It’s no secret that we here at PW consider the current administration at the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District something decidedly south of a paragon of local governmental virtue.

So it probably should have come as no surprise to us to read in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate that the Park District’s new Centennial water park is now going to cost taxpayers nearly $600,000 more than the District was telling us last December, when the Park Board was passing the resolutions to green-light what was then billed as a $7.1 million project – without giving the taxpayers an opportunity to vote on it via an advisory referendum. (“Centennial Pool renovations will cost extra $600K for Park Ridge Park District,” August 12)

That’s because the parks and recreation “professionals” running the Park District know that you never put two park district funding referenda on the same ballot, or in consecutive elections – as the Park District could have done by putting the Centennial project on the November ballot and the Youth Campus project on the April ballot, if it didn’t want both of them on the April ballot – if you want to pass both of them.  When referendum questions are paired up in that way, the conventional wisdom is that the voters tend to pass the first and reject the second, or reject them both.

And being told “no” by the voting taxpayers is a capital offense to career government bureaucrats.

So Park District Executive Director Gayle Mountcastle and her staff, aided and abetted by a profligate and complicit Park Board, masterfully delayed consideration of the Centennial pool/water park project until months after the deadline for putting a referendum question on the November ballot, into the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday season when most taxpayers customarily are distracted.  That way, the District could commit almost all of its non-referendum bonding power to the less-marketable project and save its best sales pitches for the more-marketable “legacy” Youth Campus Park referendum.

The bureaucratic reasoning was that, with the voters lacking any memory of recently having voted to issue $6.3 million of bonded debt for a $7.1 million Centennial water park, it would be much easier to convince them to vote for issuing $6.8 million of additional bonded debt for a $13.2 million Youth Campus project.

And the bureaucrats were right!

But the news of the $600,000 cost over-run for the water park just as ground was being broken has raised a few hackles from the thinking taxpayers who are realizing that they got conned even more than they originally thought.

We tend to derive perverse entertainment value from listening to the propaganda ministers of our various local governmental units try to spin performance dross into political gold.  And, according to the H-A story, Park District minister of disinformation Kathie Hahn didn’t disappoint – dismissing the original $7.1 million figure as “early on in the project” and then applying a layer of populist varnish to the $600,000 up-sell: “When we went to the public hearings and input meetings, we heard from the public about certain things they wanted at this park so we made our best attempt to include those items.”

Pretty slick, Ms. Hahn!  But exactly what “items” are you talking about?

As we understand it, the District had already cut the single most-wanted feature of the new water park (according to the half-baked resident “survey” provided by…wait for it…the designers of the new facility, Stantec Consulting) even before the Park Board approved the project: a lazy river connecting the various pools.  So we’re curious about what new “items” are being added to the project that would account for the additional $600K.

That’s not saying the information wasn’t communicated by the District in some fashion.  Park Board meetings aren’t covered nearly as diligently by the local press as are the meetings of the Park Ridge City Council, where “press row” is regularly filled by reporters from the H-A, the Park Ridge Journal, and the Chicago TribLocal.  And while Mayor Dave Schmidt and the Council members often engage in spirited debate over issues, the Park Board usually behaves like a rubber stamp for current Executive Director Gayle Mountcastle and her staff.

Since returning to the PRRPD after 8 years as Supt. of Recreation for the Des Plaines Park District,  Mountcastle’s agenda appears to be not unlike that of many high-level local government bureaucrats: spend money and pile up debt on facilities-as-monuments.  Those monuments earn them bragging rights at the various “professional association” networking/self-promotion conferences and conventions – like those of the Illinois Association of Park Districts (“IAPD”) and the National Recreation and Park Association (“NRPA”) – they regularly attend, usually on the taxpayers’ dime.

In fairness, up until now Mountcastle has been able to control costs and post some welcome surpluses, apparently by retaining the operating budget philosophy and strategy adopted by her predecessor, Ray Ochromowicz, during his relatively short tenure at the helm.  And from what we’ve seen and heard, maintenance and customer service continue to improve.

But whether the District can stay that course now that it’s saddled with servicing $13 million-plus of new long-term bonded debt remains to be seen.  If all those suspect revenue projections for the Centennial water park and the Youth Campus Park prove to be the kind of pie-in-the-sky that the revenue projections for the Uptown TIF turned out to be, the Park District and its taxpayers could be hurtin’ for certain in a few years when the surpluses and fund balances are depleted but the PTELL keeps the tax increases capped.

By that time, however, expect Mountcastle to have moved on to other, greener pastures on the strength of these two new resume enhancements, compliments of Park Ridge taxpayers.  And the Park Board members who rubber-stamped these projects with only one referendum instead of two will have become former public officials – just like city manager Tim Schuenke and his Council accomplices on the Uptown TIF were long gone by the time the financial chickens came home to roost on that project.

Meanwhile, however, the Park District is adding $600,000 of “switch” to the water park’s $7.1 million “bait” price, with barely a ripple of protest by our elected officials on the Park Board who are supposed to make sure that the taxpayers don’t get “had” by this kind of bureaucratic hi-jinks.

Next up: The Youth Campus Park.

Bidding starts at $13.2 million.

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