The New Year is a time of both goodbyes and hellos.  So without further ado, here are our thoughts on what things from 2011 we want to say goodbye to, and those things we hope to say hello to in 2012.

* Goodbye to Mayor Dave Schmidt’s vetoes of City Council actions that he viewed as fiscally irresponsible.  We applaud Schmidt for saying “no” even when he pretty much knew that the weak sisters on the City Council would over-ride his veto and say “yes, yes” to more irresponsible spending.

* Hello to more Schmidt vetoes in 2012 – if this Council continues to be as clueless as its predecessor and fails to realize that the U.S. Congress and the Illinois General Assembly aren’t models of fiscal responsibility.  The City already is increasing its share of the property tax at a rate that exceeds inflation, so it has to continue to work on figuring out how to wring more services out of what it’s taking in.

* Goodbye to giving Fire Chief Mike Zywanski authority to do anything more than manage Fire Dept. staff.  Because as a labor negotiator he was simply awful, starting with those ridiculous “Ground Rules” he proposed without even consulting the Mayor or the City Council, and which locked the City into a gag order preventing it from commenting on the firefighters union contract negotiations – and then didn’t even have the stones to admit to doing so when questioned by the Mayor. 

* Hello to what we hope will be a new era of openness in the labor negotiations for all branches of local government, starting with School District 64’s upcoming teachers union negotiations.  No negotiations should be commenced until the unit of local government decides, in meetings open to the public, how much it can afford to spend on those employees.  Whatever “negotiations” might still be needed after that exercise also should occur in meetings open to the public, so the taxpayers can see and hear for themselves whether their elected representatives or the employees – both unionized and non-unionized – are being unreasonable.

* Goodbye to closed session meetings generally?  We can only hope that the Ald. Dan Knight-led City Council’s recent rejection of a closed session discussion of City Mgr. Jim Hock’s goals and objectives helps all our other elected officials finally realize that there is nothing – NOTHING – that the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) requires be discussed in closed session, or anything discussed in closed session that IOMA requires be kept secret.  The question that should be asked and debated before any closed session is voted on is: “What harm to the taxpayers will occur if this matter is discussed in open session?”  And if the answer isn’t “a lot,” accompanied by a clear description of exactly what that harm consists of, the vote on closed session should be “no.” 

* Hello to the City starting to take some action to address the long-term power outages that seem to occur with virtually every storm that hits anywhere between the Wisconsin border and Kankakee.  Public Works Director Wayne Zingsheim was designated as the City’s liaison with Com Ed to hold the utilities’ feet to the fire on its promises – until now, purely hollow ones – to upgrade the City’s power grid.  Good luck, Zinger!

* Goodbye to a Senior Center run by a small group of seniors, for a small group of seniors, subsidized by all the District’s taxpayers.  Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. (“Seniors Inc.” or “SSI”), that private corporation accountable to nobody but its own operators, has built up a $240,000 treasury while feeding at the public trough.  After 30 years, it’s time to change that perverse paradigm.

* Hello to a Senior Center that either attracts a larger number of seniors and/or expands its role to serve other segments of the District’s population, while at the same time eliminating – or at least substantially reducing – those six-figure deficits the Senior Center has been posting for too many years.  And the District should look to do the same thing with all its other facilities and programs.

* Can we say “goodbye” to School District 207’s financial problems for the foreseeable future, compliments of the new Rivers Casino in Des Plaines?  As reported in the November 9, 2011, edition of the Park Ridge Journal (“Casino A $40M Value For Dist. 207”), the District’s assistant superintendant for business, Mary Kalou, is quoted as saying that the Crook County Assessor’s office “is estimating the casino’s 2011 valuation at about $12 million…[which] translates to $40 million additional assessed value for the district when the equalized multiplier is factored in.”

* Hello to a new and improved City Mgr. Jim Hock?  If he takes seriously the City Council’s direction to up his performance to a level that warrants his approx. $215,000 in annual compensation, Park Ridge will take another big step toward becoming one of the better-managed municipalities in the Chicagoland area, especially considering its lack of commercial property to bolster its tax base.  If not, then it should be “goodbye” to Mr. Hock.

* Goodbye to hundreds of thousands of dollars of uncollected City fines and fees, thanks to the diligent work of the City’s new finance director Allison Stutts, who was hired by the City in November 2010 and has been nothing short of outstanding in her short time on staff.  Not only did she blow the whistle on the uncollected funds, but she also is implementing a new budget process.  And her efforts, combined with Mayor Schmidt’s relentless pursuit of fiscal responsibility, helped the City post a $2 million surplus for FY 2010-11 – only the second surplus in more than a decade, and the first since former mayor Howard Frimark’s cut-the-council referendum chopped the Council from 14 to 7 aldermen.

* Hello to the likelihood that Park Ridge someday will have a showcase for its artistic tradition, thanks to the Kalo Foundation’s successful efforts to save the building at Elm and Northwest Highway that once housed the studio of artist Alfonso Iannelli.  The members of that organization deserve a big shout-out for their efforts, which raised the funds necessary to purchase that property from a broad range of residents…and from an anonymous donor who agreed to provide the matching fund which sealed the deal.    

* Goodbye to Oakton Pool, which had served this community well for 41 years but fell victim to cultural and economic changes that substantially reduced the demand for a traditional outdoor swimming pool in a climate that permits such swimming for only a few months a year.  We won’t miss the $80-100,000 annual deficit that Oakton had become accustomed to posting; and, hopefully, the Park District will find another, better use for that piece of Oakton Park the pool previously occupied.  

* Hello to a plan to begin remedying the chronic flooding that has plagued Park Ridge for decades but seems to have increased in recent years as more and more multi-family residential development took over from this community’s traditional base of single-family homes.  The City has approved a $150,000 contract for the design of several sewer improvement projects, the first phase of what is expected to a multi-project remediation program that is already being estimated as costing upwards of $25 million.

* Goodbye to the no-bid, no accountability monopoly enjoyed by private corporation Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”) over the City’s signature Taste of Park Ridge event (“TOPR”) after 7 years.  During that time Taste Inc. generated hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenues and undisclosed profits, four years of which occurred while Taste Inc. was lying to the public about being a not-for-profit enterprise.  And during all 7 years of its existence, Taste Inc. refused to reimburse the City for approximately $20,000+ a year in free City services. 

* Hello to the RFP (bidding) procedure that the new City Council, at Mayor Schmidt’s request, has implemented for the 2012 TOPR.  Three entities, including Taste Inc., have submitted proposals, all of which are supposed to include making the City whole for all of its direct and indirect TOPR costs.

* Goodbye to criminal complaints filed by one of Taste Inc.’s long-time head honchos, Albert Galus, against Mayor Dave Schmidt, Ald. Dan Knight (5th) and the editor of this blog, Robert Trizna.  Galus waited over 2 years to file a battery complaint against Mayor Dave Schmidt over an incident that Galus claims occurred at the Mary Seat of Wisdom polling place in April, 2009, although his “cyber-stalking” beefs against Knight and Trizna were of more recent vintage.  All of those bogus complaints were recognized as such by the State’s Attorney’s office, which declined to prosecute.

* Ironically, Galus closed out 2011 by saying “hello” to the FBI’s Child Exploitation Unit, which reportedly served a search warrant at his Park Ridge residence the week before Christmas and found a cache of guns which Galus had no valid FOID to possess.  According to Galus’ former employer at the Academic Tutoring Center, the search was initiated on suspicion of child pornography possession, although no such charges have been brought.

Although that’s not all of the hellos and good-byes of note, that’s more than enough to usher in 2012. 

Happy New Year…and here’s hoping the Mayan’s are wrong.

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