As recently as our 02.02.15 post we applauded the Park Ridge City Council’s continuing efforts to become fully transparent in its activities on behalf of the City’s taxpayers.
Unfortunately, while Mayor Dave Schmidt and most aldermen are striving for transparency, the same cannot be said for many of the City’s senior bureaucrats. And the most recent evidence of that is their handling of the Request for Proposal process to determine who will serve as the City’s feasibility consultant on the much-discussed storm water utility.
We’ve noted on several previous occasions the cozy relationship that City Hall has established with Christopher Burke Engineering. Burke seems to have become the go-to consultants for anything flood related. So one would think that the bureaucrats – from the City Manager on down – would make sure that the whole RFP process was crystal clear.
But the folks employed at City Hall don’t seem to get the concept of transparency, if the 02.16.15 Agenda Cover Memorandum from new City Procurement Officer Jim McGuire is any indication.
McGuire’s memorandum suggests a half-baked process for awarding the feasibility consultant contract, just as his similar 01.23.15 Agenda Cover Memorandum reflected a similarly half-baked process for awarding a new City Attorney contract.
Fortunately, Ald. Dan Knight (5th) voiced his concerns about McGuire’s folly at the February 16, 2015 Council meeting, which you can see and hear starting at the 37:04 mark of the Council meeting video. Knight pointed out how McGuire’s memo, although implying that more than one bureaucrat was involved in the review and scoring of the four proposals and the firms presenting them, was not accompanied by those individual scoring sheets, thereby preventing aldermen (and the taxpayers) from reviewing and comparing that scoring. Knight correctly noted that he and the rest of the Council shouldn’t have to blindly trust the unsubstantiated opinions and conclusions of any City staff member, especially when it comes to casting a vote to spend significant sums of money with, or repose significant responsibility in, a particular vendor.
And McGuire wasn’t even there to shed any light on his incomplete work product, or explain why he left out that important underlying data.
So it was left to Public Works Director Wayne Zingsheim to come to McGuire’s defense when Knight complained that McGuire didn’t even include pricing sheets from the four consultants, although Zingsheim did so in a somewhat odd way.
“I can’t understand this [scoring summary] either, alderman, I’ve got news for you,” said Zingsheim, who then also admitted that he “never even saw the cost sheets, ever.” Why that lack of documentation and data didn’t trouble him enough to assert his own concerns about those shortcomings, however, was not revealed. And City Manager Shawn Hamilton, on whose desk this “buck” should have stopped before it ever got to the Council, sat mute.
We will pause to let you appreciate the absurdity of a public works consultant bidding process so slipshod that the City’s procurement officer fails to provide the Director of Public Works with the necessary information, causing the latter to candidly admit that he can’t understand the documentation the procurement officer did provide.
And for a bit of comic relief you can go to the 46:30 mark of the same meeting video and listen to Ald. Joe Sweeney (1st Ward) demonstrating, once again, that he still doesn’t grasp the role and duties of the alderman’s job – by arguing that, basically, he doesn’t have to understand what he’s voting for or even the integrity of the process by which the proposal comes before the Council for a vote, so long as Staff understands and supports it.
Fortunately, that kind of trust-but-don’t-verify decision-making is in its final two months – assuming that neither Andrea Cline nor John Moran, the two candidates vying to succeed Sweeney, will attempt to revive it when one of them takes Sweeney’s seat in May.
No matter how thick or thin McGuire’s baloney is sliced, however, Burke appears to be the hands-down winner based solely on price, which is one-half the cost of (and $62,000 lower than) the next lowest bidder. And Burke’s explanation of why its price was so low is a plausible one: its familiarity with the City’s flooding problems through its work to date requires a shorter and less-expensive ramp-up.
All that probably explains why, after a lengthy debate about this procurement process’s shortcomings, Burke’s bid was accepted by a vote of 6 to 1 (Ald. Mazzuca dissenting).
But that doesn’t excuse McGuire’s – and his superiors’ – dropping the ball, big time, by the cursory presentation of the bidding “scorecard” without including the actual scoring sheets. The omission of such information is especially problematic because of the inclusion of such squishy criteria as “General Firm Qualifications” and “Key Qualifications” – whatever those might be, given that they aren’t defined and the criteria for scoring them is not identified – provides far too many opportunities for skewing the scoring, whether through arbitrariness, non-uniformity, or outright favoritism.
Presumably in response to Knight’s complaints, someone at City Hall posted those scoring details that were missing at the time of the meeting on the City’s website, including McGuire’s signed “Scorecards” and City Engineer Sarah Mitchell’s unsigned ones. But a review of those scoring details raises more questions about the process than it answers – such as the fact that Mitchell’s ratings consist of unexplained numerical scoring that suggests total arbitrariness, while McGuire’s ratings don’t appear to be numerical at all!
Or as Zingsheim explained: “We did it one way, he [McGuire] did it another. ”
That’s no way to evaluate storm water management consultant candidates. Or new City Attorney candates. Heck, it’s no way to do anything that will cost tens or hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.
Unless the bureaucratic perpetrators are incompetent. Or unless they’re trying to hide the ball from the City Council.
And the taxpayers.
To read or post comments, click on title.
21 comments so far
I don’t know what bothers me most, that staff screwed up this process or that only Knight called them on it. And those scoring sheets are a joke, random numbers from Mitchell (?) or, in McGuire’s case, no numbers at all. Garbage in, garbage out.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Both Alds. Milissis and Mazzuca followed up on and/or joined in Knight’s comments.
Thanks for all your good research. I would not have believed those scorecards could be that stupid if you had not included pictures of them in this story. Too bad our local reporters don’t learn a few tips from you.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We try.
The local reporters have to earn a living doing what they do, so research and analysis sometimes suffers when grinding out 6-8-10 stories a week. On the other hand, neither of the two principal local reporters are fans of this editor or this blog, so we doubt they would take any tips from us – or admit it if they did.
Let’s play a new version of “where’s Waldo”. We can call it “Where’s Hamilton???” This is not a war. It is simply a half-ass work product with short cuts and without anyone watching.
EDITOR’S NOTE: You may be right about the half-derrière nature of the work, but don’t fool yourself: bureaucrats horde and manipulate information to maintain and increase their influence over the elected officials and, indirectly, over the taxpayers.
This question is probably government 101 but to us folks who don’t know how this works could you answer a question.
How do change orders to the awarded contract get approved, at the city employee level or the elected official level?
Just curious to know if a firm could low ball an offer to get it approved by the elected officials, but than turn around and get additional monies from the city employees without transparency to the City Council.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A firm COULD “low ball an offer” and then “turn around and get additional monies,” although that would depend on: (a) the language of the contract; and (b) whether the change order is within the City Manager’s discretionary spending authority.
This is the TIF problem, writ small. Bureaucrats DO horde and manipulate information to maintain and increase their influence, not because they’re necessarily on the take from a consultant, developer or what-have-you, but because it’s easier for them. And any elected official who doesn’t quit his day job to do their job is the go-to whipping boy. In the past, you worked harder than any three other Park Board guys and are certainly smarter than most of them and all of the six-figure staff. But look at the messes, visible to customers all along but only fixed in the past couple of administrations. Because even a cynical elected official like you has to trust paid managers sometimes. It sucks, plain and simple.
EDITOR’S NOTE: No, this is the difference between elected officials making irresponsible philosophical/policy decisions – like a former city council (without referendum) borrowing and spending tens of millions of dollars on the taxpayers’ tab in order to give a sweetheart deal to private developers, or a more recent park board (also without referendum) borrowing and spending $7 million dollars on the taxpayers tab to build a second-rate water park that’s open only 3 months of the year – and elected officials insufficiently micro-managing the bureaucrats’ operations of a governmental body.
As 2/27 at 3:32 said, this may be Gov 101, but are “scorecards” the norm in municipal purchasing? Is there a standard format? How do you determine who completes a scorecard? Just curious.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Scorecards” are customarily used in an attempt to objectively evaluate service providers – as opposed to purchasing commodities simply at the lowest bid. There is no “standard” format because various municipalities will seek and value different criteria and ascribe different standards for valuing those criteria.
The problem as revealed in this storm water consultant process, however, was the lack of a uniform valuation standard (“Or as Zingsheim explained: ‘We did it one way, he [McGuire] did it another.’”), which we understand was the exact same problem the led to a do-over of the City Attorney process; and other irregularities (e.g., Mitchell numerically evaluated, McGuire did not).
11:08 again – so in theory the scorecards should be completed by those with experience with each of the candidates? Otherwise how can they score the candidates if they don’t have first hand knowledge of them? Am I missing something?
EDITOR’S NOTE: No, because that could/would eliminate qualified candidates with whom staff had no experience.
Candidates should be scored using the information contained in their submissions to the RFP/RFQ judged by clearly identified criteria/benchmarks uniformly applied by the graders. Unfortunately, that didn’t with either the storm water consultant or city attorney processes.
Insufficiently micromanaging? How about just holding accountable? Giving a rat’s derriere about what the taxpaying families in this city are paying for and aren’t getting? Or just plain insufficiently managing?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re all for accountability, starting with the boneheaded mayors and aldermen who buried City taxpayers in 23 years of outrageous multi-million dollar debt, without referendum, to give a sweetheart deal to the private developers; and with the boneheaded park commissioners who piled on $7 million of non-referendum debt to build a half-baked water park that lacked the most desirable feature (a lazy river, according to the District’s consultant-run survey) and can only be used 3 months a year.
You want to hold the PD officials accountable?? For starters stop endorsing them.
EDITOR’S NOTE: And then what?
This is a republic in which the taxpayers/voters/residents are represented by elected officials. So just because the choice is sometimes/often a bad one – like heart disease v. brain cancer, or Thillens v. Moylan – doesn’t mean one isn’t better than the other, if only slightly.
If you don’t like our endorsements, you’re always free to resort to your regular voting method of coin-flipping.
02.27.15 4:50 pm and 02.28.15 4:24 pm sound like some of those former aldermen who saddled us with that TIF debt and are now trying to dodge responsibility for it by blaming the bureaucrats for their (the aldermen’s) bad judgment. I’ve lived in Park Ridge for 30 years and that TIF deal was the single dumbest thing any group of elected officials have done. And its dumbness should have been obvious.
EDITOR’S NOTE: 4:50 pm and 4:24 pm are actually the same person, and after publishing that person’s comments we’re starting to get a sense of who it might be.
But irrespective of identity of the commentator, the dumbness/wrongness of the TIF and its selling-out of the taxpayers “should have been obvious” to anybody who wasn’t covering his/her eyes with both hands, or cutting sweetheart economic and/or political deals over it.
You are incorrigible. The Centennial Aquatic Center is an irrefutable hit with the residents, despite missing the lazy river which would have cost a cool $500K extra and would have put you in the hatch if it had been implemented. I’m talking about your insistence that it’s not important to have the lifeguards trained, the lockers not moldy/dirty, the staff cognizant of what customer service means, the bathrooms (yes, that again) clean and accessible to families. Stuff that contributes to the health, safety and overall quality of life of taxpayers around here and matters to a majority of them. Not everything is solved by more money — but that doesn’t mean serious and concerted work isn’t required to solve it. The fact that you don’t respect this reflects more on you than those you despise.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We take “incorrigible” as a compliment when it comes from somebody expressing your views of local government, so thanks.
At a cost of over $8 million all-in (that those Park Board cowards, unlike their predecessors over the previous 18 years, were afraid to put to even an advisory referendum), the new Centennial water park darn well better be “an irrefutable hit with the residents” – although for the time being it’s just a one-hit wonder based on its shiny-object novelty. And it was more “hit-man” than hit to Hinkley Pool, whose attendance it reportedly cannibalized so badly that Hinkley posted its lowest figures in at least five years.
The Park District paid good (bad?) taxpayer money for its half-baked survey of 682 respondents that identified the lazy river as the single most desired water park feature. So not including it appears to have been a reprehensible bait-and-switch scam by the Park Board – which we’d bet had something to do with the District’s limited non-referendum bonding power.
Lastly, if you’re referring to this editor’s tenure on the Park Board (1997-2005), he’s calling bull-shinola on your allegation that he ever even so much as hinted that it’s “not important to have the lifeguards trained, the lockers not moldy/dirty, the staff cognizant of what customer service means, the bathrooms (yes, that again) clean and accessible to families”; and he challenges you to produce any Park Board meeting minutes, reports, etc. to support your irresponsible/false claim.
Oh, and while you’re at it, how about coming out of the closet and start talking this tripe under your own name? This editor would gladly debate these issues with you anytime, anyplace, while giving you 24 hours to draw a crowd.
It’s absolutely stupid to advance the straw-man argument, as Anonymous at 8:51 a.m. yesterday did, portraying calls for fiscal responsibility as somehow equivalent to a desire to cancel essential services such as cleaning and maintenance. Really, Anonymous? No wonder you didn’t sign your name, because your comment is ridiculous.
Everyone understands that local services cost money. I’d venture to say that everyone wants to support having local police, public schools and a park district. But “support” doesn’t mean constant increases in spending and big-ticket items like the TIF and the Centennial upgrade that don’t go before the voters. And it certainly doesn’t exclude accountability for local public officials, who in this case work in the same building at 505 Butler Place yet somehow can’t bring a coordinated story in front of our elected representatives on the city council.
I’m signing my name to this, just as I signed my name this morning to a very large check made out to the Cook County Treasurer, who will turn over almost all the money to our local taxing bodies.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Exactly.
I’m done here except for one thing: Do you really, really think anyone believes that, as long as there’s no official minutes that include it, an elected leadership’s tacit approval of slipshod, dangerous, miserable, uncompetitive work practices is not happening? Really?
And you accuse me of hiding?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, we accuse you of hiding because your stream of anonymous comments proves that you’re hiding.
No wonder you can’t produce even a shred of evidence to support your many bogus allegations and arguments in defense of those boneheaded former mayors and aldermen who stuck the taxpayers with the bill for the non-referendum Uptown TIF boondoggle, and in defense of those cowardly former/current Park Board members who stuck the taxpayers with the bill for the non-referendum Centennial water park.
Which suggests that you’re one of the former, one of the latter, or both. So being either one of those explains why you wouldn’t have the nerve to comment in your own name.
Maybe Hinkley Pool attendance is so bad because of the lack of proper bathroom or locker facility.
Honestly, it’s disgusting, embarrassing and probably dangerous.
It’s not properly lit. It stinks like a monkey cage, and has for at least a decade.
I would never go there or let my children go there because of that.
Just another thing Park Ridge citizens are forced to accept in the name of pretending to be taxpayer advocates.
Being cost conscious doesn’t mean offering the worst possible conditions for the taxpayer use. That’s just being bad at what you do.
So yes, bad facilities will cause less usage of that facility. Don’t blame the SUCCESSFUL and BEAUTIFUL new pool.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Don’t blame the SUCCESSFUL and BEAUTIFUL new pool”? You sound like some of the Park Board members back in 1995-97, except back then the $8 million non-referendum toy du jour wasn’t the Centennial water park but the “SUCCESSFUL and BEAUTIFUL new Community Center” – the debt service for which siphoned off cash that was needed to maintain, repair and renovate existing Park District facilities.
But because certain Park Board members had promised residents the new Community Center at no tax increase while other Park Board members didn’t want to increase user fees to make up the shortfall, overall maintenance and repair suffered – to the point that Hinkley Pool was closed for an entire season because lack of maintenance and repair left it unsafe!
Of course, the Community Center users didn’t give a hoot about the Hinkley users, just like the new Centennial water park users don’t give a hoot about the Hinkley users; and neither gives a hoot about the taxpayers, so long as the users can get more out of the deal than they pay into it.
When your values and beliefs are identical to PubDog’s, it requires little courage to sign your name.
EDITOR’S NOTE: And no courage at all from the anonymous such as yourself.
To Mr. Schildwachter’s credit, he also signs his name to comments on Park Ridge Citizens Online where he is often barbecued by the freeloader set – you know, those folks who bought/rented the more “affordable” (i.e., cheap) residences in Park Ridge so they could grab tens of thousands of dollars of free education for their kids, and then beef about having to pay for amenities like Park District programs.
Excuse me for getting back to the topic of this post instead of continuing down this rabbit hole of the Uptown TIF and the Centennial water park. But it ticks me off that we seem to constantly get staff screw ups that should be obvious not just to the screw uppers (McGuire) but to their superiors (Hamilton) and their overseers (the Council).
While I am happy that Ald. Knight spoke up about this, and Mazzuca joined him, I would have liked to have had the rest of the aldermen back them. I expect nothing more than what Sweeney provided, but Milissis, Shurbert and Maloney need to step up if staff is going to be held to the high standard of performance we citizens are entitled to.
EDITOR’S NOTE: As we’ve written in the past, government bureaucrats seem to bring more incompetence to their jobs, and get away with more incompetence on their jobs, than their counterparts in the private sector. Which is why the taxpayers need VIGILANT elected officials with the COURAGE to call out the bureaucrats on their incompetence. Some are up to that task, but too many are not.
The City Council, however, is the flaship of the local government fleet when it comes to calling out bureaucrats on their incompetence, with the Park Board second and the school boards watching from the concession stand…until the school bureaucrats dismiss them.
“The City Council, however, is the flaship of the local government fleet when it comes to calling out bureaucrats on their incompetence………”
1. That is kind of like being the best hockey player in Peru.
2. They may be better than the other two at calling it out but they still flat out suck at fixing it!! All one has to do is use the search word Hamilton on your blog and see all the posts you have written about the CM. The above post is just another example and what will be done about it?? NADA!! Even at levels below Hamilton it is not as if many (any??) people are losing their jobs over a lack of competence.
EDITOR’S NOTE: If Peruvian hockey players are your similes of choice, then the City Council is Juan Gretzky and the school districts are the Jamaican bobsled team. And if you searched the words “Hock” and “Schuenke” you would find similarly critical comments – because many/most bureaucrats, especially at the top levels, are “lite” versions (at best) of their private-sector counterparts.
Under the City Code, which is pretty much the same as other cities’ codes, the City Manager is the only person with the authority to hire and fire his/her underlings. But if you’re dissatisfied with the lack of firings of incompetent bureaucrats at the City, can you say “tenure” and “school district” in the same sentence?
Lovely spin as always PD. You do not dispute a thing I said but you throw it back in my face. Bet they had a entire day on that tactic in law school, right?? Just because you criticized Hock and Schuenke does not mean that your criticisms of Hamilton are not valid and the fact that nothing has been done about them somehow OK.
Thanks for the lesson on the city code. The fact that you have documented all these issues with not only Hamilton but staff as well and the CM has done nothing to exercise his authority to correct these issues (including terminations) only proves my point. This is all occurring under the watch of the council and the Mayor. Lastly (another lawyer tactic) school tenure has nothing to do with the fact that nothing is being done to fix incompetent city bureaucrats.
You were all over the Fire Chief about defibrillators and his “studies”. How is this any different??
EDITOR’S NOTE: What “spin” are you talking about…or is “spin” just your default word when you can’t come up with a lucid rebuttal?
Nothing was done about Schuenke because the mayors and aldermen back then were happy rubber-stamps of whatever he did, no matter how stupid or incompetent. And the City’s infrastructure and finances went south during the final few years of Schuenke’s reign while the modest attention spans of most of those elected officials were focused on shiny objects like the Uptown TIF. As for Hock, it took a prior council almost a year of double final probation before it unanimously voted to sack him, and even then only because it had long-time deputy City Mgr. Juliana Maller ready to hold the fort for the time being (even though she promptly bailed for Hoffman Estates).
Hamilton actually is an improvement over Hock, and a big improvement over Schuenke. It’s just that he appears to be MIA too often. But since you seem so critical of the mayor and the Council for not sacking Hamilton and other bureaucrats, who do YOU think should replace Hamilton; and what other City staffers do YOU think should be sacked?
As for our reference to school tenure, D-64 is spending around the same amount of money to educate less than 5,000 kids that the City is spending to serve 37,000 people, and D-207 is spending even more – while their objectively measurable performance is going down, unlike the City’s. So if you’re really concerned about the cost to the taxpayers of incompetence, you’re looking in the wrong direction. Or you’re purposely engaging in misdirection.
Let us hope that the aldermen choose Dave’s friend and colleague who walked the same fine line of transparency and fiscal responsibility, Dan Knight.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We trust the aldermen will do what they believe is best for the City.
We hear a certain alderman (we don’t mention a name because it might FLOOD this blog) deems himself the rightful successor to mayor Dave. Shameful to so soon be positioning for the spot. Mayor Dave would want transparency and public input not just a quick knee jerk behind the scenes decision brokered by a wanna be emporer. Hopefully the PR electeds will do the right thing.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re confident they will.
Lot of behind the scenes deals being discussed…. . Transparency already being thrown out the window… You would think there really would not be much action on having a successor until the new council is elected. There is no dire need to run and fill his seat until then. Let the newly elected council work on this. It seems like someone wants to pat himself on the chest.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We hate to have to tell you this, but it’s NOT 2003. The Anderson Four are NOT courting Ald. Disher (5th) to vote for Ald. Marous (6th) over Ald. Bell (3rd), in return for Marous’ promise not to run for a full term in 2005. You’re just having another one of those flashbacks from all that LSD you took back in the ’60s.
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