We’ve previously published posts (on 08.12.13 and 09.18.13) about how government can be bad in principle, even if the financial consequences are relatively modest – echoing the Biblical teaching (Luke 19:17) that people who cannot handle little matters should not be trusted with bigger matters.

That’s why a story in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate’s on-line version caught our attention.  It’s about the Park Ridge Library, for which this blog’s owner/editor has been a trustee since his appointment in 2011 – over former mayor Howard Frimark’s vehement objections, and despite Frimark’s insistence that the City assess a $500,000 fine against that owner/editor for displaying a stylized version of the City flag on the blog’s banner.

Titled “Park Ridge Library Board vote saves Food for Fines – this year,” the H-A article provided little worthwhile information beyond the title, the vote totals on the Food for Fines (“FFF”) resolution (4 to continue, 4 to stop; tie goes to continuing), and the identities of who voted how (to continue: Benka, Ebling, Harrison & Schmidt; to stop: Foss-Eggeman, Hynous, Trizna & White).  Then again, the reporter wasn’t at the meeting to hear the discussion, so it’s no surprise that the core issues that fueled the discussion and informed the vote are basically ignored.

Issues such as how and why the Library ever started such a program that effectively has been stealing money from the Library (and, therefore, Park Ridge taxpayers) for years?  No real explanation of how and why has been given to the Board members, which suggests the program probably originated as one of those sounded-good-at-the-time ideas for spending OPM (“Other People’s Money”) on somebody’s favorite charity, which a past Library Board just mindlessly rubber-stamped.

Kind of like how, for many years, the City Council mindlessly rubber-stamped arbitrary donations of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money to private “community group” corporations to spend however they chose, without any transparency or accountability to the taxpayers.

The H-A article also ignores how much the FFF program costs the Library and, therefore, the taxpayers.  No hard numbers were presented to the Board on that point, either.  But considering that the Library collects roughly $80,000 in fines annually, the one-month holiday-season Food for Fines program probably costs the Library/taxpayers around $7,000 in cancelled fines; and the 2-week program this past Spring cost around $3,500.

Those aren’t boxcar numbers, to be sure.  But it’s disingenuous, at best, to make charitable donations with public monies when Library staff and certain Board members whine and moan about how the City Council isn’t giving the Library enough money.

The H-A story also fails to give the reasons why four Library Board members insisted on keeping FFF going for at least another year, which included: (a) it’s been done for all these years; (b) the Maine Twp. food pantry (part of Maine Twp. government, like the MTEMP that wanted a free used SUV from the City) is counting on the FFF money; and (c) there’s too little time before the upcoming holiday season FFF to let Library patrons know that they can’t discharge each dollar of fines with one “food item.”

Had the H-A reporter attended the meeting, or even listened to the audio recording of it, perhaps she might have understood (and, therefore, reported) that the main objections to the FFF program were far less about the money going to a food pantry “that does not exclusively assist Park Ridge taxpayers” than they were about the Library not being legally authorized to “donate” funds that should be devoted to Library purposes; and that such donations are so far afield from legitimate Library purposes that they breach the public trust attaching to those public funds given away.

What may be the most interesting omission from the H-A story, however, is its failure to report that: (a) the Board members who voted to stop the FFF program proposed that the Library nevertheless collect food and monetary contributions for the Maine Twp. food pantry (albeit without credit against fines owed) during the scheduled FFF period; and (b) that those Board members who wanted to continue throwing taxpayer money into the food pantry basket did not support the alternative proposal.

We understand how spending OPM can be fun.  But as we consistently have argued, local public officials and employees breach their public trust when they give away the taxpayers’ money for reasons unrelated to the essential purpose of the governmental unit they manage or serve.

And in so doing, they demean the voluntarism, generosity and public spiritedness of the very taxpayers whose money they are giving away.

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