We have been regular critics of our local governmental units’ almost reflexive hiring of a private consultant or the commissioning of a study whenever they face a difficult question.

So our own reflexive reaction to the Park Ridge City Council’s recent discussions about commissioning a long-range comprehensive parking study was a big dose of healthy skepticism.

With new businesses and restaurants opening, especially in the Uptown area, and numerous multi-family residences nearing completion nearby, it would appear to even the most inexpert eye that the demand for parking will be increasing. And from the remarks by the Council and City staff, it’s pretty clear that there is no in-house parking expertise on which to draw.

As reported in a Park Ridge Herald-Advocate story (“Park Ridge talks ‘long-range’ parking study,” June 16), such basic information as whether the City is charging the right amount of parking fees, or whether it’s getting enough parking spaces out of its existing lots, appears to be baffling staff. And, perhaps even more infuriatingly, as of April 2015 the City was reporting 4,749 unpaid parking tickets dating back to 2008 – SEVEN YEARS! – and representing $559,200 in fines.

At this point, whoever is allegedly in charge of that enforcement/collection effort should be publicly identified, placed in stocks in front of City Hall, and pelted with rotten tomatoes, cabbages and the occasional dead cat. Because, seriously, this is bleeping ridiculous.

If these fines aren’t collectable for legal or practical reasons, it’s time to make that determination, write them off, and institute a policy and process that ensures this kind of situation never repeats itself.

But we digress.

Just because the demands for parking will be increasing doesn’t mean that they will reach the critical mass necessary to support an economically viable parking business. And if we’ve learned anything from that economic black hole otherwise known as the Uptown TIF, it’s that the City has shown itself to be totally incapable of making sound business decisions in any way relating to private enterprise.

So before the City runs off and hands over $20,000-$40,000, or more, to some eager consultants who will tell us that (a) we have a parking problem, and (b) the only way to solve it is with one or more parking lots and/or garages, we’d first like to hear the Council and staff address and resolve the policy issues that any such study will almost certainly raise, starting with:

• Is the City ready, willing and able to undertake the bonded debt necessary for it to acquire land and build the necessary lots or garages; and 

• If not, is the City ready, willing and able to give any tax concessions to one or more private developers to spend their own money acquiring land and building the lots/garages?

If the City is not willing, as a public policy matter, to say “yes” to at least one of those questions, then any kind of meaningful “comprehensive” parking study is going to be a waste of time and money – because it can’t lead to any meaningful action by the City.

Make no mistake about it: we don’t believe the City should be in the parking business. As noted above, the City has so far proven itself incapable of even collecting its parking tickets. And the last time it dipped its toe into the parking garage water was (as we understand it) by borrowing and spending several million dollars to faux-“partner” with Uptown developer PRC Partners – a “deal” that has left the City violated in every available orifice and continuing to pay for that dubious “privilege.”

So let’s not even think of going there again.

But if the City isn’t going to throw a bundle of taxpayer money and/or debt at this problem, who will?

Basic capitalism would suggest that, if there truly were a commercially significant demand for parking anywhere in Park Ridge, some private operator would come forward with a project. But while we’ve got every Tom, Dick and Harry developer looking to throw up condos, townhouses or apartment buildings, we haven’t heard about anybody knocking on the door at City Hall inquiring about the permitting and licensing of parking lots and/or garages.

That lack of interest, however, won’t stop a limited (fortunately) contingent of knuckleheads from arguing that the City must “invest” in parking in order to prime the “retail” pump. Check out the Park Ridge Citizens Online and Park Ridge Concerned Homeowners Group Facebook pages and you’ll discover a few members of the knucklehead brigade actually advocating – in a total fantasyland way – for the City to somehow force private landlords to lower their rents in order to make their properties more “friendly to business.”

Even the former Soviet Union countries don’t seem to play that socialist game anymore.

So before the City Council spends one dime on any “comprehensive” parking study, it should do the intelligent, fiscally-responsible thing and formulate a City policy on public parking and the City’s role in providing, maintaining, creating and/or incentivizing it. Otherwise, the City will, once again, be putting the cart before the horse.

With the Uptown TIF albatross scheduled to hang around the City’s neck for another 12 years, we don’t need to waste any more scarce tax dollars on studying something the City has neither the money nor the political will to undertake.

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