Mayor Howard Frimark professes to be a stalwart Republican, which would make him an unlikely poster boy for further expansion of what has become known as the “Nanny State” – government intrusion into all aspects of our lives with the justification that it’s for our own good.

So when Frimark insists that his call to Oberweis Dairy’s corporate offices to complain about Joe Egan and his merry band of referendum petition circulators’ collecting signatures at Oberweis’ Park Ridge store this past weekend was simply to protect Oberweis from hurting itself, we have to wonder whether Frimark has become a Democrat…or even a Socialist.

But maybe what he’s become is a saint, a protector of politically naïve businessmen and small woodland animals alike.  Sort of a 21st Century St. Francis of Assisi, only smarmy.

Frankly, it’s beyond our comprehension why a thriving corporation such as Oberweis that’s been in the dairy business for 90 years would need retail advice from an insurance salesman moonlighting as the mayor of Park Ridge.  Can’t we assume that until Frimark dialed them up complaining, Oberweis management – in the exercise of its best business judgment – was willing to accept whatever risk one might imagine from allowing a group of local political activists intent on circulating referendum petitions to rub elbows with some of their neighbors equally intent on hot fudge and whipped cream?

Since Frimark claims credit for virtually anything for which credit can be claimed, we’ll concede a remote possibility that because St. Howard the Protector was on the job last Friday morning, a potential catastrophe may have been averted.  And as St. Howard himself explained the purity of his motive to the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate: “I don’t want to see any business in Park Ridge hurt by political activity in their business.” (“Mayor intercedes to block petition circulators,” January 14) 

But if we take him at his word [insert your comment here], we have to wonder if St. Howard considers local businesswoman Amy DiGrazia, the owner of clothier New Prospects, chopped liver.  That’s because, like Oberweis, she too agreed to let Egan and the Circulators set up their petition operation in her store on Saturday.  If the potential carnage from a dairy versus democracy encounter is frightening, the mind positively reels at the horror of letting referendum petitions mix it up with palazzo pants and power panties. 

But unlike the dairy giant, DiGrazia got no warning from St. Howard of the disaster that might befall her business if she played host to an exercise of First Amendment rights.  All she got was a phone call from an unidentified woman (Frimark political brain Linda Ski, effecting a Linda Fiorintino throatiness?) urging her not to let petition signatures be collected in her store – a request DiGrazia ignored. 

Thankfully, while the First Amendment rights of our citizens took a shot to the chops Friday and Saturday, courtesy of our mayor, there were no other casualties; and New Prospects remains open for business.

So let’s light a candle to St. Howard the Protector…and see how long it takes him to claim credit for its heat.