As the City of Park Ridge continues to negotiate stormy financial seas with an economically rudder-less City Council, watching the folks over at 505 Butler Place waste even $25,000 is no fun.

Which is why a recent article in the Herald-Advocate (“Planning and Zoning Commission: “Long-range plan has offices, townhouses along Higgins,” February 1) about the Planning and Zoning Commission (“P&Z”) spending $50,000 on a “long-range plan” for the Higgins Corridor annoys us, even though $25,000 of that amount purportedly came from some kind of grant.

One reason for our annoyance is that it sounds like this “long-range plan” is just more activity without achievement, the typical result of far too many consultants’ studies we’ve seen.  In this case, the likely uselessness of the work product from two of the City’s “usual suspect” consultants, Camiros Ltd. and Valerie S. Kretchmer Associates, Inc., was effectively conceded by Camiros’ principal consultant, Jacques Gourgechon, who admitted that the plan they proposed “is a reach, there’s no question about it.”

The stupidity of this way of proceeding, however, is highlighted by the fact – as reported in the H-A article – that the City’s adoption of this new Higgins Corridor “plan” would make it part of the City’s 1996 comprehensive plan, but potential developers are not obligated to follow it.

So what’s the point?

What we’ve seen repeatedly in Park Ridge and in other communities is the simple fact that, despite whatever grand designs government bureaucrats and politicians can muster, the person paying the bill – a/k/a, the “developer” – is the one that ends up pretty much calling the tune.  Which is why, for example, the Uptown complex is effectively six (6) stories even though the “plan” that the Uptown Advisory Task Force devised back in 2000-01 called for only five (5) story structures.

This current exercise in stupidity also ends up costing the City not only the $25,000 it donated to Camiros and Kretchmer to match the grant funding, but also the time and effort P&Z and City staff already has sunk into it, and is continuing to sink into it.

But if anyone needs one more reason to be skeptical about this kind of governmental exercise, one need look no further than the comment from Carrie Davis, the City’s director of community development, who claims the purpose of the plan “is to explore opportunities to create a more vibrant southern gateway to Park Ridge.”

When bureaucrats start using the term “vibrant” in describing some project or another, you can be pretty sure the project already is being set up to cost the taxpayers a bundle.

Meanwhile, the hired-gun consultants like Camiros and Kretchmer just keep diddling away on the public dole.