Ronald Reagan was dubbed “the Teflon President” because it seemed as if nothing bad stuck to him but, instead, slid right off.  Today we write about “the Teflon Mayor” – who is trying mightily to achieve that same effect here in Park Ridge.

Over the holidays we looked high and low for any evidence of Mayor Howard Frimark ever accepting responsibility for anything bad or unfortunate that occurred in Park Ridge.  We found none.  To the contrary, it seems that nobody in any branch of local government is as adept at deflecting blame than our mayor.

That skill was on display this past Saturday (Jan. 3, 2008) at the meeting of ORD-REST, the newly-formed citizens group that is trying to do, belatedly, what Frimark and the City Council neglected over the past four years: minimize the adverse affects of the new O’Hare runway, 9L27R. 

Frimark, sitting next to his political crony, state Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, in the Park Ridge Library’s downstairs meeting room, said little during Saturday afternoon’s two-hour meeting.  We notice, however, that Frimark appeared to become particularly tight-lipped when Mulligan began ripping into local “Democrats” on the City Council a few years back who voted not to keep Park Ridge a member of the Suburban O’Hare Commission (“SOC”) – even though her own community, Des Plaines, bailed on SOC years earlier. 

Frimark apparently wasn’t eager to share with that particular audience the fact that, as a newly-elected 4th Ward alderman in July, 2003, he was (arguably) the deciding vote for the 7-6 majority (only 13 votes, because then-6th Ward Ald. Michael Marous recused himself) – as we reported in our December 22, 2008 post (“Just The Facts Ma’am”).  Nor did Frimark choose to advise those approximately 90 residents about how he did nothing to involve himself or Park Ridge in the planning or construction of the new runway, or to work with the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (“ONCC”) or the City of Chicago to reduce the adverse impacts of that new runway or of O’Hare “modernization” generally.

Of course, that’s not the kind of information Frimark wants the voters to know about, especially now that he’s in full re-election mode and claiming full credit for anything good that’s happened to Park Ridge since May 2005, much like the rooster who claims credit for the dawn just because he’s the one crowing loudest about it.  But just because Frimark might prefer to keep the truth buried on his neglect of O’Hare expansion doesn’t mean we have to go along with him – which is why we took a quick look at Frimark’s record on O’Hare expansion since becoming mayor. 

Let’s start with Page 2 [pdf] of the August 2005 issue of our tax-financed propaganda rag, “The Spokesman,” in which Frimark brags about how he and Alderpuppet Rich DiPietro (2nd Ward) “met with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley at his office in Chicago’s City Hall on June 22,” during which Frimark claims to have asked Daley that Park Ridge “be kept informed about all airport developments that will effect the citizens of Park Ridge” – a request with which Daley agreed, or so Frimark says.

What came out of that meeting?  Nothing that we could find, including no further meetings or correspondence between Frimark and Daley, or Frimark and anybody else from the City of Chicago or the FAA prior to the new runway opening.  And although the ONCC listed Frimark as Park Ridge’s representative [pdf] back in 2005, we are aware of only two ONCC meetings he attended prior to the new runway opening, as he preferred to pawn off his attendance (between May 2005 and their leaving office in May 2007) on “alternates” then-2nd Ward Ald. Jeannie Markech and then-7th Ward Ald. Jeff Cox.

Not surprisingly, we hear that Frimark is already trying to blame them for his negligence of all things O’Hare.  But the records we could find tell a very different story.

For example, Page 3 of the September 19, 2005, City Council meeting minutes [pdf] show Markech reporting on the ONCC agreement and the O’Hare gate report.  Then, as reported on Page 2 of the December 5, 2005, meeting minutes [pdf], she distributed new noise contour maps, warned of increased noise in the 4th, 6th and 7th wards, and asked Frimark to start attending ONCC meetings – which she followed up with a Valentine’s Day 2006 Memorandum to Frimark and the Council in which she again expressed her belief that his “presence at the general meetings [of ONCC] for the purpose of representing all Park Ridgians is imperative.”  And, as reported at Page 3 of the May 15, 2006, City Council meeting minutes [pdf], Markech again asked Frimark to attend ONCC’s general meetings.

This last plea may have had some effect, however, as Frimark finally attended an ONCC meeting in June 2006, although he reportedly did nothing but kibbitz with Des Plaines mayor Tony Arrredia.  And as far as we can tell from the ONCC meeting minutes [pdf] published on its website, from February 2007 (the earliest posted minutes) through November 2008, Frimark attended only one other meeting: On October 5, 2007, where the minutes reveal his only two acts to have been voting to approve ONCC’s September 2007 expenses, and seconding Mayor Arredia’s motion to adjourn.

So for all you ORD-REST people who are spending all of your waking/sleepless moments scrambling to do something, however belatedly, about those planes screaming over your heads, you might want to thank Mayor Frimark for having done nothing but sit on his thumb for the past four years while Chicago built its new $500 million-plus O’Hare runway and the control tower with which to operate it. 

Just don’t expect an acknowledgment or an apology from him.  As we’ve seen from the past four years, the Teflon Mayor doesn’t do accountability.