The title of today’s post is a quote from Lenin, and it seems particularly applicable to much of the rhetoric being generated about Park Ridge Library’s new “business” policy.
Actually, that policy is more a “tutor” policy than a “business” one, primarily because tutors seem to be the only people regularly fattening their wallets using the no-overhead tutoring “offices” at the Library. And now that a policy has been put in place that requires them to register and pay a $10/hour user fee, they are trying to exact revenge on the Library Board for adopting such a policy.
How? By spreading misinformation and outright lies on social media.
If information truly is “the currency of democracy” (as Jefferson stated), then misinformation and lies are the counterfeit currency.
So we’re devoting today’s post to calling out some of the folks who have lied through their teeth about the Library’s new policy, or about the Library Board, or about the owner of one particular tutoring business who appeared at two Library Board meetings to question the fairness of his competitors getting taxpayer-subsidized office space that he effectively was paying for through the RE tax portion of his office rent.
And, in the process, we’ll also rebut a few lies being told about this blog and its editor.
But first we want to explain once again our use of the word “freeloader” because more than a few delicate souls out there are suggesting they’ve been victimized, traumatized and even “bullied” by our use of that word as shorthand for people who view local government as their personal ATM, funded by OPM (“Other People’s Money”).
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “freeloader” as:
“a person [like a tutor) who is supported by or seeks support from another [like the Library, a/k/a the taxpayers] without making an adequate return [like paying a $10/hour fee].”
Merriam-Webster’s synonyms for freeloader include “bloodsucker,” “leech,” “moocher” and “sponger.” So while we chose “freeloader” as the most benign of those alternatives, we’re willing to consider one of the others – especially “leech” – if enough freeloaders request it. It should also be noted that Merriam-Webster lists “parasite” as another synonym, but we’ve reserved that for non-resident freeloaders who can’t even claim to be paying Park Ridge RE taxes to justify their freeloading.
With that out of the way we now return to our featured topic: lies and the liars who tell them.
Let’s start with Caroline Vengazo, the teacher/tutor whose claim to fame is creating the deceptive Change.Org. petition that demanded “Keep the Park Ridge Public Library a FREE Public Space for Everyone” – when what she really meant was: “Keep the Park Ridge Public Library an OVERHEAD-FREE Public OFFICE Space” for herself and her fellow tutors.
In addition to that deceptive petition issue, Vengazo also provided a write up that included the following lies:
LIE: “The single complaint that started this debate was a local businessperson who employs tutors….”
FACT: This debate was started by this editor’s questioning the for-profit tutors’ monopolizing of Library tables for hours on end – and conversing in a manner that disturbed other patrons – more than a month before Jim Giovannini of Academic Tutoring Centers first appeared before the Board.
LIE: “[Giovannini] has a buddy on the…Library Board” who pushed a tutor policy “in an act of political cronyism….”
FACT: Since Vengazo didn’t have the nerve to identify that “buddy,” we can’t say for sure whom she meant by that comment. But if she meant this editor, he has never – even to this day – communicated with Giovannini other than during the latter’s two appearances before the Library Board at its August 18, 2015 and September 8, 2015 meetings.
LIE: “[I]nformation provided by the Board lacks transparency regarding their plans as to how the funds will be utilized….”
FACT: The Board made it clear that the funds from tutor fees would go into the Library’s General Fund.
LIE: “The library will now need additional staff to police all library patrons who use this public space….”
FACT: The Library’s Director has consistently told the Board that no additional personnel will be needed to enforce the policy.
Not to be outdone when it comes to outright lying – or, in her case, maybe it’s just aggravated cluelessness with an intent to mope? – about local government matters is Kathy Panattoni Meade, headmistress of the Park Ridge Concerned Homeowners Group FB page and a regular on the “closed group” (i.e., members only) Park Ridge Virtual Chatterbox and the “closed group” (ditto) Park Ridge Citizens Online FB pages.
KPM’s comments demonstrate not only her embrace of Vengazo’s lie about Giovannini’s being some Board member’s “buddy” but she actually inflated that lie by branding Giovannini “a good friend of several library board members” who enacted the new policy for the purpose of “squelching [Giovannini’s] competition.”
Among the many other KPM Lies are:
* LIE: that both the City’s and Library’s legal counsel “advised against this tutoring policy”;
FACT: counsel’s advice merely suggested a need to expand the policy to all one-on-one business activities at the Library, which the Library Board promptly did;
* LIE: that the Board “won’t even let the library buy new chairs for the meeting room”;
FACT: the new chair purchase was deferred because the Director didn’t follow the LIbrary’s procurement policy; and
* LIE: that the current Board wants “people to stop using the library so they can stop wasting ‘their tax dollars’ on a socialist institution”;
FACT: the current Board initiated a new focus on improving the Library to attract more patrons and reverse the several-year decline in customer visits, circulation and program attendance – which decline has continued notwithstanding the seeming increase in tutor use of the Library.
Those jumping on the baseless “blame Giovannini” bandwagon include Jenny Ftacek Sanderson (“everybody knows it was Academic Tutors who started this”); and Carol Simner (the Board “obviously wanted to fix things for their friend.”)
Deserving of special “lying fearmonger” recognition, however, are those who insist that this Library Board wants to actually shut-down and/or demolish the Library, including: Nichole Flynn (“this [board] seems intent on dismantling the library” because it “hates the library and it’s [sic] patrons”); Dena Lucy (“Trizna would love to see it bulldozed and a Barnes & Noble in its place”); Park Board member Cindy Grau (“This is what they want – to close the Library” because “[m]any of them aren’t patrons” or “fans”); and Joshua Nichols (Board members who voted for the policy “appear to want everyone to stop using the library so they can close it down”).
These last four fibbers apparently were so hell-bent on lying about this Board that they didn’t even care how incredible those lies sounded in the light of things like Joe Egan’s, Char Foss-Eggemann’s, Pat Lamb’s, Dean Parisi’s and this editor’s vote – in July 2014 – to repeal the prior board’s decision to close the Library on summer Sundays, a closure about which not one of the aforementioned fibbing fearmongers publicly complained.
Nor do they try to explain how shutting down the Library jibes with Egan’s, Foss-Eggemann’s and this editor’s push for the November 2014 referendum that gave the Library an extra $1 million a year for four years – while their fellow Board members at that time preferred to sit around and berate the City Council for not giving the Library that extra $1 million a year from the City’s tax levy.
Shutting down the Library also flies in the face of the current Board’s hiring of architects to come up with renovation ideas and other ways of making the Library more functional and attractive to the entire community rather than to just one or two special interests. That’s the point Trustee Mike Reardon was making when he stated, during the January 19, 2016 meeting:
“I have sworn an oath to act on the behalf of all the citizens of Park Ridge, not only the ones sitting in this room.”
That’s the same oath ALL Library Trustees have taken.
Meanwhile, the Library Board’s tutor critics have pledged their troth to their own pocketbooks, even if it means freeloading off their fellow taxpayers and telling lies to deflect attention away from their self-interest and greed.
But leave it to that self-serving socialist, Mary Wynn Ryan, to question this Board’s motives by lying about how this editor “successfully thwarted a referendum a decade ago to renovate and enlarge the library.” Were Ryan capable of telling the truth, or capable of reciting non-revisionist history, she would have admitted that the November 2002 referendum had nothing to do with any renovation or enlargement of the Library. Instead, it consisted of three questions, the principal one asking the voters whether the Library should be demolished and replaced with a $20 million-plus (not counting additional millions in debt service) new library double the size of the current one.
And to the extent that new-library plan was “thwarted,” it was not by this editor but by the VOTERS, 8,948 (60.73%) to 5,786 (39.27%). Ryan respects the voters only when they vote the way she wants them to, which might explain her revisionist history of the 2002 referendum.
Ryan was voted off the the Park Board last April, but her self-serving socialist seat has been filled by her fellow class warrior, the aforementioned Ms. Grau, who unequivocally claims this editor “was reappointed [to the Library Board in July 2014] after the commnuity asked that he not be.” That lie is disproved by the official minutes of the Mayor’s Advisory Board’s June 16, 2014 meeting, which reflect this editor’s unanimous recommendation for reappointment by then-mayor Schmidt; and by the minutes of the full City Council’s July 7, 2014 meeting reflecting the unanimous approval of that recommendation – without even ONE “community” objection.
Perhaps Ms. Grau is suffering from the same aversion to the truth that plagues Ms. Ryan. Or maybe she’s just “Feeling the Bern” from advocating for the replacement of all City officials with candidates holding “different values” who can “form an alternate vision for our community.”
From what we’ve seen and heard from Ms. Grau so far, that “alternate vision” will mean a lot more “free” stuff for the shameless freeloader contingent – which means it will need to be sold to gullible residents by even more lies.
And paid for with more OPM from that government ATM.
Robert J. Trizna
Editor
Park Ridge Public Library Trustee
DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the Editor in that capacity, and not in his capacity as Library Trustee. None of these opinions should be viewed as representing those of the Library, its Board, its staff, or any other Trustees.
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