We’ve always believed that the single best way to improve local government is to increase its transparency.

When the taxpayers can see and hear everything that a public body is doing, the chances for skullduggery, stupidity and outright mopery are substantially reduced. That’s because connivers and knuckleheads alike are reluctant to do their worst in full view of the folks who they purport to represent – or, in the case of the bureaucrats, the folks who pay their salaries.

Over the years we’ve often written about transparency. Unfortunately, most often it has been about the lack of it, especially when it comes to things like appointments of public officials (e.g., replacement elected officials, board and commission members, and executives) and those contract negotiations which the unions insist be conducted in closed sessions so that the taxpayers can’t see and hear the unions’ often outrageous demands and the arrogance with which they often are conveyed.

The folks who sit on the boards of School Districts 64 and 207 still seem to lack any clue about what “transparency” means. Either that, or they’re learning about it from the former Soviet Union Politburo playbook. They empower their respective propaganda ministers to “manage” information, and they run into closed sessions every chance they get – as evidenced most notably by their selection processes for appointed board positions that we wrote about in our 07.07.14 and 08.29.14 posts, respectively; and by D-64’s process for choosing a new superintendent, that we wrote about in our 12.27.13 post.

Recently the Park Ridge Park District, over the protestations of its executive director, has started to get some transparency traction. Last year it even held its evaluation of the aforementioned executive director in open session, which we applauded in our 03.20.14 post.

But ever since the election of Mayor Dave Schmidt in April 2009, the City has taken the lead in the transparency race, notwithstanding the regular push-back from the bureaucrats and the occasional alderman looking to shield their antics from public view. Schmidt paid for the first video camera that recorded Council meetings, and two of his campaign supporters ran the camera and uploaded the videos until WOW through in a new camera and live meeting broadcasts as part of its entry package into the Park Ridge market.

But the current Council, following Schmidt’s lead, has raised transparency – especially as demonstrated by the reluctance to run and hide in closed sessions – to new heights.

If you don’t believe us, listen to City Attorney Everette “Buzz” Hill’s acknowledgement of this Council’s “unique” level of transparency in his colloquy with Ald. Marty Maloney about open versus closed sessions for interviews of finalist firms for the new city attorney contract, which occurred during that portion of last Monday (01.26.14) night’s Committee of the Whole (“COW”) meeting beginning around the 2:16:30 mark of the meeting video:

“You guys are a unique outfit. You have an antipathy toward closed sessions, and I’m not so sure it’s not a real healthy antipathy.”

The double-negative notwithstanding, that’s high praise coming from somebody who has seen more than his share of closed sessions: Hill said that he has observed around 50 city attorney interview processes, but never one held in open session. Hence his calling the open-session interviewing this Council has expressed interest in doing  “establishing a precedent.”

And what an outstanding precedent it is!

So despite Punxsutawney Phil’s shadow signaling six more weeks of winter, the people of Park Ridge can bask in the warmth of knowing that their City Council appears to be “unique” in its antipathy for the kind of secrecy and political cowardice practiced by so many other communities’ governing bodies – and by our local school boards.

Just because Illinois law lets them get away with it.

UPDATE (02.03.15).  Just when we dish out the kudos to the Park Ridge City Council for their “unique” level of transparency, a majority of them decide to act like the Star Chambers running D-64 and D-207.

At last night’s Council meeting, four aldermen (Alds. Sweeney, Smith, Shubert and Mazzuca) outvoted three (Alds. Milissis, Knight and Maloney) to run and hide in closed session to discuss the City’s “negotiating strategy” with the Illinois Council of Police and Sheriffs (“ICOPS”) union, the Teamsters union (representing the rank and file police) and the Int’l Association of Firefighters (“Local 2697”).

Besides playing right into the hands of those unions who want to conceal their demands and negotiating demeanor from the taxpayers while wrapping themselves in mantles of selfless public service, Alds. Sweeney, Smith, Shubert and Mazzuca also are missing the boat on why transparency in dealing with public employees is so important: the taxpayers deserve to see and hear how the Council goes about figuring out what’s a fair deal for both the employees AND for the taxpayers, and why.  And it’s that “fair deal” that the City should offer.

Apparently those four majority alderman would prefer, instead, to do that figuring out in secret, then send out their negotiators with a series of low-ball offers in the hope of getting the unions to bite.  As if that might actually happen.

The history of public employee negotiations for the City and all our other local governmental bodies, however, demonstrates that such a “negotiating strategy” rarely, if ever, works.  That’s because the unions are far more motivated to fight for their members’ own personal pocketbooks than our public officials are motivated to fight for OPM. So Sweeney, Smith, Shubert and Mazzuca are blowing smoke up their own kilts if they think they’re going to come up with a “negotiating strategy” that will snooker the unions into a better deal for the taxpayers.

Our guess, therefore, is that those four majority aldermen don’t want the taxpayers to see and hear how quickly and tightly they – and whoever comprises the City’s negotiating team – grab their ankles in response to the unions’ demands.  And while that might not be a pretty sight, that’s EXACTLY why transparency is so important.

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