When we read the headline “Park Ridge mayor rejects grant for police training in mental health” in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (March 26, 2014), the first thought that crossed our mind was: What kind of idiot would do that?

We know money’s tight over at City Hall and that, consequently, our elected officials have been in a constant battle since 2009 to maintain essential services while keeping annual tax increases at around 3%, even as the Uptown TIF debt continues to suck up around $1 million in debt service expense each year.  Getting $59,000 of grant money to provide Park Ridge police officers with training to better deal with mentally ill individuals, therefore, should have been something the City would jump at.

So why would Mayor Dave Schmidt “reject” such a grant?

After reading the H-A article, it’s clear he didn’t “reject” the grant.  But, notwithstanding the misleading headline, the article doesn’t fully explain where and/or how the grant ball got dropped.

The article reports that Schmidt was concerned about “hidden costs” of the grant such as travel and overtime charges for the officers undergoing the training.  That’s a legitimate concern, especially if those “hidden costs” wouldn’t be covered by the grant funding itself and, instead, would become over-budget expenses that had to be paid out of the City’s General Fund.

“When I got it I looked it over and had questions for staff, but I never really got complete answers and the time expired,” Schmidt explained.  “I never got an explanation so I never signed the form.”

Police Chief Frank Kaminski claims he promptly responded to Schmidt’s questions through City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton; and Kaminski is quoted in the article as saying he didn’t think Schmidt “didn’t want to sign” the grant.  Unfortunately, the article fails to report whether Hamilton forwarded Kaminski’s responses to Schmidt fully and in timely fashion, and/or whether those responses actually did answer all of Schmidt’s questions.

More significantly, the article fails to report why the mayor needed to sign off on the grant at all if there truly were no uncovered expenses.  As we understand it, Hamilton has the discretionary authority to sign contracts without mayoral or Council approval where the costs to the City don’t exceed $10,000.  So if there were any timing issues that jeopardized getting the grant, why didn’t Hamilton either follow up with Schmidt or just sign off on the grant himself?

We expect Schmidt’s critics to howl that he’s prejudiced against the police department and the mentally ill.  They’ve already barbecued him repeatedly for his vetoes of giveaways of arbitrary amounts of taxpayer funds to private corporations who want to use those funds to provide services to non-Park Ridge residents with no accountability to the City for those funds.  Some of those critics probably insist Schmidt hates puppies, kittens and small children, too.

But we can find no mention of, nor even think of, any instance in which Schmidt has “rejected” or not supported free, no-strings-attached funding of anything that would benefit the City or its residents.

Except for one misleading headline.

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