The main event at tonight’s Park Ridge City Council meeting is likely to be what is explained on the agenda [pdf] somewhat ambiguously under the Finance and Budget Committee section of the proceedings as: “Statutory reconsideration of veto of budget ordinance (this may or may not include a motion to override the veto).”
Whether the Council will muster the five votes needed to over-ride Mayor Dave Schmidt’s veto or not remains uncertain. Alds. Joe Sweeney (1st) and Rich DiPietro (2nd) previously indicated that they will vote to sustain the veto, but nothing is assured until votes are cast.
For example, Ald. Don Bach (3rd) cast one of two votes (with Sweeney’s) against adopting the new budget that he called “both fiscally and socially irresponsible,” but he since has said he is polling his constituents to decide whether he should vote to sustain the veto – something he didn’t do before he cast his original “no” vote. And Ald. Frank Wsol (7th) voted for the budget but claimed to “hate a lot of pieces” of it while inviting Schmidt to veto “certain areas” of it, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
We hope the Council votes to sustain Schmidt’s veto, but only if the aldermen are willing to work seriously and responsibly with City Mgr. Jim Hock – who himself needs to raise his game – to come up with the realistic revenues and whatever additional expense cuts are needed to provide an honest, legitimate “balanced budget.”
Otherwise, they should vote to over-ride – because sustaining the mayor’s veto without correcting the budget problems means that, as we understand it, the City’s current budget remains in effect. And that’s the budget that has produced a $3 million-plus deficit, on the heels of millions of dollars of previous deficits.
Before he voted to approve the current budget, Ald. Jim Allegretti (4th) defended it as “the best we can do.” We don’t doubt that’s the case for Allegretti, but if that’s true for the entire Council then there’s no need to prolong the agony by sustaining the mayor’s veto.
Update: As we somewhat expected, the City Council last night voted 5-2 to over-ride Mayor Schmidt’s veto. Over-ride votes, on motion made by Ald. Jim Allegretti (4th), were cast by Alds. Bach (3rd), Allegretti, Ryan (5th), Carey (6th) and Wsol (7th); “no” votes were cast by Alds. Sweeney (1st) and DiPietro (2nd).
13 comments so far
The most interesting aspect of the evening was the stony silence of Wsol and Bach before they voted to override. Those two are the biggest pontificators in the history of the city council. Bach wakes up in the morning and talks to himself in the mirror because he loves hearing himself speak so much. So why on the very day that he flip-flopped on his budget vote did he take this opportunity to keep his mouth shut for the first time since he became an alderman? And Wsol? A self-proclaimed fiscal genius who had no comment at all about the mayor’s analysis of the revenue projections? Shameful on both their parts.
Before the many posts piling blame on the aldermen (much of it deserved), I thought I would remind everyone the Mayor had a chance to change the budget. The following is a quote from another source in town.
“We feel a total veto would be worthless since the Aldermorons have already proven themselves incapable and unwilling to make fiscally responsible decisions. We’re left to wonder if you’ve got the stones to do what the Aldermorons could not or would not do, or if you’ll pass the hot potato budget buck back to the the City Council.”
Sorry but either the Mayor and his team completely misread this or, more likely, they made a political decision that the 2011 elections were more improtant than fiscal responsiblity. All that bluster about money for community groups and the huge financial trouble we are in. All that bluster about O’hare……ha!!!!
You say you “somewhat expected” them to over-ride….duh!!! The other blog saw it coming on April 27th. Of course they were going to over-ride. So for all of you completely up in arms about the 300K+ for O’hare and community groups, please remember that the Mayor could have ended that himself. Instead he chose to have a great story to tell……”I tried but this is why I need you to support aldermen who support me…..”
The real shame is how uninvolved the citizens are with this issue. I predict that the deficit will be over $3 million dollars with this budget.
There were only a handful of citizens at city hall last night for the veto hearing. The only way to get effective change is to get people to physically get involved, and without cowardly hiding behind computer screens anonymously…
Until people actually put their time and money where their mouth is and get involved with things they are passionate about, they will continue to get the government they deserve.
The only way to stop this total circus of a council we have is to vote them out. That cannot happen unless people get off their rear end. The secret of success is held in the name of that famous Spanish painter, Goya — G.ET O.FF Y.OUR A.SS.
By anon on 05.18.10 9:21 am
What exactly makes you think that his line item veto of ANYTHING would have gone over better?
And, the veto of ORD funds and “community group” funds would have been a mere dent in what will be necessary should (when?) sales and/or income tax revenue not come is as budgeted or if (when?) Mr. Quinn makes good on his desire to stiff Park Ridge out of appx. $900k of expected revenue.
I think the Mayor made it pretty clear in earlier meetings, and he did again last night, that he believes that budgeted revenues are overstated for the reasons he’s given. He cannot veto revenue projections. It’s apparent that he thought the best way to deal with things was to veto the entire budget and revist several of the expense items as well as the revenue projections. Last night 5 of the aldermen disagreed with him – so be it.
I sure hope that thay all have Hock keeping close tabs on things so that if (when?) things start going south they can make adjustments going forward so we aren’t sitting here in March next year looking at a +/- $2 million deficit and further erosion of our general fund balance.
Right now, I am not optimistic that we will avoid this…
921…pay attention. The mayor said in his veto message that he could and would still use his veto powers on individual spending bills as they are presented to the Council. I believe he gave O’Hare as an example. He was trying to get the aldermen to do their jobs by making them actually stop and analyze revenue projections instead of blindly following the City Manager, something which has become a staple of Park Ridge aldermen. Not sure how you fault him for that.
Anon @ 921, your logic is flawed. You say the mayor should have had the stones to line item veto the community groups and the O’Hare expenditures and fix the budget on his own. What good would that have done if the aldermopes simply overrode those vetoes? We would still be at the same point we are now. And as he said in his speech, the mayor cannot impose furloughs through a line item veto, and he cannot use a line item veto to cut a portion of an expenditure, such as library personnel expense. His full veto gave the aldermopes the opportunity to do what he could not. The mopes dropped the ball.
wondering:
The whole argument becomes very circular. The Mayor and his supporters go off on the community groups and O’hare as an outrage. I pointed out several threads ago that these two things alone would not solve the problems he claims we have but people are still outraged. Now I point out to those who were/are outraged about the 300K that the Mayor could have line itemed them and your answer is even if he would have vetoed them it would not solve the problem. If you know that and I know that why is it he/they were making such a big deal about it??
9:21 am
Great criticism, but where are your suggestions for what the mayor should have cut instead of vetoing the whole budget because he believes Hock is inflating revenues (like his predecssor)?
He pointed out $350K that could have been cut, which is like 3 cops worth. But that still doesn’t make up for the inflated revenues he I.D.d. And those individual line items would have been overridden too.
How could “The Mayor could have ended that himself”?
147…to a certain extent, you are correct, it is circular. If the mayor had vetoed just portions of the budget, the aldermen could have overridden those mini-vetoes, and we would be back where we started. Instead, he vetoed the entire budget and that veto was overridden, and we are back where we started. Moral of the story: it is the aldermen who have the power of the purse, and if that power is abused, which it absolutely has been by this group, then the only alternative is to replace them.
10:16:
The Mayor made this passionate statement about his position on taxpayer funds going to community groups (especially in these economic times). The others of this blog and many other rabid Schmidt supports seem to be very pasionate about this issue. Do you realize you will be supporting these organizations for another year, at least (oh no!!!!). Please tell me how Schmidt will be able to veto CoC, or any of the other groups. They are a part of the budget approved by the council. There would be no reason that would have to go through a process of approval by the Mayor. So again if that was your hot button issue It got lost in the political shuffle!!
2:52;
You have hit on exactly what this game/fiasco is all about.
It was amazing to so few people there last night.
What happened?
Even the Barclays were absent.
And the lady with the white hair, I mean the blond, was missing too.