Yesterday the jury handed down its verdict in the long-running, sordid saga of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich: guilty on 17 of 20 counts, almost all of which involve some form of selling out the public interest for somebody’s private, personal benefit.
Selling out the public interest has been Play No. 1 in the unofficial playbook of Illinois government and politics as practiced for at least the past 30 years, primarily by the Democrats who have controlled one or both chambers of the General Assembly for all but 2 of those years – but with the willing and shameless assistance of Republican governors like “Big Jim” Thompson, “Big George” Ryan and, to a lesser degree, “Slim Jim” Edgar.
While “trickle down” economics may be a suspect theory, “trickle down” government corruption is hard reality in our state. Watching two of our last three governors get convicted of multiple public corruption charges in which they were aided and abetted by some of their closest advisors – also public officials who owed the people of this state honest services – sends the message, at least subliminally, that government corruption is unremarkable standard operating procedure.
But corruption can, and does, take many shapes and forms, some of which seem almost benign to a populace numbed by a steady stream of “Safe Road”s, “Silver Shovel”s, “Gambat”s, “Hired Truck”s, “Crooked Code”s, and too many other assorted scams and frauds to deserve their own catchy nicknames.
Sometimes it’s public “funding” that magically appears after somebody puts the arm on a pliant or outright sleazy politician. Other times it might be a zoning variance that gets pushed through without rhyme or reason. Maybe it’s a summer job that leap-frogs earlier applicants with equal or better credentials to land in the lap of the fortunate son of a public official’s buddy. Or maybe it’s some other similar “favor” to one special interest or another that inexplicably trumps more important public interests.
As a state with more units of government than any of the other 49, Illinois is effectively a petri dish of government-bred pathogens infecting us at every level. Which means that we can’t realistically rely on the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI to protect us from even a fraction of them, including in our own community.
What can we do with our local governments here in Park Ridge?
We can start by paying attention and questioning everything our public officials do. Asking questions, and demanding substantive and meaningful answers rather than hot air, is a great screening device for detecting wrongheaded or kinky dealings. Public officials owe each of us an explanation of what they are doing when they act on our behalf with our money, and why they are doing it: if they can’t explain it understandably, or if it doesn’t make sense, or if it sounds too good to be true, chances are we’re getting fleeced.
And that questioning shouldn’t just be at the City level. The two least-scrutinized and least-transparent branches of local government are School Districts 64 and 207, which do not televise or videotape their meetings and which have become quite comfortable cultivating the sense that the business of education can be understood only by “the educators.” To make matters worse, those two branches of local government account for about 2/3 of our property tax bills.
The bottom line is that every time a public official “put’s his thumb on the scale” – for either his own benefit or for that of some special interest – the rest of us are being cheated out of good government. Even if that doesn’t technically qualify as “corruption,” it most definitely is not “good government.”
And it’s “effing” wrong.
UPDATE (07.01.11): Sometimes you need to laugh to keep from crying: our new Illinois license plate and Jon Stewart “Blago” bit.
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10 comments so far
Pardon the off topic but I just read the HA article “Mayor: Storm response not swift enough”. Let’s see…..
1. Blame Hock.
2. Sell tree trimming.
I wonder how he shaves. He clearly does not own a mirror!!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Good point: he could have blamed God for the City’s delayed emergency response (as well as for the storm itself); and he could have sold giving across-the-board raises and money to private unaccountable community groups.
Newsflash to mayor NOt in town—-
The power was out, the phone was out, does the city have a budgeted item for carrier piegons?
What a major putz…nuthing but political grandstanding.
As one of the taxpayers he claims he is representing (I clearly do not think he is doing that) I would chide him for the absurdity of his claim especially since he was out of town during the event.
Where was Mayor NO show? he wasn’t visiting the citizens and encouraging them in their time of challenge. Where was Alderman DARK KNIGHT? we don’t know batman…he wasn’t visiting his constituent businesses in the 5th ward
What putzes!!!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Newsflash to you: Cell phones weren’t out; traditional self-powered, hard-wired phones (like the ones at City Hall, the police dept. and the fire dept?) weren’t out. That might explain why your carrier pigeon service wasn’t in high demand.
Where was our $200K+ City Mgr.?
“………. it’s time the people of Park Ridge had a mayor who will show some leadership on these issues, and who is willing to accept accountability for what happens on his watch.”
-Mayor Dave Schmidt (12-21-2008)
Here we are about 30 months later and guess what?? It is still “about time”.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The entire quote reads:
“We need City government to be accountable for what it does and doesn’t do,” said Schmidt. “With the City looking at a $1.7 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2007-08 and expecting a similar shortfall for this budget year, it’s time the people of Park Ridge had a mayor who will show some leadership on these issues, and who is willing to accept accountability for what happens on his watch.”
Mayor Schmidt has been the most fiscally-responsible mayor since at least Marty Butler, as evidenced by his comments and by his budget and spending vetoes.
ahhhhh I see!! We need a Mayor who is responsible only for what he wants to be responsible for. He said finances in the quote, not flooding or power or infrastructure so disregard those things.
Fact one: The Mayor (and you) used infrastructure, flooding and power as a major point in his campaign. You correctly pointed out how Frimark had done nothing in these areas and that this was a HUGE issue for the people of PR.
Fact two: There has been nothing done related to power or flooding in this town since he was sworn in. ZERO!!!!!!!!
Fact three: Three is no evidence that there is any kind of plan to address these issues that have caused PR residents to “lose thousands, and even tens of thousands, of dollars of possessions, including such irreplaceable things as family photos and mementoes. It also has increased the cost of their insurance and caused them a lot of time, effort and drudgery related to clean-up and repairs”. There is nothing in place that should give any PR resident even a glimmer of hope that even a beginning of a resolution, or even progress, is on the horizon (well we lost power this time but it will be better next time – yeah right!!!)
But we will just ignore that because the Mayor did not say that he should be held accountable for what happens on his watch in this area. Good lord you hammered Frinark (deservedly so) down to the linear foot of relief sewer that occured under his watch. How many feet have been instaled under Schmidt???
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Fact one: True.
Fact two: False…unless you consider as “nothing” and “ZERO!!!!!!!” the hiring of Burke Engineering to provide the first comprehensive sewer and flooding study in recent memory, the full report of which is due this summer. Are you dismissing all the hours and effort Flood Control Task Force members Lou Arrigoni, Daniel Carroll, Gale Fabisch, John Humm, Kim Jones, Patricia Lofthouse, Bob Mack, Joe Saccomanno and Steve Tolan have put in analyzing the situation “nothing” and “ZERO!!!!!!!”?
Fact three: False – see “Fact two,” above.
This mayor and this City Council should and will be held accountable for what happens on their watch, as should and will our well-compensated City staff, whose full-time jobs are to keep this City running well, economically and efficiently. And if they don’t do a darn sight better than Frimark and his compact clown-car Council did, we will barbecue them just as we their predecessors.
What I am saying is that as of this moment:
1. There have been no improvements related to our power system or Com Ed. Last weeks events prove very clearly that there has been zero progress made on this issue inspite of the Mayors words and promises.
2. There has been no progress on the flood issue. While appreciate the work of those on the committee, the fact is we are no better protected today versus when the last “big one” hit. Has their been any action taken based on all the work that they did that would have any measurable affect on flooding? If we were to get a storm with that kind of rainfall today the results would be the same (do you dispute this??). I would call your attention to another release from the Mayor. It is dated 11/24/08 and is titled how to file a FEMA claim – that is 30 months ago!!! 30 months and no matter what he said he would do, there has not been any action taken that would protect, lessen or mitigate the issues of last week or a potential flood.
Lastly, so their is no misunderstanding, I do not believe the Mayor has a magic want. I have an appreciation for the size and scope of these issues. He and you made it an issue. I will do this and I will do that…..I do not appreciate a candidate making hay about an issue and than doing nothing. Especially when it is a candidate that received my vote (as if I had any choice).
Any answer on the linear feet??
EDITOR’S NOTE: What you are saying is – not surprisingly – factually wrong.
1. As we reported in our 06/23/11 post, ComEd’s “Park Ridge” representative, Eric Duray, claimed (ironically, at the Council meeting the night before the outage) that ComEd has invested $570,000 in “capital improvements” to the Park Ridge power grid in the past 3 years. If true – and at least one commentator residing “south of Mary Seat, west of Cumberland” claims his/her power has become more reliable “the past couple of years” – than that belies your beef about “no improvements” and “zero progress.”
Is it enough? Of course not. Which is why the mayor has scheduled a special Council meeting for July 14 to have ComEd reps appear and be questioned about our power grid and additional improvements. Whether that turns into a repeat of the no-follow-up Howard Frimark Production following our previous big outage will remain to be seen, but this July 14 meeting is also something.
2. Show up at the next Flood Control Task Force meeting and ask these questions of the people who have been most involved in this issue over the past 18 months or so. And if that’s not good enough for you, why don’t you show up at a Council meeting and ask these questions to the mayor and the new Council?
One solution that was already presented is creating a detention area at North Park. That could cost a couple million dollars, however, and both the Park District and North Park neighbors aren’t sold on the idea. Once again, the Burke report is expected over the next few weeks, and that should start a new phase of discussion of flooding remediation, including re-evaluating whether relief sewers are the best bang for the buck.
Do the research and you will see that this mayor has done more about flooding than the past 3 mayors. And two years of it occurred with Frimark’s compact clown-car Council.
All I can say is……”Now you’re starting to get into a bit of parsing here.
Mayor Schmidt made that statement in connection with his 2009 campaign, and we don’t see any significant change in circumstances since then to warrant a debate about how “chronic” power outages were pre-2009 and post-2009. The bottom line is that little appears to have been done since 2008 to substantially improve the dependablity of our power grid”.
So with Frimark it was “why no relief sewers…..how many linear feet…..etc…etc” With Schmidt it is we need an opportunity for more study and more discussion…….re-evaluating relief sewers. You said the following:
“So, guys, how about telling all these flooded taxpayers why the City cut back its relief sewer installation from an already meager 1,240 linear feet (@ $318,749) in budget year 2007 to a positively paltry 940 linear feet (@ $156,000) in budget year 2008? That 940 linear feet is basically a whopping 3 city blocks!”
You sure do not sound like you want re-evaluation in that post!!!
You followed up with this:
“In typical alderpuppet fashion, DiPietro – who has been little more than the sounds of silence on flooding in his ward and everywhere else until now – suddenly wants to authorize the spending of $80,000 for…wait for it… “an engineering study.” And that’s for just the Manor Lane area, up in his Second Ward. But $80,000, however, is more than half of the relief sewer construction budget for 2008, and it won’t keep one basement any drier when it’s done. Brilliant!” (3/11/09)
Now you site Burke, wait for it ENGINEERING, providing a study as a good thing. I am guessing this must be a engineering study, right?? Couldn’t what ever we are paying for Burke go toward relief sewers?? I mean that is what you thought should happen when Frimark was Mayor.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The answer is actually so simple you should have no problem grasping it: Since we made those observations, the City received the Flood Control Task Force’s “Preliminary Report to the City Council” dated…wait for it…December 14, 2009, and also got related comments by Task Force members and Burke Engineering reps that call into question whether the City can afford (and would be willing to commit to) enough relief sewers to make them the most bang-for-the-buck solution. Based on that new information, we have chosen to wait for the Burke study that is supposed to be City-wide, not just for the 2nd Ward.
Now, can you stop bothering us with your uninformed questions on this topic?
Sounds to me like someone came out of retirement.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Could be…
Mayor Schmidt is good at raising issues and campaigning but he is very lousy at governing. How good he is at campaigning is questionable too because the bloggers did most of his campaigning. Mayor Schmidt isn’t fiscally responsible. He is just Mayor No.
EDITOR’S NOTE: You forgot to mention that he’s overweight and balding. Actually, those would have been the most salient points of your criticism, had you been astute enough to raise them.
may 2013 Schmidt will be mayor no more.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Did you come up with that yourself, or did you get it out of a fortune cookie?
I will leave criticism of Mayor Schmidt’s obesity problem and his balding to deep thinkers like yourself. His unmet campaign promises and failures after his election are more worth my attention.
EDITOR’S NOTE: You may be confusing your “attention” with your delusion; but contact the Center of Concern or the Maine Mental Health organization and you can start recouping the City’s involuntary “donation” of your tax dollars.
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