensive matter, to contact Mr. Egan and volunteer to gather signatures, as many as you are able.

Because if we don’t get a vote on this issue, we can be sure that Frimark and the Council will push this project forward – and they will do so with their standard alibi that they “talked to [a handful?] of their constituents” and found “overwhelming support” for this cop shop boondoggle.

4 comments so far

i find it interesting how frimark, his “alderpuppets” and their defenders in one breath tell us that they were elected to make decisions like about the new police station, but in the next breath tell you that their decisions are based on talking to their constituents and what they otherwise hear in the community.

so from those comments they clearly want input from the community before they make the decisions they were elected to make. but they don’t want any input that can be objectively measured and doesn’t involve blind trust of whatever they tell us, such as by the number of votes cast in a referendum.

sounds a lot like blagojevich telling the people of illinois that he doesn’t have to worry about wiretaps or bugs because he tells the truth and has nothing to hide.

My alderman is Don Bach and I don’t remember him saying he would vote to spend $20 million and put us in debt for 20 years to build a new police station when he was running for office last year.

Speaking of Alderman Bach, I read his rather lengthy defense/endorsement of Mayor Frimark in today’s HA. I can just see the fingers flying across the keyboard of the moderator of this site, and hopefully of PRU as well.

I was just starting to miss the national election but it appears this will fill the void very nicely – this is going to be very interesting!!!!!

Yesterday folks were out getting signatures at 6:30am at the train station. I do not know if this was Mr. Egan but a thanks to him and a thanks to who ever it was at the train station!!



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