At this past Saturday’s City Council budget workshop, the Chief of Police and the acting Fire Chief presented their explanations of the budget cuts which, as we understand it, they themselves suggested – however reluctantly – for their respective departments when told to cut their budgets to reflect the City’s shaky financial condition.
If true, that’s an important fact because it means that those chiefs – drawing on their years of professional experience and their knowledge of the needs of this community – evaluated their departments’ services and personnel and came up with the best ways to meet the across-the-board expense reductions required to break the cycle of multi-million dollar deficits that are imperiling the future of Park Ridge.
That’s also an important fact because it makes questions like Ald. Don Bach’s “So the elimination of the traffic division could conceivably make the streets of Park Ridge less safe?” just another example of the cheap, disingenuous pandering we have come to expect from Bach and certain of his Council allies. Anything that reduces the services provided by the police department “conceivably” could make our community less safe, albeit by an insignificant degree, just like adding several more police officers “conceivably” could make our community more safe, albeit by a similarly insignificant degree.
So when we hear Bach ask a loaded question like that, we want to ask him what alternative cut(s) is he proposing in lieu of cutting the police and fire departments? And that’s the same question we want to ask Ald. Robert Ryan when he insists that the $200,000+ of contributions to private community groups be reinstated because those groups “really help people in need in our community.”
We deserve specific alternatives from those aldermen because, now that a draft budget has been proposed by City Staff that still shows a $227,000 deficit, just sending the matter back to Staff with the simple demand for something different is both governmentally and politically gutless – and an abdication by those elected officials of their aldermanic duties, not the least of which is to guard the public purse.
And to show we’re not just picking on our elected officials, we put that very same challenge to those residents who publicly complain, with hyperbole instead of hard evidence, that cuts in police and fire “will affect my way of life and my family’s way of life” (Tony Amelio) by “reducing the safety of this community” (Gene Spanos); or who, on behalf of School District 64, demand crossing guards for the elementary schools with the disclaimer that the District is unlikely to shoulder even a portion of those costs (Dist. 64 Board president John Heyde).
In the context of that kind of irresponsibility, Dick Von Metre’s was a welcome voice of reason Saturday morning. Von Metre, a member of the Library Board, noted that 10 years ago Park Ridge’s population was pretty close to what it is today, yet it was adequately policed by only 55 sworn officers. Consequently, the cuts currently being proposed for the police department would still leave that department with more officers than we had back then.
That’s a variation on one of the arguments that successfully persuaded the voters to overwhelmingly reject the big and expensive new police station in last April’s referendum: “How has the current police station made us unsafe, or allowed criminals to go free?”
Of course, those who want to convince themselves that we were unsafe a decade ago, or that Park Ridge is decidedly more dangerous today than it was back then, will have no problem doing so. Panic peddling is always an easy sale, especially in up-scale communities like ours where “real” crime, fortunately, is mostly something we read about as occurring elsewhere.
Almost 80 years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” For our local panic peddlers, “fear itself” seems to be more than enough.
16 comments so far
Isn’t Spanos one of those people who wants the City of Park Ridge to spend a bundle on fighting O’Hare expansion? He’s another one with a thousand ways to spend, but no idea on how to pay for it.
THANK YOU!
I recall recently reading that our crime rate continues to go down, so why not reduce the force? Maybe they can start figuring out better ways to patrol and police so that we get the same service at a lower cost, kind of like what the private sector has done over the past couple of years since the recession hit.
Do you even read the paper? There is a section called “police Blotter” along with a variety of other stories related to crime. If there has to be a reduction becuase of budget issues we have to live with it, but don’t pretend that crime has dropped so much that it is not an issue. Also do not pretend that 99% of the people on the blogs would not be the first people screaming at the top of their lungs about lack of ploice pretection the first time they were borken into.
Maybe we could do what we did with the Chirstmas lights. Get rid of all the police and leave it up to the indian scouts to patrol the city – unbelievable!
I do like your idea about find better ways to patrol. Hey!!!! How about using cameras!!! Opppps, we are against that, right!!!
A12:10,
For your edification,
http://www.parkridge.us/file.asp?F=F9FE05C07F8649D9A51DEF287FB55665%2Epdf&N=crime+stats+2009%2Epdf&C=events_documents
Anon on 03.08.10 12:10 pm:
The Park Ridge Herald-Advocate recently reported on Park Ridge Police Dept. statistics showing that crime in Park Ridge dropped significantly in 2009 (“Annual Report: Crime down 20 percent in Park Ridge,” Feb. 9).
According to the PRPD, the overall crime rate dropped more than 20% from 2008, with arrests falling 6.5 percent (from 826 to 772) even as drug-crime arrests were up 43.8 percent (from 48 to 69). DUI arrests dropped from 86 to 66, consistent with a several year trend.
The police department took 381 fewer calls for service (a 1.7 percent decline) and responded to 779 fewer incidents (a 3.3-percent decline), although it issued 4.6 percent more tickets and written warnings.
Theft decreased 16.5 percent in 2009 (424 incidents reported) whild burglaries decreased nearly 7 percent (from 131 to 122).
Crime rates remained relatively unchanged for motor-vehicle theft, arson, simple assault and battery and domestic battery, although criminal damage to property increased last year by just more than 4 percent.
Police Chief Frank Kaminski believes property crimes have declined, in large part, because our residents have learned “to be more vigilant and follow common-sense tips to avoid becoming a victim.”
So your comments sound like unsubstantiated fear-mongering to us.
I hate fearmongerers. Especially that one guy who hangs out with Judas.
As has been said time and time again… these guys just don’t get it. They do not want to nor will they make ONE SINGLE tough choice when it comes to raising revenues or reducing expenses.
They cannot help but PANDER to every constituiency… can you say ORD commission?, Community groups looking for handouts?
Hell, Carey was a page turner for Ms. Perry when she couldn’t run her own PowerPoint presentations and Ryan espouses the merits of adding back the +$250,000 of funding to community groups to the proposed budget in the midst of a dissussion about how we can make the revenue projections in the proposed budget. WTF?
Think what you will of the City Manager but they are tying the guy in knots. Do this… don’t do that… exclude this… include this and this and this. Oh, and by the way, let’s balance the budget. With the way these guys talk and act, especially the likes of Bach and Ryan as referred to in this piece, they are either so incredibly stupid it is scary or they are willfully trying to bury the City.
We are in a world of hurt people… this City is approaching some very dire straights and the Council is acting like we have nothing but time. We deserve better from our elected officials.
To answer your question Judas at 11:03pm, the most obvious answer is usually the correct one, and in this case the obvious answer is that they are complete idiots.
The Chiefs of Police and Fire were responding to the direction of the City Manager when they showed what their respective departments would look like if the proposed staffing cuts were made. They DID NOT suggest the cutting of personnel.
I am curious if the 4-5 people who had their cars broken into along Stewart last night would be for reducing police staffing.
A2:41,
Think for a moment.
The cuts in police personnel have not been made and yet, as you cite, “4-5 people had their cars broken into along Stewart last night.”
It would seem to me, the current level of staffing was not much of a deterent; and I’m presuming your underlying message is some relationship between staffing levels and deterence.
Mighty Oz:
We can’t believe that the City Mgr. would, or even could, micro-manage either of those departments to the point of telling the chiefs which specific personnel to cut.
That’s why what we have heard makes more sense: the City Mgr. told the police and fire chiefs that they had to reduce their respective budgets by X dollars, and they were left to come up with the way to do it.
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the police are much more visible lately during this budget discussion?
It is just you.
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