It took three weeks for the Park Ridge Police Department to finally report to the mayor and the City Council on the July 12 Hinkley Park incident in which a middle-aged Park Ridge man was beaten by three teenagers while a crowd cheered them on.
Unfortunately, Police Chief Frank Kaminski’s monolog at last Monday (08.04.14) night’s Council meeting was more noteworthy for what it didn’t say than what it did. And much of what it did say seemed like just another dose of the buck-passing that we previously criticized in our posts of 07.25.14 and 07.31.14.
You can judge for yourself by watching the meeting video, from 30:50 to 1:06:15, but to us Chief K’s “chronology” of the events leading up to the beating sounded like a mid-summer’s night snow job.
He started by confirming that two patrol cars (of the five on patrol throughout the City that night) responded to a “fireworks complaint” at Hinkley at exactly 7:58 p.m. There the officers found between 30 and 40 teens just “hanging out.” Thirty-five minutes later, at exactly 8:33 p.m., three patrol cars and a supervising sergeant responded to a “crowds gathering” complaint and found around 75 teens “hanging out.” Chief K claimed that in each instance the police officers “checked the area” before leaving the park to handle “other calls.”
That raises some interesting questions.
- If the exact time of the officers’ arrival was so important, why wasn’t the time of their departures also important? Could it be that those departure times might show that the responding officers who “checked the area” for fireworks, alcohol, drugs, etc. really weren’t all that thorough in performing that task?
- Why didn’t the chief identify the time(s) and location(s) of those “other calls” the ROs supposedly had to run off to instead of staying at Hinkley and providing the kind of “police presence” central to the “community policing” the department claims to be practicing – especially on the second call, when the number of teens had inexplicably grown from 30-40 to around 75 in just 35 minutes?
- Why didn’t the chief talk about the reported police dispersal of more than 50 teens from the Library grounds between 9:00 and 9:30 p.m. – the ones who supposedly migrated en masse the two blocks to Hinkley and further swelled those ranks?
- Why didn’t the chief provide the Council with an actual “report” containing that kind of information, instead of passing around a sheet of ideas that he said came out of his “Chief’s Roundtable” meeting on July 29?
Not surprisingly, none of the ideas coming out of the roundtable point to any real improvement in the way the police handle wayward youths. Maybe that’s because, as Chief K has constantly reminded us since the beating video went viral, this wasn’t a policing problem but a “community problem.” Hence, the “solutions” focused on socio-political placebos like a “City wide campaign-Making Good Choices” (a successor to the less-than-impressive “Caught Being Good” campaign?), “Fund Youth Drop-In Center” (that the taxpayers wouldn’t support with direct donations after the City stopped giving it handouts), “Message from Community Leaders” to parents, “Parent sponsored events for weekends,” and “Youth outreach workers in the Parks and Community to engage young people.”
Our favorite, however, was: “Reinstate [Police Chief’s] Task Force to focus on this.” Anyone who followed the activities of the last Police Chief’s Task Force already knows what any new task force’s solution to the Hinkley problem would be: construction of another ugly building and adding a sally port to the current cop shop.
But we digress.
Sadly, most of the elected officials around The Horseshoe either weren’t interested or weren’t up to the challenge of eliciting any of the information Chief K failed to provide.
City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton – to whom Chief K allegedly reports – sat Sphinx-like during the chief’s monolog, which is the way Hamilton acts virtually every time a police or fire matter is on the agenda. One would think both the police and fire departments were autonomous, self-managing entities over which Hamilton has no authority, and doesn’t want any.
Public Safety chair Ald. Nick Milissis, an attorney, seemed intent on rubber-stamping everything Chief K said, going so far as to invoke the police department’s prior problems with “aggressive” policing – which sounded like an obtuse reference to the incident a few years ago when a youth already in custody in the back of a squad car was allegedly punched in the face one or more times by an officer, resulting in a federal lawsuit that was settled for $185,000.
Sorry, alderman, but we believe you’re better than a rubber-stamp and shill for such apples-to-watermelon comparisons. Or you should be.
Even Mayor Dave Schmidt, also an attorney, seemed to duck into the nearest safe harbor with his: “I’ve always felt that elected officials should be very cautious about second guessing their public safety personnel about how they do their jobs and the decisions they make.” Sorry, Mr. Mayor, but simply asking tough questions is NOT “second guessing.”
Schmidt redeemed himself somewhat, however, with his final observation that the rapid growth in the size of the crowd was “such an unusual situation that it would have made sense to leave [at least one police officer] behind” to keep an eye on the situation for the couple of hours Hinkley was scheduled to remain open.
But by the time Schmidt made that observation Chief K had already off-loaded any accountability for his department’s pre-incident performance.
With flourishes of political rhetoric worthy of Marc Antony in Act 3, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” Chief K praised the Park Ridge Park District with faint damns. While claiming not to be placing blame, he complained about Hinkley’s police-ability because of the different operating hours of its various activity areas. He bemoaned Park District rules for not having been updated since 1997. He cited the Park District’s non-deployment of its private security “monitors”(or “rent-a-cops,” as Ald. Joe Sweeney referred to them) to Hinkley that evening. And he even took a backhanded swipe at park Board president Mel Thillens, noting that his police officers’ hands were tied because only the board president could legally authorize a park closing.
He also deftly created, and immediately demolished, the straw-man suggestion that the assembled teens could have been charged with “mob action.” That was an especially nifty maneuver, given how it effectively diverted attention from what is generally considered the most police-friendly “tool” for dealing with crowds of any type: a “disorderly conduct” charge, the provisions most relevant to this situation appearing in Section 14-5-2 (E), (F) and (I) of the City’s Municipal Code.
And once he had foisted enough non-blame on the Park District and the lack of “tools” in his law-enforcement “toolbox,” he conflated both the weather and Taste of Park Ridge into a back-up excuse: the need to “evacuate” the Taste around 9:30 that night due to an incoming storm – as if a Katrina were on its way and he was not about to let himself become the butt of any “Chiefski, you’re doing a heck of a job” jokes.
All things considered, it was a political tour de force by a master politician who – aided by the talismanic power of his badge – totally overmatched the faux-politicians around The Horseshoe who are charged with holding him and his department accountable to the taxpayers for the public safety and order of Park Ridge.
For a guy who claims to be short on tools, Chief K showed himself to be quite a craftsman.
And pretty darn crafty.
To read or post comments, click on title.
35 comments so far
Very well written and stated. This is a failure by the police leadership and our city council for not having the courage to speak out–AGAIN. We had an incident last year at Franklin Elementary School where the children where on a walk a thon. Maine East Highschool just a few blocks from where this activity was going on, went on a SOFT LOCKDOWN because of a dangerous suspect who fled Lutheran General Hospital. NOT one police officer was around the children or the parents supervising the walk for four hours during this lockdown. Franklin kids where outside and Calls to the police stated the reason why no police are there was because the situation was taken care of. Days later after more parents asked for clarification–It was noted that “taken care of” meant that the suspect was BELIEVED to have left the area. Which then he was spotted late afternoon crossing a field. After the superintendent was caught sending an email to the parents that was false–“stating that there were 4 squad cars and an uncover squad car at the walkathon” the school board stated that they were not going to get involved with a retraction. The police spokesman stated that in fact, NO police were stationed with the kids. They stated that they will use this as a learning experience if it ever comes up again. Their was NO response from our alderman to the community about this.
The bottom line seems to be that our leadership is happy with the status quo. It makes NO SENSE not to leave an officer at any of these events. What is going on in PARK RIDGE that requires the officer to be elsewhere? I have not seen a police car at ANY of the soccer practices or games that I attend for my children–three practices during the week and three games on the weekend. I have not seen a police car on my street. WHERE ARE THEY???
With the city council sitting on their hands over this is disturbing. This seems like such an easy fix, but for some reason it seems that NO ONE in that position wants to criticize anyone else. Just a shame.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks, but let’s not lose perspective here.
Fortunately for us, Park Ridge has an extremely low rate of crime – and if boneheaded residents actually locked their cars when they park them in the street, it might be cut in half.
Our criticism of the police ISN’T that they didn’t maintain a presence at Hinkley from 7:58 p.m. until the incident, but that they seem to be dodging any accountability for not being there – while dumping it on everybody else.
How droll. And how apt.
Cripes. 12:13PM how about a little perspective? Get a grip man… or lady.
Police not at a walk-a-thon… OMG!!
Police not at a soccer game or practice… OMFG!!
Police not on your street… Ggghhhhaaaaaa!!
Stop with the over-dramatization. Otherwise no one… NO ONE… will take you serious. Not the cops and not your Alderman… no one.
Well stated PW. I was at the Taste of PR when the Chief was executing the “Evacuation Plan” I saw plenty of officers the entire night standing around and probably getting overtime with NO issues at the Taste. Wouldn’t it make more sense if they already had 2 calls prior to this incident to send the surplus of officers to Hinkley? Don’t get me wrong, this kids sound like complete losers but when you have the manpower and obvious issues going on to PREVENT an incident? I highly doubt there were 30-40 kids initially. It would be interesting to see how many Police related 911 calls there were at the Taste that Saturday vs Hinkley….. Police need to step it up and quit pointing fingers. Anywhere in town is THEIR responsibility. I would respect the department for admitting a mistake and looking for ways to improve.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yep. And if they DID have other calls that required attention, state specifically what they were rather than effectively saying: “That’s what happened – we know what we’re doing and who are you to question us!”
I share your view that this mayor and this city council is the best one we’ve had since I moved hire almost 20 years ago. Maybe that is why I am so disappointed that the only one who even asked the chief any questions were the mayor and ald. Knight, while ald. Milissis and ald. sweeney seemed to be blessing everything the police did and the others just sat there. All of your points are solid, and I can’t believe none of our elected representatives could think of them – not that I’m dissing you.
EDITOR’S NOTE: No “diss” taken – frankly, we’re amazed and disappointed that so many things even we here at PW can figure out seem to escape so many of our elected officials who, at least on paper, appear to have the credentials for being able to figure this stuff out better than we can.
As we have seen and heard in all sorts of situations, it’s not the incident itself but the cover-up that creates the problem. And it seems like the chief is engaged in a cover up rather than coming clean and explaining (in the detail needed to understand it completely) what happened and why.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yep.
In order got police to have a preventative effect they need to be visible. Whether by car on foot or on bicycle. I too am often out an about in town for various kid related activities and whether I am at a soccer game walk a thin or just walking down my block I hardly ever see a police person walking driving or biking around town. This is a problem that needs to be corrected. Police presence deters crime whether it is hooligans taking swings at a parent or each other, a pervert exposing himself or idiot lighting off fireworks (ie park ridge style crime lately) a police person being in plain sight will deter the crime. We are 7 sqaure mile town eith 5 officer patrolling 5 equally divided areas and one additional supervisor at all times. Why can’t those officers cross cross through areas do that they are constantly being seen?
Durung school drop off and pick up an officer sometimes on bike usually on foot stays in front of our schools to observe. This usually helps keep the ordinary high strung soccer mom from throwing her Starbucks at the person cutting her off and hopefully deters the perverts from lingering around our schools. Police need to expand that type of presence to all of park ridge and our elected officials need to stand up a And encourage it! We are a relatively small town with a low crime rate so this shouldn’t be a problem.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This Hinkley incident didn’t occur at a soccer game, walk-a-thon, or while the victim was walking down his neighborhood street. And, as best as we can tell, aggravated battery and mob action rarely – if ever- occur in those situations.
Frankly, we think it’s probably a waste of police manpower to station an officer in front of schools to deter “high strung soccer mom[s]” from acting out during drop-off and pick-up times. And when was the last time you heard about any “perverts” doing their thing at a drop-off or pick-up? C’mon, that’s just plain stupid!
In less than two hours prior to the Hinkley incident we had a total of six – SIX! – police officers visit Hinkley on two separate occasions. And although Chief K doesn’t seem to want to talk about it, we understand that at least one other officer provided “presence” in dispersing more than 50 teens from the Library grounds less than a half-hour before the Hinkley incident.
Unfortunately, all that “presence” appears to have been mismanaged because it did nothing to reduce – and may even have contributed to – the critical mass of teens at Hinkley. But Chief K has told his story, and it looks like the CM and our elected officials have nodded and moved on because (according to the chief) kids will be kids.
It sounds like the Chief K accomplished all he needed to with his dog and pony show last Monday, because neither the mayor nor any other aldermen, including the public safety chairman, seem interested in following up on this no matter that the police are taking the position that they did everything right and that it was everybody else’s fault that the guy got beat up.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yep.
Your questions are excellent and should have been asked by someone at that meeting: Hamilton, the mayor, the aldermen (especially public safety), the audience, somebody.
I know, I know. I should have been there to ask them. But I work work many evenings and have only been to one council meeting in my life, although isn’t that why we have a republic and representative government so I don’t have to go to these meetings so long as I elect representatives that do their jobs?
EDITOR’S NOTE: That’s the basic theory behind what Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin et al. gave us.
What is one cop supposed to do against 30-40-75 kids? These kids behaved like animals. This IS a community problem because parents have abdicated responsibility for raising their children to teachers and cops. NOT THEIR JOBS. I would bet money that if the cops HAD intervened earlier and tried to disperse the crowd, some parent-who-is-a-lawyer would have sued them for touching their minor child. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
EDITOR’S NOTE: At 7:58 p.m. there were TWO cops; and at 8:33 p.m. there were FOUR cops.
And public safety, and order, IS their job. But feel free to provide alibis, even if Chief K already used the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” one.
I’ve commented on this incident a couple of times, and also feel frustrated by the police not taking responsibility. More than that, though, I hate the fact that this even happened. Kids will always hang out somewhere, even in fairly large groups, but 100 kids or more, unsupervised, on a Saturday night invites problems, and to suggest otherwise is to be willfully blind about the behavior of teenagers. At least one police officer should have been there, keeping an eye on things, once they started getting those calls and seeing how the crowd was growing.
It’s been interesting to watch the news lately and see how besieged the police are, from St. Louis to Arizona. After 9/11 they were all heroes, and now they can’t seem to do anything right. I suspect that at least part of the problem at Hinckley sprang from the fact that police are feeling more and more hamstrung when it comes to doing their jobs, for fear of the public turning on them.
I’m not excusing their head-in-the-sand approach here, just saying that we need to take that into consideration. And it would help if everyone, from adults on down, started acting a little better.
Yes for those of you without kids police at schools is a waste but what would you have them do otherwise during the 20 mins before and after school when a large portion of pr residents are gathered in few locations ? Our city is not immune from child predators and perverts. In addition to the guy or guys over past couple weeks exposing himself / themselves remember this guy?
http://posttrib.suntimes.com/search/14528997-418/man-charged-in-teen-girls-battery-has-park-ridge-record.html#.U-1T99m9LCQ
Police visibility is important to deter crime.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We agree that “[p]olice visibility is important to deter crime.” But that concept does not logically support putting cops at school drop-offs and pick-ups, rather than elsewhere in town. Did any of these flashers do their thing on school property, or immediately accross the street from any school property? No. So suggesting that putting cops at drop-offs and pick-ups will deter crime is, in a word, stupid.
Regarding the waste of resources of police being around schools – as if they have more important things to do those few minutes before and few minutes after school in our relatively low crime rate (and if you let the schools go to pot you won’t attract the pseudo affluent young professionals with kids that keep the town a nice place to live in – look at any low crime affluent town in the area and you will see good or at least perception of good schools) here is another example of type of pr kid related crime have police visible around schools cops can prevent
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-31/news/ct-tl-park-ridge-suspicious-incidents-20130530_1_park-ridge-police-12-year-old-girl-14-year-old-girl
There are more to cut and paste but I hope you no kids, don’t give more money or resources to our schools types get the picture? Or should I cut and paste all the other suspicious incident of vans trying to lure kids etc ?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Cut and paste away, but none of these articles make your argument for putting cops at drop-offs and pick-ups any less stupid.
You know why perverts don’t do their thing at drop off or pickup at schools?
Same reason a fight did not break out at the taste of park ridge the same night one did break out at hinkley.
Police presence deters crime – whether it be petty crime ((soccer mom cat fight) – isn’t most of park ridges crime not the most serious kind? But does that mean our cops should not attend to it when they don’t have more pressure g things to attend to in town (which based on the low crime rate is most the time especially during drop off and pick up) ) or more serious crimes like the attempts to lure minors into vans or the man that attacked a school girl walking home (and other actual disturbing events reported just over the past year in park ridge).
A small 7 square mile town should be able to have 6 patrolling cars be visible and if they are patrolling appropriately those out and about throughout town should be seeing those patrols regularly. This doesn’t occur based on experience and something needs to change.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Your comments keep on getting nuttier.
The single largest deterrent to the type of crime you’re talking about – flashing and luring kids into vans – is the presence of PEOPLE, just plain regular ordinary people. Which is why these kinds of flashers don’t flash Maine South cheerleaders from the stands at a game, or show up at the Hinkley pool at high noon on a crowded Saturday to display their inadequacies. Or pull their vans up to a crowd of parents and kids at Woodland while a soccer game is going on and invite the 12-year old for a ride.
And, once again, we note that the police – SIX of them, cumulatively, WERE “present” at Hinkley on two separate occasions in the two hours prior to the incident on July 12.
8:15, are you kidding me!? The PRPD probably has most of the same gear we see on display in Ferguson, MO (better toys than most ground units in Iraq or Afghanistan had from ’03-’09!) At least they showed some restraint in making the arrests, likely because they learned some small lesson from Jason Leavitt’s idiocy back in 2006.
Did anyone catch that they charged a fourth kid now: a “16-year-old [who] was not involved in the physical altercation with the victim, but is accused of shouting at the man and making lunging movements toward him while standing in close proximity.”? (Those are Lou Jogmen’s words.)
“[The victim] felt this person was going to hit him at some point,” Jogmen said. This, the deputy chief said, met the criteria for an assault charge.
This whole thing has turned into such a spectacle and embarrassment for the town that it’s hard to have any confidence left in this force to act professionally and not constantly find themselves engaging in some knee-jerk, defensive behavior after the fact.
I was in contact with Kaminski over a week ago asking him to comment on why the 48-year-old man wasn’t charged with even a misdemeanor for clearly displaying a willingness to engage in physical violence in a public park. He deferred the question by stating it was out of his hands and the State’s Attorney will have to decide, but that he would forward them my concern and the evidence to go along with it, which I hope he actually did. Now it’s up to them and the defense to sort things out.
At this point I think it is very important for parents to use this (and what is happening in Ferguson) as a teaching point to their children that the police are not always in the right and that they need to educate themselves about the way the law works in order to protect against finding themselves at the wrong end of it in the future. This Youtube video by a law school professor and former criminal defense attorney is a fantastic place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
EDITOR’S NOTE: You salvaged your wasted first five paragraphs with your YouTube link.
You are dead wrong about it being a waste of police to have them at the schools during drop-off and pick-up. Vehicular assault is ongoing, in the legal sense of the word “assault,” and you’ll be the first one to Monday morning quarterback and bellyache about why weren’t the cops there when a kid or crossing guard is hit by a car. Stick to commenting on things you have a clue about.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Vehicular assault”? To the best of our knowledge there is no such criminal charge in Illinois, so we’ll need a little better description of what exact conduct are you calling “vehicular assault.”
While you’re at it, please provide any links you have to newspaper reports of kids or crossing guards being hit at any of our seven D-64 schools at drop-offs or pick-ups so we can determine whether you have a clue.
The last 5 or so posts point out, again, what a wonderful job it is to be a police officer let alone the head of the department. All you get is Monday morning quarterbacking. PD has his opinion, which is essentially any public sector employees an idiot and any local elected official not named Schmidt is a moron, and the poster has their opinion. What is hysterical is that neither of you have any experience or training in police work, period.
As an aside PD, you had a bitch fit about crossing guards being paid anything let alone the pittance they currently receive. Now it is bad to have police at schools (by the way, they are not at the schools near everyday).
EDITOR’S NOTE: One doesn’t need specialized “experience or training in police work” to question why it took Chief K three weeks to brief the Council on the incident, and then only provide minimal and incomplete information that only Mayor Schmidt and Ald. Knight even questioned him about, while dumping as much responsibility for what went on at Hinkley that night on the Park District while accepting absolutely NONE for his department.
As for our alleged “bitch fit about crossing guards being paid anything,” we don’t know where that’s coming from. We argued (in our 05.25.11 post) against City taxpayers – rather than D-207 taxpayers or the Maine South PTO – paying for crossing guards for Maine South students. But we didn’t say anything about the amount of crossing guard pay in that post, nor do we recall ever doing so.
Pubdog. I didn’t know you were such an expert on the habits of perverts? But you given that any type of crime in park ridge should be detered including petty crime -since more serious crimes don’t happen here that often it is still worthwhile to have cops visible where large groups are interacting whether it be drop off pickup or football games. Btw remind me not to sit near you in the maine south football stands when the cheerleaders are in sight. Geez you scare me sometimes.
EDITOR’S NOTE: By that kind of reasoning we would need cops at every one of our local churches several times every Sunday morning, and some Saturday evenings. Sorry, that’s just dumb.
We realize we scare you, but we doubt it has anything to do with flashing or Maine South football games.
Because our police have more important things to do on a Sunday morning than safeguard the citizens of park ridge ? Everything else is closed in town that time of day.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yeah, those crowds leaving church are ready to rumble.
If you believe that the only crime that occurs in park ridge is people “rumbling” you would be correct. Again since we are a low violent crime city our police should not avoid serving the people by detering petty crimes in the large amount of time they have when they aren’t shutting down bank robbers, apprehending Americas most wanted or keeping an eye on large group of teens congregating around uptown during the summer. We know you want to strip our schools of all benefits -now your turning against our churches?! For shame pubdog,for shame.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’d love to respond to your comment, but first you have to make it a lucid one.
Pubdog. You must be right. Auto accidents affecting children or occurring around school time just never happens..especially in our sleepy town:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-09-16/news/0309160149_1_medical-examiner-s-office-green-light-student
Overall, motor vehicles and traffic related accidents are the leading cause of injury by which children are killed, followed closely by drowning and unintentional fires. Additionally, unintentional injuries remain the leading cause of childhood nonfatal injuries treated in hospital emergency departments across the nation.
http://niles.suntimes.com/2014/04/08/park-ridge-police-student-hit-by-vehicle-at-maine-east/
WASHINGTON (August 20, 2012) – As summer draws to a close and the classroom bell rings in the new school year, 55 million children across the United States will head back to school. With 13 percent of those school children typically walking or biking to school, AAA warns drivers to be especially vigilant for pedestrians during before- and after-school hours. The afternoon hours are particularly dangerous for walking children – over the last decade, nearly one-third of child pedestrian fatalities occurred between 3 and 7 p.m.
“More than 1,200 children lost their lives during these after-school hours between 2000 and 2010,” cautioned Jennifer Huebner-Davidson, manager, Traffic Safety Advocacy, “and although we’ve seen a steady decrease in the number of tragedies each year, it’s important to remember that one death is one too many.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: That’s an average of 120 kids nation-wide dying each year in “after-school” accidents – less than die from drowning or suicide. And that’s without any indication of whether they died on school property (like your Maine East student) or near school (like your Maine West student who ran in front of a car with the right-of-way, the driver of which was not charged), or blocks/miles from school; and without any indication of whether those accidents occurred at drop-off or pick-up time, or times unrelated to the school day
Guess the police and district 64 felt enough traffic problems around school to warrant increases police presence and establishing a traffic safety committee.
The link is sample and each school seems to have incidents of unsafe conditions including drivers potentially hitting student pedestrians.
http://www.d64.org/community/documents/ts_9_08_09.pdf
EDITOR’S NOTE: That seems to have been the case back in 2009. And if Chief K is willing to take ownership of the decision to have sworn officers at each school for drop-off and pick-up – or staking out each school 24/7 to prevent roof-climbers – as being the most effective use of his personnel, that’s fine by us.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to want to take ownership of, or even reveal, what more important tasks his sworn officers were performing between 7:58 and 8:33 p.m, or between 8:33 and 9:45 p.m. on July 12 while the teens just hanging out at Hinkley increased from 30 to 200. And it’s THAT lack of ownership and accountability that’s the point of this post, in case you missed it.
I like it: Let’s do a T-shirt!
The World According to PubDog:
“Any public sector employee’s an idiot and any local elected official not named Schmidt (or Knight) is a moron.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’d demand a royalty, except that we doubt they’ll sell – especially since even your gross simplification is substantially wrong.
You’re big on the invisible cat defense of bad ideas, aren’t you. The fact that nobody’s been hit lately is due to miserably intent levels of vigilance which traffic laws and rules and common decency are supposed to make unneeded. I know vehicular assault is not a legal term; I meant it in the sense of conventional assault (like legitimate rape, I guess)– if a car plunges up to the crosswalk and over the line when kids are in the crosswalk, if a car swerves around a stopped car with kids getting out, if a car whips around a corner in a right turn on red when there are pedestrians with a foot in the crosswalk, if….you get the idea. Active, physical, menacing behavior that a reasonable man would see as a very possible threat to life. That kind of assault. If you had a heart, I’d suggest you watch the fourth-graders’ faces as they try to determine what their chances are, balancing the rules they know (i.e. laws) exist and the overwhelming physical presence of those who think only of themselves. It’s especially cute to watch when it’s fifth grade crossing guards trying to assess whether or not to let a couple of first graders cross or not.
Quality of life? Wonderful place to live and work? Freedom from (elemental) fear? Cast your mind back; I’m sure you’ll recall hearing those phrases in your yute.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Invisible cat defense of bad ideas”? We couldn’t even find that by Googling.
Here’s a couple of terms you CAN Google, however, although we tend to doubt YOU’LL need to: “Helicopter parents” and “bubble wrap kids.”
On the other hand, folks like you can probably justify helicoptering and bubble-wrapping as an antidote to the “mean streets” of Park Ridge.
Pubdog is an expert apparently as to the propensities of percentage and now is a self proclaimed expert in child rearing. Making your your child is safe from moronic drivers helicopter parent or bubble wrap kid? Wow you care not for children No wonder you hate our schools and would rather keep money in your pocket than fund the institution that keeps the community in a condition that attracts people with children who can afford to pay the taxes on the McMansions around town
EDITOR’S NOTE: We realize it’s Saturday, but you probably should wait until at least noon to start hitting the Jack and Cokes.
Actually, it’s folks like you who “hate our schools” by refusing to hold the teachers, administrators and board members accountable for D-64’s ever-increasing taxes and mediocre performance – which now also appears to be contributing to the declining ranking of Maine South.
Anon 08:14
Your question is stupid. Any PD needs to do their job when there’s such a situation and situation is a law enforcement problem and that’s the truth!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Except when a “law enforcement problem” can opportunistically be turned into a “parenting problem,” or a “community problem,” or a “school problem,” or a “social problem” to shift attention AWAY FROM the “law enforcement problem.”
Paying teachers less certainly won’t help rankings rise And it seems with the various administrators and teachers that use park ridge as a stepping stone to higher paying jobs we are not at the top end salary wise. Seems some people without kids prefer to decrease funding to schools but schools attract the type of person that is willing and able to pay the high tax rate to help fund the things you enjoy about the town (if any such things exist at your age and level of disgruntled ness)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, because paying them more each year has worked so well until now.
That’s exactly the mindset that has raised taxes and lowered performance for the last two decades. Brilliant!
Elected officials must hold public employees accountable and not be fobbed off with excuses, however deft and plausible. And paying more in hope of better results when the pay level(including near-imperviousness and lifetime benefits) is already more than adequate is irresponsible. And stupit. Many of us agree wholeheartedly with you about those things but still disagree with your lack of interest in anything but the near-term bottom line. Sloppy thinking and sloganeering don’t replace actual valuation of ideas. You’re getting to be the flip side of “it’s for the chirren.” Just as reflexive. But less excusable because you’re way smarter than that. A little more rigor, less curmudgeonliness, pleeze.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Merriam-Webster defines a “curmudgeon” as: “a person (especially an old man) who is easily annoyed or angered and who often complains.” This editor doesn’t qualify under the “easily annoyed or angered” standard, because his annoyance and/or anger about local government incompetence, stupidity and waste have been building over a 25-year period.
As for our focus on the “near-term bottom line,” anybody with even the most modest business savvy will tell you that you never even get to the long-term bottom line unless you can satisfy the short-term one. And we’ve seen that repeatedly played out in local government over those same 25 years; e.g., 17 years ago D-64’s then-supt. and then-board members sold the taxpayers on the educational advantages of the new “middle school concept” over the “junior high concept” in order to justify building a brand new Emerson School for $20 million to replace what was then the District’s NEWEST school (the “old” Emerson). That supt. and those board members have been long gone for a decade or more, while those educational advantages have proved to be fairy tales.
Agreed. But the well paid do-nothings at City Hall aren’t being shuffled off very quickly either,are they. And you let the Park District moulder how long with more dead wood at the helm? It’s not as easy as it seems to change a corporate ethos, and government is another kind of corporate body. The school districts get $64% of our tax dollars, so that’s the right place to be focusing, but to what end? How can meaningful accountability be demanded in a world where a couple grand in holiday lights seems a prudent, even vital, savings? Grabbing the low-hanging fruit is far easier than actually exploring where the dead wood and waste reside. But it’s not the same as solving the problem.
EDITOR’S NOTE: No public body can change anything – or anybody – without a majority of its members committed to such change. The City Council is currently the only local public body that can achieve such a majority semi-regularly, which is why that “couple grand in holiday lights” savings is just a tiny fraction of the million dollars-plus of taxpayer dollar savings this Council has achieved.
Meanwhile, the two school districts bumble along raising taxes and increasing spending while achieving less with more. And in 3-5 years the Park District should start experiencing the adverse economic effects of the Park District’s recent $20 million of bonded debt.
If anyone cares, here is some background on the guy claiming to have a gun in the leisure center. It was his second arrest here. His prior was with him last year running around Hinkley with an air rifle pointing it at people, while he was also on probation for assaulting a police officer. He was a student at that troubled kids school on the North side of Park Ridge across from McDonalds on Oakton and NWH. The school is that Jeanine Schultz for kids with “serious emotional and behavioral problems”(taken from their site). He has since aged out of the school, but returns on occasion and I guess is turned away.
I thought that school was abandoned.
What I don’t like is that Jogman said he had no idea why he was here, citing his lakeshore address. Also, I think the school should notify Park Ridge in those circumstances that prior students show up only to be turned down and refused entry.
I drive by Maine South quite often in the middle of the night and almost every time I do there is a park ridge cop just sitting in the parking lot. All night long!!!! Why are they not patrolling neighborhoods? Are they guarding the school from school haters who will storm the gates at 2 am if they don’t sit there and watch? This chief in my opinion is out of touch with reality. Try being proactive for a change. Go find the crime instead of waiting for a citizen to find it.
Steve:
So you “drive by MS” and yet you seem to know that the police officer is there “ALL night long!!!!!!!!”
Gee, ya know the other day I saw an officer buying a cup of coffee at DD. That must mean that police officers just hang out all day long at donut shops, right??
Good lord!!
I used to think they were clocking people going N-bound on Dee, although I have never seen them pull anyone over.
I know I’m late to this, but was wondering if any mention’s been made of why the police felt it was OK to make kids leave the library area, but not right to make them leave the park?
EDITOR’S NOTE: As of this date we have not heard anyone from the police department actually admit to moving kids off the Library lawn.
Anon…..
I do know this because the reason I leave at that time in the morning is because I’m on call and often get called into work at that time of morning and the average time I’m there is 1 to 2 hours and when I return 9 times out of 10 that cop is still sitting there! Many times it’s 2 cop cars sitting next to each other! 99% of park ridge is sleeping at those times so most of its citizens have no idea what it’s police force is doing through the middle of the night. It’s not just park ridge. I see norridge cops doing the exact same thing…..
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