Yesterday’s Herald-Advocate story on Monday night’s special City Council meeting (“Flood control measures get deluge of support,” June 30) – which reportedly lasted 5-1/2 hours and was packed with people whose homes have flooding problems – presents an informative study in contrasts between the leadership styles of Mayor Dave Schmidt and our Public Works Director, Wayne Zingsheim.

Schmidt blamed the City’s staff and its elected officials, including himself, for having neglected the City’s sewer system over the past several years, noting that residents “are justified in being upset with the inaction by city government over the past few years.” 

Zingsheim, on the other hand, took the typical bureaucrat approach.  First he blamed too much rain falling too quickly, and then pointed to other suburbs (like Elk Grove Village) who also had problems.  Memo to Zinger: the incompetence or ineffectiveness of other towns in dealing with civic problems doesn’t excuse your own.

And just in case those alibis weren’t enough, Zingsheim also blamed the residents themselves for being ignorant of our sewer system and how it works…or doesn’t. 

“The public needs more education on certain issues,” he insisted.

We agree, Wayne, and that “education” effort should have been started by you last September, when we suffered millions of dollars of flood damage even as many residents wondered about the mysterious (but welcome) drainage of their basements between – as best we recall – 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. the morning of September 13, 2008.

Maybe that’s why so many of us believe in “mysterious valves” whose opening or closing is the difference between inches and feet of water in our basements.  And why many of us wonder whether our relief sewers are working…or whether we even have relief sewers on our block.

Of course, because of the non-existent Wayne Zingsheim educate-the-public initiative, we can’t see for ourselves (like, for example, on the City’s website) exactly what streets or alleys in Park Ridge actually have relief sewers.  Do you have such a map, Wayne?  If so, why isn’t it posted so all of us ignorant residents can check it out?

According to the H-A article, Zingsheim also thinks residents should do their own flood control by installing overhead sewers and other flood prevention devices.  That’s one way of avoiding accountability for years of bureaucratic inaction on the problem, but don’t those systems increase the sewer and flooding problems for the system as a whole, and for those residents who can’t currently afford such systems?

Unfortunately for all those residents of Park Ridge whose homes may be their single largest investment, City government has done little-to-nothing over the past several years to understand and effectively address the symptoms or the causes of a sewer system that seemingly everyone agrees is antiquated and inadequate, or to address an electrical power delivery system that is so undependable as to make private electrical generators the newest status symbol.

That’s because any reasonable solution to the flooding problem will require a big bond issue and higher taxes to pay for it, which is going to be a tough sell in a down economy and with a City staff and Council that think a $2 million deficit budget is “balanced.”  And they aren’t nearly as fun to talk about as redevelopment projects that involve paving over even more green space, and adding hundreds of additional residential units to an already overtaxed sewer system.

Which is why converting B-1 space to “R” space is something than shouldn’t be done on a whim, or because a handful of residents finally get a rise out of an otherwise-inert alderman.  But that’s a discussion for another day…this Friday, to be exact.