We normally don’t comment on what other local blogs are publishing, if for no other reason that we don’t know of any other local blog besides Ken Butterly’s “Butterly On Senior Issues.”  

But his post dated 01/18/12 so clearly demonstrates just how dysfunctional and perverse the operation of the Park Ridge Park District’s Senior Center may have become that it virtually demands discussion here.

For those unaware of Butterly’s blog, it’s written by a Senior Center member who is part of what appears to be a small but vocal faction of that facility’s roughly 800-person membership.  That faction acts and sounds as if it believes that the Senior Center was officially handed over to private corporation Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. (“SSI” or “Seniors Inc.”, our preference) around 30 years ago, but with some kind of understanding that the Park District (a/k/a, the taxpayers) would nevertheless still foot the bill.

Butterly’s post criticizes an anticipated request at tonight’s Park Board meeting by vice-president Rick Biagi that a $300,000+ bequest by the late Betty Kemnitz to “the Senior Center” be included as revenue in the District’s 2012-13 budget.  Butterly asserts that “the Kemnitz bequest money are [sic] dollars presently in the hands of Senior Services, Inc., the legal and financial arm of the Senior Center membership.”

Think about that for a minute: Seniors Inc. is the legal and financial arm of the Senior Center membership. 

Assuming that Mr. Butterly isn’t talking through his hat, how did the Park District get to the point where users of one of its facilities have a private corporation serving as their “legal and financial arm” seeking to keep control of that facility away from the Park District?

Remember, folks, that the Senior Center is a building owned by the Park District (i.e., the taxpayers).  For at least the past six years the Park District (i.e., the taxpayers) has poured almost $1 million of public funds into subsidizing the operations of that facility because Seniors Inc.’s leadership claims that the Center’s members shouldn’t have to pay more than the $45/year “dues” currently charged by the Park District – even as Seniors Inc. sits on a private treasury of over $240,000.

We’ve addressed this situation in several posts since December 2010, including those of  12/28/11, 12/12/11, 08/02/11 and 07/29/11.

But apparently even $160,000/year in taxpayer subsidies isn’t enough for Butterly and his fellow Seniors Inc. members.  Despite acknowledging that the Kemnitz bequest “was made to the Park Ridge Senior Center,” he seems to argue that it effectively belongs to Seniors Inc., which he describes as having “run” the Senior Center until January 2011, and which currently holds those funds as the result of conduct by the “trustee” of that bequest.

And who might be the “trustee” of that bequest who put the funds in the hands of Seniors Inc. in the first place?

If you guessed former Senior Center supervisor Teresa Grodsky – until 01/01/12, a Park District employee bound by the well-established legal duty of loyalty to her employer and its taxpayers – you’d be right.

From information recently revealed through Biagi’s whistle-blowing about Grodsky’s previously secret “retirement” deal – engineered by the District’s Exec. Director, Gayle Mountcastle, and apparently approved in secret by the Park Board, including Biagi – it looks and sounds as if Grodsky’s unauthorized handing over of the Kenmitz bequest to Seniors Inc. was one of several reasons why she “retired.”  

But in all fairness to Grodsky, her shall-we-say divided loyalty to the Park District wasn’t a solo act. 

That’s because, as also was disclosed by Biagi, she may have been assisted in her conflicted activities by Park Board member Stephen Vile, who also is a member of…wait for it…the Senior Center.  Vile himself seems to have had some difficulty deciding whether his loyalty belongs with the Park District, to which he swore his oath of office in May 2009, or to Seniors Inc, a conflict displayed in some e-mails that Biagi shared with the Herald-Advocate, the Journal, Butterly’s blog, and this blog as part of his whistle-blowing.   

For example, in an e-mail to Grodsky on 05/03/11, Vile (clearly speaking as a Seniors Inc. member rather than a Park Board member) observes that “we’ll be able to do [nothing] other than withhold any donations to the park board” [emphasis added].  And in a 05/15/11 “for your eyes only” one to Grodsky, Vile refers to Seniors Inc. as “we” and “our” when he writes: “We have tentetively [sic] agreed to relinquish our claims for previous investments” in the Senior Center.

Vile’s and Grodsky’s ambivalence is not just of recent vintage, either: it dates back almost a year earlier, as can be seen from a Grodsky e-mail exchange with Vile on 08/23/10, in which they both appear to be referring to Seniors Inc. as “we,” “our” and “us” while referring to the Park District or Park Board as “they’re,” “they” and “their.”

Not surprisingly, Butterly and Seniors Inc. are beating up on Biagi for outing both Grodsky and Vile.  And we wouldn’t be surprised if Biagi feels a bit of a chill over at the Maine Leisure Center (Park District HQ) when he arrives for tonight’s meeting, since neither Mountcastle nor his fellow Board members have expressed any public support so far for Biagi’s candor.  Which is not unexpected, considering how badly the District botched the Senior Center issue even before it totally mishandled the Grodsky “retirement.”

This bizarre saga, however, does provide several object lessons for how not to run a Park District (or any other branch of local government, for that matter), including:

(a) how the Park District allowed private corporation Seniors Inc. to effectively take over the Senior Center for its semi-private clubhouse;

(b) how Seniors Inc. took that opportunity to bleed the taxpayers, with the District’s acquiescence, and then shamelessly claim to be disrespected by the District when it wouldn’t agree to continue that status quo;

(c) how a trusted long-term employee (Grodsky) and a sworn elected official (Vile) seem to have lost track of their duty to all the District’s taxpayers, not just to 800 Senior Center members; and

(d) how a sworn appointed official/employee (Mountcastle) and sworn elected officials (the Park Board members) could somehow think that giving Grodsky a sweetheart “retirement” deal at the taxpayers’ expense, and then trying to keep it secret from the public, was somehow in the public’s best interest.

But perhaps the most notable lesson provided by this mess is how a “house” – in this case the Park District – can so easily become divided against itself when special interests combine with bad judgment and secrecy.  Hopefully, the folks who run the Park District for us taxpayers will learn a valuable lesson from this perverse experience.

Starting tonight.

To read or post comments, click on title.