In the 18 months he has been the mayor of Park Ridge, Dave Schmidt has already done something no Park Ridge mayor in memory had done – and he has done it 4 times, by our count.

He has vetoed City Council actions.

That’s the one power Illinois law gives our mayor to deal with legislation to which he objects. And we believe Schmidt used that power wisely the first three times: to veto the budget (over-ridden); to veto handouts of public funds to private community groups (10 of 13 sustained); and to veto a flawed contract for the city manager (sustained).

But we think Schmidt’s fourth veto this past Monday may have been his most significant use of that power, if only because it appears to have been something no other suburban mayor has done before: he vetoed a Council resolution that would have benefited one of his friends and campaign contributors by as much as $50,000!

That veto prevented O’Reilly’s Irish Pub from receiving funding from the City’s misbegotten and fiscally-foolish Façade Improvement Program. One of O’Reilly’s owners (and a neighbor of Schmidt’s), Ed Berry, contributed $175 to Schmidt’s mayoral campaign.

Given the size of the City’s budget, saving $50,000 – assuming Schmidt’s veto is not over-ridden by 5 aldermen at the Council’s December 6 meeting – isn’t earth-shattering in the economic sense. And those inclined towards trivializing achievements they oppose will undoubtedly note that $50,000 is less than 1/10 of 1% of the budget – like Alds. Allegretti and Ryan so often did in response to Schmidt’s veto of the Council’s public funds giveaway to private community groups.

But in this corrupt, “Ubi est mea” political cesspool known as Illinois, a public official stopping public money from filling the pockets of friends or campaign contributors is tantamount to the occurrence described by the fictional newspaper headline: “Man bites dog.”

On even a local level, Schmidt’s conduct stands in stark contrast to that of his predecessor, Howard Frimark, whose tenure was marked by such questionable maneuvers as his closed-session lobbying for the City to buy 720 Garden from one of his country club buddies…at $200,000 more than the City’s own appraised value; or his casting of the tie-breaking vote to give $1,000 campaign contributor Napleton Cadillac $400,000 of site clean-up money even as GM was pulling its dealership.

We’d like to think that Schmidt’s victory over Frimark was, in part, a product of the voters’ rejection of such chicanery in City government, but that remains to be seen. Questionable deals like billboard licensing and the Fairview parking lot purchase still lay in the weeds; and, this being Illinois, they most likely are only the tip of the iceberg.

But this mayor, once again, has demonstrated that fiscally-irresponsible “business as usual” is no longer the unchallenged rule at City Hall.

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