Park Ridge Mayor Dave Schmidt and Finance & Budget Chair Ald. Dan Knight (5th Ward) wanted at least one of the operators of Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”) to appear at a City Council meeting and answer some questions about Taste Inc.’s management of Taste of Park Ridge (“TOPR”) – starting with what it did with all the money it made running TOPR as a for-profit Subchapter S corporation from 2005 through 2008, even as it was praising itself as a not-for-profit corporation whose “volunteer” operators never made a penny for their efforts.
Every last one of the Tastees – Albert Galus, Dave Iglow, Dean Patras, Sandy Svizzero, Barb Tyksinski, John Warnimont, Jackie Matthews and Mel Thillens – basically told Schmidt and the Council (and, indirectly, the taxpayers) to go pound sand: they were too busy, and they would remain too busy until some unspecified future date which, as Schmidt quipped, seemed like “eternity.”
But while they were laying low (and, perhaps, watching the proceedings live on WOW?) an “unofficial” spokesman showed up at Monday night’s City Council meeting to rant on their behalf, while disingenuosly (as evidenced by all his “we” references) claiming to be speaking only for himself.
Their champion was none other than former mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark, who came out with guns blazing at Schmidt, Knight, and anybody else who might dare even to hint that his Tastee buddies were anything other than Mother Teresas in orange TOPR golf shirts.
Frimark called Schmidt a “liar,” called Knight a Schmidt “lackey,” and accused City Staff of “cooking the books” in calculating the $20,000-plus in direct and indirect costs of all the City services that Taste Inc. received for free again this year. And he provided a history of TOPR that was so incomplete and distorted that it would stretch the meaning of the term to call it merely “revisionist.”
But while almost everything Frimark said was, typically, of questionable veracity, one line stood out, even for him:
“[The City] doesn’t own the Taste. You have to get that through your thick skulls.”
The reason that line stood out is because it may have been the only completely truthful and factually accurate statement Frimark made all evening, because just last Thursday (August 18), Taste Inc. registered the “Taste of Park Ridge” trademark, along with its logo, with the Illinois Secretary of State’s office.
That’s a pretty slick business/legal move for people who only recently admitted (through a press release) to being so unsophisticated that it took them more than four years to discover a “paperwork error” and figure out that they were a for-profit corporation instead of a not-for-profit one.
The practical effect of this move by Taste Inc. is that if the City chooses to bid out next year’s TOPR, neither the City nor the winning bidder will be able to call the event “Taste of Park Ridge” – unless, of course, the winning bidder is Taste Inc., or the winning bidder gets a license from Taste Inc. to use the name.
While the slickness and the timing of the move surprised us, the attitude it reflects is spot-on for a group of people whose stewardship of TOPR has been a continuous display of secretiveness, self-aggrandizement and arrogance for over 7 years. Which is why Frimark is the perfect Taste Inc. spokesman: a shameless opportunist who seems to view “government” as little more than a vehicle for letting private individuals and enterprises feed at the public trough.
In other words, Chicago-style government in Park Ridge – compliments of ol’ “Let’s Make A Deal.”
UPDATE (08.25.11) Just when we thought nothing could be more bizarre than Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark’s emergence Monday night as the unofficial shill for Taste Inc., Howard and the Tastees have produced an unsigned “Memorandum of Understanding” dated 1/1/2006 from head Tastee Dave Iglow (Pine’s Mens Wear) to then-mayor Frimark (naturally), claiming an “understanding” by Taste Inc.’s “directors” that Taste Inc. from that point on had no further financial or reporting obligations to the City.
As Dana Carvey’s “church lady” character used to say on SNL: “Now isn’t that special.”
Not surprisingly, we can find no mention of this Memorandum in any of the admittedly sketchy records on the City’s website for 2006; and we could find no reference to it despite a pretty darn thorough Internet search. And as best as we can tell, no mention of it ever surfaced in any of the achingly self-serving statements Taste Inc. has issued over the past few years. So we have to wonder whether it’s just a total scam, or whether it’s something Iglow cooked up a few years back and Frimark stuffed under his mattress just in case Taste Inc.’s (and Frimark’s?) for-profit TOPR scheme was ever discovered and Taste Inc. faced the kind of Council scrutiny it is now under.
We can’t wait to see what the next treasure from the Taste Inc./Frimark Wonder Cave will be. Could it be a secret 99-year license for Taste Inc.’s exclusive use of Summit Ave. for 4 days each July? An undated general pardon from then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich? A “Dude for Supervisor” campaign button? Jimmy Hoffa?
When dealing with the likes of Frimark and the Tastees, nothing seems too implausible or outrageous.
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