This week the City of Park Ridge announced the appointment of Park Ridge resident Frank J. Kaminski as the City’s new police chief. 

Kaminski currently serves as the Director of Public Safety for Evanston Township H.S. District 202. Before that, he was the police chief for the City of Evanston.

He will be taking over a police department that has been factionalized and politicized in recent years, at least according to the $100,000-plus “Ekl Report” issued in 2008 following an “audit” of the department by Lisle attorney Terry Ekl and his staff.  That audit process pushed then-Chief Jeffrey Caudill into early retirement, even as it left many unanswered questions about police personnel, professionalism, staffing and operations.

We currently have no ability to speak to Kaminski’s police acumen, although we expect that a man who was able to work his way up from beat cop to police chief for a department the size of Evanston’s – with the more substantial and diverse issues such a department addressed on a daily basis – will be up to the task of commanding the Park Ridge force, in a community less than half the size and with far less crime.

We also like the fact that this selection appears to have been the decision of City Mgr. Jim Hock, without (so far) any hint of politics or cronyism.  Given some of the citizen complaints and the infighting that has been both reported and rumored in the PRPD in recent years, an apolitical appointment bodes well for the community as a whole. 

But what makes us most enthusiastic about this selection is his M.B.A. from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.  Imagine that: Someone selected to manage a city department who not only has a wealth of previous management experience but who also holds a graduate degree from one of the country’s most prestigious management programs.

The potential savings in consultant fees alone might be worth whatever we will be paying him.

So welcome, Chief Kaminski. You most certainly have your work cut out for you; but it looks like you just might be up to the task.