There’s a special meeting of the Park Ridge City Council tonight at City Hall/505 Butler Place.  Only one topic appears on the agenda: the appointment of an Acting City Manager to replace the soon-departing ACM Juliana Maller (leaving for the Hanover Park Village Manager job, at a $20,000+ pay boost) who has been filling in for recently-sacked City Manager Jim Hock.  

Thanks to the December 2010 fiscal boneheadedness of current Alds. Joe Sweeney (1st) and Rich DiPietro (2nd) – along with former alds. Jim Allegretti, Tom Carey and Frank Wsol – the City (a/k/a, we taxpayers) is still paying Hock a severance of approximately $130,000 not to work for us.  By having Maller fill in for Hock while keeping her Deputy City Mgr. position vacant, however, the City has been able to somewhat ameliorate the adverse effects of that foolish severance benefit.

But with Maller’s decision to leave, the City now has to scramble to bring in a new ACM.  And under the City Code, it’s up to Mayor Dave Schmidt to appoint one, with the approval of the City Council.

We hear Schmidt is leaning toward someone with substantial private and public sector experience.  That sounds like the “right stuff” to us, as we have long been critical of traditional bureaucratic “leadership” that seems so immersed in the mediocre “good enough for government work” mindset that tends to strangle in its crib anything other than the same old same old. 

Consequently, innovation of the kind embodied in private sector strategies and methodologies is unlikely to spontaneously generate among the folks currently in charge of the day-to-day administration of City services, all of whom appear to be good people who seem to have become too comfortable and complacent with the way things have always been done.  Only the current Finance Director has demonstrated innovation in her approach to the City’s financial management – and her non-conformist methods have won her few friends at City Hall outside of the mayor and most of the aldermen.

As the City continues to confront the challenges provided by a grossly-underperforming Uptown TIF, tens of millions of dollars of TIF-related debt, neglected infrastructure, spiraling employee compensation and benefits, increasing water costs, flooding, and the prospect of a major RE tax increase in November, more “business-as-usual” just doesn’t cut it.  While Schmidt’s fiscally-responsible leadership has finally started to gain some meaningful traction – as evidenced by numerous vetoes that have helped turn operating deficits into surpluses, and the City’s succesful refusal to succumb to the revenue-sharing demands of Whole Foods – the City remains desperately in need of much more than the lackluster City Manager performance it has endured under the last two City Managers: Hock and Tim Schuenke.

Although the new ACM appointment is intended to be merely an interim one, we see no reason why Schmidt and the Council shouldn’t treat it as an “audition” for the permanent position.  We also see no reason, however, that they shouldn’t begin the interview process for other applicants for the permanent position – with the express understanding by both the Council and those applicants (including the interim ACM) that the interim ACM’s “audition” is not the same as a commitment for the permanent position.   

And with the April 2013 election presenting the possibility of a new mayor and three new aldermen, we think it would be wise of this Council to seriously consider offering the new ACM a term that runs through April 2013; and to defer any final decision on a new permanent City Manager until after that election when the new Council is seated.

Because the last thing the City needs is to hire a new City Manager who promptly finds himself/herself under the authority of a new mayor and three new aldermen who had no hand in and, therefore, no “ownership” of, his/her appointment.

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