Flooding – and the effect it has on private property values and on the City treasury – is the most significant problem Park Ridge faces.  Even people who can put up with air plane noise are far less tolerant of several inches to several feet of fetid water appearing all too regularly in their basements.

So we direct your attention to an article in this week’s Park Ridge Journal about the flooding problem and its remediation (“Flood Fixes Under Review,” September 25).  And a big Watchdog bark-out goes the Ald. Marc Mazzuca (6th) for making – at the City Council’s September 9 Committee of the Whole meeting – essential points about the inadequacy of the “10-year flood” remediation with which the City is currently fiddling.

As reported in the Journal article, back in May 2012, the Council approved spending over $800,000 from the City’s sewer fund on a flooding feasibility study by the City’s newest BFF consultant, Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd.  But as we understand it, the focus of this feasibility study is a plan to improve the sewer system to better hand 10-year floods.

Resident Bill Montgomery, from the Northwest Park area, noted that despite having overhead sewers and a sump pump, his house floods because the main City sewer line serving his house and others on his block is inadequate to handle the several 100-year floods we’ve had in the past five years.

Unfortunately, Mazzuca’s and Montgomery’s incisive observations were met with bureaucratese from Public Works Director Wayne Zingsheim, who defended the 10-year storm focus because that’s the “industry standard” – without apparently appreciating the absurdity of that statement in light of the flooding we’ve actually experienced.  And he analogized building a sewer system for 100-year floods to building a 300-seat restaurant “for the one time you have a wedding.”

Sorry, Wayne, but we’ve had at least four “weddings” in the past five years.  And if one gives any credence whatsoever to the climate change theory, a continuing or increasing number of “weddings” seems more of a certainty than a likelihood.  Which means you should probably buy yourself a tux rather than keep relying on rentals.

Mazzuca’s comment that “[i]f we were to continue with the Burke [10-year flood] plan, we’re still not solving the capacity problem” – and Montgomery’s observation that “[t]he plan for a 10-year flood, a 10-year rain is just shortsighted” – sound spot-on to us.

The bottom line is that EVERYBODY knows, or reasonably should know through nothing more than simple observation and the application of common sense, that expecting any significant flooding relief from a 10-year flood plan is just a couple of degrees north of “foolish”…and heading towards “delusional.”  Throwing time, effort and boxcars of cash at such a plan, therefore, would appear to be stupid and wasteful – unless that 10-year plan comes with a much-needed system-wide sewer evaluation to determine the extent and degree our existing sewer system has been neglected and in need of basic repairs or replacement.

We don’t know how much of the $800,000 appropriated for the Burke study has been spent already, but to the extent there’s any left un-spent we strongly suggest the Mayor and City Council put the brakes on before it’s all gone.  Nobody, including the victims of chronic flooding and the taxpayers as a whole, will be properly served by finding out at the next big flood control presentation on November 11 that we’ve spent $800,000 on what amounts to a plastic beach pail when a 20,000 gallon-per-hour pump is needed.

Whether we can afford the pump is a legitimate question, but do we really want to waste millions on the pail?

To read or post comments, click on title.

Tonight’s Park Ridge City Council Committee of the Whole (“COW”) meeting has a few agenda items of interest that also provide the Council and City Staff with ample opportunity to “screw the pooch” – as Tom Wolfe so aptly put it in “The Right Stuff.”

The most important item on tonight’s hit parade should be the discussion of the City’s competitive bidding process, which appears to have led to indecent liberties with the pooch on at least three occasions we can think of during just the past year.

We wrote about Fire Chief Mike (“Chief Z”) Zywanski’s attempted $150,000 no-bid ambulance defibrillator purchase in our 02.18.13 and 03.04.13 posts.  Chief Z’s fingerprints also were all over the no-bid deal earlier this month to move the City’s fire emergency dispatch services to the Regional Emergency Dispatch (“RED”) Center.  And at last Monday’s meeting, the Council rejected a $32,000 contract for 12 fire hydrants because of legitimate questions about how the Public Works Dept. handled that bidding process.

Under such circumstances, we would have expected some serious analysis and some hard-nosed recommendations from City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton.  But as can be seen from his Agenda Cover Memorandum for tonight’s COW meeting, the only substance (modest by any standard) relates to a need for a central purchasing and procurement agent.

Missing from Hamilton’s memo is any acknowledgment of understanding that competitive bidding of government contracts serves two principal functions – (1) getting the best price for the taxpayers, and (b) minimizing opportunities for corruption from sweetheart insider deals – which in many ways are two sides of the same coin.

Under Chapter 9, Section 2-9-9 of the City’s Municipal Code, competitive bidding is generally required for any contract for goods or services over $20,000.  Subsection F of that Section lists 7 exceptions to the bidding requirement, but even a cursory review of them suggests that Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 7 serve no legitimate purpose and should be eliminated, while the remainder could definitely be tightened up and the reasoning behind them (if any) explained so that their fiscal and governmental soundness (if any) can be understood and/or challenged.

We can’t wait to see what the COW does with this issue – and how much push-back Staff provides to any attempts by the COW to enforce the current competitive bidding process, and hopefully make it tighter and more enforceable.

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The second threat to the pooch’s virtue is Hamilton’s proposed award of the 2014 Taste of Park Ridge (“TOPR”) contract to private vendor Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”).  What a shocker!

Hamilton’s Agenda Cover Memorandum containing that recommendation includes a “Statement of Revenues and Expenses” for the 2013 TOPR event that discloses over $300,000 of gross revenues but only a measly $4,446.99 in “Net Operating Income.”

$4,446.99?  On $300,000 of revenues?  With nothing but “volunteer” help?

Unlike in 2012, when rain cut into attendance, this year’s TOPR enjoyed virtually perfect weather, which presumably accounted for the $81,500+ of increased “Ticket revenue” and the $56,985 of increased “Vendor payouts.”  But why were “Vendor fees” $9,500 less in 2013 than in 2012?  And, for that matter, what are “Vendor fees”?

When we first started looking into TOPR and the sweetheart no-bid deal Taste Inc. was given by then-mayor Howard Frimark and a disinterested City Council back in 2005, our principal concern was that the City recoup its costs for fire, police and public works services that Taste Inc. had been receiving, gratis, for the first 7 years it was operating.  We were pleased, therefore, when the Council issued a Request for Proposal (“RFP”) for TOPR a couple of years ago and made reimbursement of the City’s expenses AND a profit-sharing arrangements two requirements of the RFP.

But the central requirements of any profit-sharing arrangement are transparency and accountability.  And Taste Inc.’s “Statement of Revenues and Expenses” leaves a lot to be desired on those counts, starting with the non-itemized $180,945 in “Vendor payouts” and $108,000 of “Cost of Goods Sold.”  That’s where sweetheart deals for favored or “insider” vendors can be hidden.

We’re not saying they are, just that they could be.  So why create the opportunity when requiring the back-up documentation could provide the transparency and accountability currently lacking?

We would have expected a “numbers guy” – as Hamilton was advertised when first hired as the “acting” City Manager in 2012 after his predecessor was sacked – to at least suggest that any new contract with Taste Inc. provide a whole lot more detail than what we’ve seen so far, especially if the profit-sharing term of the contract is going to have any meaning.

But all Hamilton could muster is the recommendation that the letter of credit requirement (as security for the City’s costs) be eliminated and the general liability insurance coverage be reduced from $2 million to $1 million – on the ground that “removal of these two items would be consistent with other events in the city.”

What “other events in the city” require closing off a street and a commuter parking lot for four days, consume $18,000 of City services, and generate over $300,000 of gross revenue, Mr. Hamilton?

When it comes to TOPR, Hamilton seems to be following the path of least resistance that was cleared, graded and paved by his predecessors Hock and Schuenke.  And that’s not a ringing endorsement under any circumstances.

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The final opportunity for the COW to have its way with the pooch involves a modification to the City’s liquor license recommended by the City’s Liquor License Review Board to permit the sale of individual bottles and cans of beer in containers smaller than 32 ounces.

Apparently in recognition that an increasing number of craft and import beers come in 22- and 24-ounce containers, the Liquor Board recommended such 1-off sales, but only if…wait for it…the beer  in those containers is sold at room temperature rather than cold.

The silliness of the Liquor Board’s discussion needs to be read to be appreciated, but our favorite comes from Liquor Board member Anthony Amelio who – according to the draft minutes of that Board’s September 16th meeting – opposes the sale of cold beer because “a person buying one can may only be able to afford that one can and that it would or could simply be drunk in the car before leaving the parking lot.”

See what we mean?

Apparenlty what passes for reasoning by the Liquor Board is that, by selling only warm beer in individual cans or bottles, a potential inebriate of modest means will be deterred from drinking it in his/her car before driving away from the parking lot.  But if he/she can afford a six-pack, that can be bought cold and chugged down before hitting the road.  Or he/she can buy a whole quart, cold – or spring for a half-pint of some distilled spirit that can be enjoyed at any temperature.

As we said: silly, silly, silly.

And, oh, that poor, poor, poor pooch.

UPDATE (09.24.13); Corrected (09.25.13)  From Monday night’s meeting:

Procedures & Regulation chair, Ald. Marc Mazzuca, led a lengthy discussion on bidding.  He repeated some of his prior comments about how flawed the process and its implementation has been.  Not surprisingly, City Mgr. Hamilton defended the process and its implementation by staff, all the while lobbying for a return of the purchasing agent position.

The result: Hamilton and City Attorney Everett “Buzz” Hill were asked to produce a revised Section 2-9-9 of the City Code that reflects this Council’s expressed desire to make competitive bidding the go-to process rather than something Staff constantly seeks to avoid; and Hamilton is supposed to try to be a better gatekeeper for purchasing decisions in order to avoid recurrences of the boondoggles we identified.  Hamilton also is supposed to produce an analysis of whether the purchasing agent position can be funded via a budget transfer during the current FY 2013-14.

A contract revision for TOPR 2014 was tabled in favor of Hamilton coming back to the Council with a special events policy that can be applied to all community special events, including TOPR.  The question was raised why TOPR should be treated any differently than other community events – to which we reiterate: “What ‘other events in the city’ require closing off a street and a commuter parking lot for four days, consume $18,000 of City services, and generate over $300,000 of gross revenue?”

Cooooooool beer here!  One of the shortest discussions of the night led to an amendment – by Ald. Dan Knight (5th) – of the  proposed ordinance to strike all “at room temp” references; and the ordinance, as amended, passed unanimously.

To read or post comments, click on title.

We here at PublicWatchdog are no fans of O’Hare expansion.

The noise decreases our property values.  The pollution – however much can actually be attributed to planes rather than industrial activity and the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that travel the Kennedy and the Tri-State on our South and West borders – may be making us less healthy.  And we can’t see any significant economic value to our community from expansion.

But over a couple of decades of watching the workings of local, county, state and federal government, we have learned to tell when the deck is stacked one way or the other.  Which is why we view fighting O’Hare expansion as a lost cause: too many politicians – and the special interests that own them – are fully invested in that plan.  Park Ridge doesn’t have nearly the kind of money or influence to beat the clout of that politician/special interest combine.

But if you have any doubt about that, it should be dispelled by the article in today’s Chicago Tribune: “Feds hope to break stalemate with $10M for O’Hare.”

O’Hare is getting another $10 million federal grant – on top of the $747 million the feds already have “invested,” according to Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin – in an effort by the feds to push United and American airlines into paying what Chicago needs to finish off the project, which was originally estimated to cost $6.6 billion (in 2001 dollars) but is now projected to cost $9.7 billion (in 2012 dollars).

United and American need pushing because they want to hold off on more expansion expense until they see a real need, in the form of passenger demand.  Publicly-traded corporations like them need to manage themselves in a fiscally responsible way.  They have Wall Street and their shareholders to account to.  And they both have bankruptcies to show for what happens when they didn’t manage themselves properly.

Since the feds can print their own money, however, bankruptcy’s not a consequence of stupid or reckless spending by the folks in Washington, including the Illinois congressional delegation.  According to the Tribune article, that delegation “is pushing the Emanuel administration and the airlines to make a deal on the rest of the [O’Hare expansion] work.”

Don’t think that this new push for O’Hare expansion is about transportation.  It’s not.  It’s all about the politics of jobs, as Durbin brazenly admitted: “Today’s additional funding, in combination with a significant contribution from the airlines, will help create jobs and keep the project on track.”

After years of recession and what is being bemoaned as a jobless “recovery,” politicians (especially Democrats) and the special interests who own them are infinitely more concerned about creating jobs – and about the political capital that comes with such job creation – than they are about the noise pollution and air quality of sleepy little Park Ridge.  And no supplemental environmental impact study or threat of a lawsuit is going to change that.

In the political poker game of O’Hare expansion, the feds just raised us $10 million.

And we don’t have enough chips to call.

To read or post comments, click on title.

A recent article in the Park Ridge Journal – one of the last by reporter Craig Adams who, unfortunately for Journal readers, has been re-assigned to a beat closer to his far northwest suburban home – reported that the City of Park Ridge is still exploring alternatives to the City of Chicago as a supplier of water (“City Still Exploring Water Alternatives,” 08.28.13).

Over the past couple of years the City began exploring alternate sources of water when Chicago started a series of rate hikes.  Given Chicago’s precarious financial condition resulting from decades of mismanagement, graft and corruption under “Li’l Richie” Daley, there’s no reason to believe – or even hope – that Chicago won’t continue to use its virtual monopoly power to bleed its suburban customers.

That being said, the cost of building a competing water treatment and distribution system, projected at between $180 and $400 million, makes it unaffordable unless a some sort of joint venture or consortium could be created to undertake the construction costs and lock in water price controls over a sufficiently long period of time to justify the major infrastructure cost.  And as pointed out in the Journal story, no such venture or consortium currently exists.

Park Ridge reportedly is under contract to Chicago through December 31, 2019.  How long it would take to actually construct an alternate treatment and distribution system is not yet clear, but it would almost certainly be a multi-year project that could be expected to consume at least 3 of the 6 years left on the City’s deal with Chicago.

So the City Council should be discussing NOW – while the analysis of the joint study the City commissioned last year is still valid – whether it really is serious about pursuing an alternate water source.  That would mean committing the attention and effort necessary to explore and pursue the creation of the joint venture or consortium needed to pull off an alternate infrastructure.  And that would also involve a decision of whether the City would be better off accepting a continuing water purchase relationship with Chicago, albeit while knowing that Chicago’s finances in 2019 might make even more extortionate water increases likely.

Whether City Staff is equal to the task of reviewing last year’s joint study report and undertaking the assignment of providing usable information and recommendations to the City Council is an open question.  But if Staff lacks the ability, perhaps this might be a project suited for another citizens’ task force – assuming there are enough capable engineers and business people ready, willing and able to provide useful input to the Council.

The City has more than enough other, more immediate matters to deal with than this one.  But 2019 is not that far off, especially if just the physical construction of an alternative water distribution network will take 2-3 years.

That’s why the City leadership should take some time, now, to at least decide pro-actively whether to fish or cut bait on this alternate water source issue.

To read or post comments, click on title.

This past Tuesday night developer Trammell Crow made its initial presentation to the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission for a 126-unit apartment building proposed for the site of the current Advocate Health office building at 205 West Touhy.

Regular readers of this blog know that we have no love for new multi-family residential structures in Park Ridge.  Not only do we believe the density that comes with such buildings is problematic for a mature community such as ours, with it’s dated infrastructure, but the cost of educating every child that might live in multi-family units tends to be even more disproportionate to the property taxes generated by those units than it is for single-family residential property.

The 126 units Trammell Crow wants are a full 40 units more than the current zoning permits.  That normally would be a non-starter for the Commission, if past decisions (albeit by a different cast of characters than presently comprise the Commission) are any guide.  That’s not to say, however, that at least some members of the Commission wouldn’t accept a number of units between 86/87 and 126.

And THAT’s what Trammell Crow might be betting on.

The economics of almost any multi-family structure are a “loser” for Park Ridge taxpayers, unless those units are occupied by childless couples who will be contributing 33% of their units’ real estate taxes to Park Ridge-Niles Elementary School District 64 and another 30%-plus to Maine Township High School District 207, while at the same time using no D-64 or D-207 services.   That’s because just one child in D-64 costs approximately $13,000 a year to educate, while a large single-family home paying $20,000 in annual RE taxes doesn’t cover even one-half the annual educational cost of that student.

But according to the developer, this project will contain smaller units (1 and 2 bedroom) instead of the 3 and 4-bedroom units such projects typically include.  And if the developer is to be believed, those smaller units will still rent for between $1,800 and $3,000 per month, primarily to people without children – whom we are being told are now called “power couples.”

In a previous incarnation they were known as “DINKS”: double incomes, no kids.

Why such couples would choose to spend $1,800 to $3,000 a month on rent for a 1 or 2-bedroom apartment in Park Ridge is, frankly, beyond our comprehension.  And from their reactions Tuesday night, several commissioners seemed equally uncomprehending, if not outright skeptical.  As they should be.

Instead of “power couples,” we’re betting the 2-bedroom units are far more likely to draw single parents who want their kids in Park Ridge schools but can’t afford (or don’t want to pay) the down payment and/or monthly mortgage debt service for a condo or single family home.  So either Trammell Crow has a way better sense of what it can sell in the Park Ridge market than we do, or it’s trying to blow a lot of smoke up a number of people’s kilts.

We’ve seen this movie before, so we know how it ends.  And we’re taking the latter.

Judging from comments by several P&Z commissioners and the heads of other commissioners nodding in agreement, 40 units over the Zoning Code’s 86-unit maximum isn’t going to happen – notwithstanding a nifty argument from the developer’s representatives that the exact same size structure on the exact same footprint could conform to the Code’s density requirements by substituting 3 and 4-bedroom units for the 1 and 2-bedroom ones.  In other words, the 40 extra units would be of no practical consequence to the number of people actually living on the site.

Park Ridge’s Zoning Code was re-written approximately 7 years ago.  The current Code, therefore, represents a relatively contemporary community view – a/k/a, its “public policy” – of how property in Park Ridge should be developed, including the density of dwelling units.

We assume the folks who served on the City’s Ad Hoc Zoning Ordinance Re-Write Committee (Kirke Machon, Rich DiPietro, Ann Tennes, attorney Gary Zimmerman, Atul Karkhanis, attorney Ellen Upton, Brian Kidd,  Philip Mitchell, attorney Cynthia Funkhouser, Timothy Metropolus, Rob Lohens, Judy Barclay, attorney Joseph Cwik, attorney Terry McConville, Tom Provencher, Anita Rifkind and attorney Aurora Abella-Austriaco, with the assistance of professional zoning consultants) properly considered how the number and size of dwelling units – be they apartments, condominiums, townhouses, or single family homes – would impact the areas in which they are located.

So when any developer comes along and asks for close to a 50% variance in the amount of dwelling units, we have to wonder whether the City has acquired a reputation for being such a pushover that developers actually believe they can get such variances; or, alternatively, that it has acquired a reputation of split-the-baby compromise, thereby emboldening developers to ask for 40 extra units with the expectation that they’ll get 20.

Either way, if true, tends to make a mockery out of the City’s Zoning Code.  And it turns the Code into mere suggestions that Groucho Marx could have been describing when he announced:

“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them…well, I have others.”

To read or post comments, click on title.

More than a year ago we wrote about the abysmal condition of the City’s commuter parking lot along Summit Avenue (“‘Management By Walking Around Should Start With Stroll Along Summit,” 08.03.12).

Virtually 100% of the pavement was crumbling back then, some of it revealing formerly paved-over tree stumps.  That it was allowed to deteriorate to the point where the lot’s condition would have been an embarrassment to economically-distressed communities like Bellwood, Robbins or Waukegan suggests that somebody(ies) at City Hall had been asleep at the wheel for a number of years.

So there’s finally some good news to report: the rebuilding of that parking lot, along with the curbs and the installation of sidewalks, is beginning today.

The bad news, however, is how the City is choosing to deal with the problems the construction will cause.

Last Wednesday/Thursday, parkers along Summit returned to their cars in the evening to find a flyer stuffed behind their cars’ windshield wipers, announcing the commencement of the project and that there will be NO PARKING in that Summit lot between Prospect (on the West) and Ridge (on the East) for the approximately six weeks the project is supposed to take.

No mention of where these displaced resident commuters might find alternative parking – presumably because the City has made no arrangements for such alternative parking – or even where the other City parking lots are located.  Just a basic “parking lot will be closed for 6 weeks.”

And an implicit: “F U” to the folks who regularly use that lot.

We’re talking well over 100 spaces that are used 8-plus hours a day, 5 days a week.  Many of the people who regularly park in those spaces have never parked anywhere else in connection with their daily commute.  They probably could have used a small map of what City lots are closest to the METRA station.

But commuters got no map.  They got no alternatives.  All they got was a bare-bones announcement.

Oh, yes, and they got one more thing: not one but TWO mentions on the flyer of “Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd. (CBBEL)” – the City’s engineer on this project.

Hmmm, how curious.

We’ll match our governmental “transparency” and “accountability” advocacy against anybody’s, but wouldn’t one mention of “Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd. (CBBEL)” on this flyer have been enough?  Especially since “CBBEL” seems to have become the newest most-favored-vendor for City engineering services, with its fingerprints already all over the City’s various flood control projects.

Or is somebody at City Hall shilling for CBBEL?

Back in October, 2011, Mayor Dave Schmidt and Alds. Joe Sweeney (1st), Rich DiPietro (2nd) and Dan Knight (5th) expressed reservations about the circumstances surrounding the selection of CBBEL as the provider of engineering services for the initial phases of the City’s sewer improvement (a/k/a, flood control) plan.  According to the minutes of the October 10, 2011 Committee of the Whole meeting, Schmidt questioned then-city manager Jim Hock’s playing golf as a guest of CBBEL, especially when the City was negotiating with CBBEL over its services for the multi-million dollar flood control projects.

Hock’s gone, so we know he didn’t author the flyer promoting CBBEL.  So that would appear to mean that CBBEL has another “friend” (or two) in City Hall.

And when it comes to government, especially here in Illinois, such “friend”-ly relationships usually mean trouble for taxpayers.

To read or post comments, click on title.

As has previously been reported in this blog, its editor was a member of a committee of Sixth Ward residents who, in June 2012, screened four candidates for mayoral appointment to fill that ward’s aldermanic seat when Tom Bernick abandoned ship after little more than the first year of his four-year term.

Based on the committee’s recommendation, Mayor Dave Schmidt nominated Marc Mazzuca, whose appointment was unanimously approved by the City Council.

We welcomed Mazzuca to the Council in our 06.23.12 post, and early on he displayed some of the qualities we expected him to bring to the Council.  But he soon became a poster child for aldermanic schizophrenia, painstakingly drilling down into some fiscal issues while totally and inexplicably ignoring other ones.

One night he would argue interminably for saving $20,000 by benchmarking city manager compensation against the federal government’s civil service pay scale, then turn around and rubber-stamp hundreds of thousands of dollars of police station “improvements” after a Q & A of Chief Kaminski so soft it would have made a marshmallow blush.  He has repeatedly voted for across-the-board, non-merit based pay increases for union and non-union employees alike without even any attempt at an economic or public policy justification.

Consequently, we couldn’t endorse his election in April, although he nevertheless won a four-year term by a margin of 20 votes.  But since that time, sad to say, he has done little to cause us to question our lack of an endorsement.

This past Monday night’s City Council COW meeting was a case in point.

Mazzuca joined Alds. Joe Sweeney (1st) and Jim Smith (3rd) in another attempt to give away a used City SUV (reportedly worth at least $3,000) to Maine Township government, reportedly because that  governmental unit doesn’t want to reduce its operating fund balance from $1 million to $997,000 for the benefit of its own Maine Twp. Emergency Management Program (“MTEMP”).  Although that giveaway was defeated a couple of weeks ago during the previous COW meeting, Sweeney resurrected it with a motion for reconsideration – which he could bring because he was absent for the previous COW vote.

We encourage you to actually watch Monday night’s debate on the issue, which begins at 1:39:14 of the City’s meeting video.  But for those who want the Reader’s Digest version, we’ll try to accommodate you.

Alds. Dan Knight (5th) and Marty Maloney (7th), both of whom had voted “no” two weeks ago, noted how giving away Park Ridge tax dollars to another taxing body is bad policy and bad precedent, with Maloney correctly pointing out that several areas of Park Ridge aren’t even in Maine Twp.  Ald. Roger Shubert (4th), who had voted for the giveaway two weeks ago, voiced similar concerns in announcing that he was changing his vote to “no” after additional deliberation.

With previous “no” voter Ald. Nick Milissis (2nd) absent, another 3 to 3 tie prevented the giveaway from once again getting out of the COW.

But Mazzuca’s and Sweeney’s arguments in support of the giveaway – wrong at best, disturbing at worst – should be studied as an object lesson in what having virtually no sense whatsoever of the legal and practical division between separate governmental taxing bodies sounds like.

Mazzuca began his defense of the giveaway by asserting that “[t]here’s still a taxpayer that is going to benefit” from the City’s donation of the SUV to Maine Twp. – presumably meaning that Maine Twp. will use the vehicle for the benefit of at least some Park Ridge taxpayers.  Such an absurd argument, however, could effectively justify the City’s giving the $3,000 SUV (or $30,000, or $300,000, for that matter) to any other governmental unit to which any Park Ridge taxpayers also pay property taxes, be it the Park District, School Districts 64 and 207, the Water Reclamation District, the Mosquito Abatement District, or Cook County itself.

While some savvy marketer might brand that as “Local Governments Without Borders,” all it does is make it even tougher for taxpayers funding multiple governmental units to track how their money is being spent and to hold any particular unit of government accountable for that spending.

Mazzuca then went further afield when he attempted to demean the issue and the applicable public policy by minimizing its cost, t.v. infomercial-style, to the average taxpayer: “It’s not nickels, it’s not dimes, it’s not even pennies,” he insisted.

No, alderman, it’s $3,000 – enough money to cover at least one of the arbitrary, non-performance based raises you irresponsibly voted to hand out to various City employees this year.

But Mazzuca’s dumbest argument was his grand finale: that with the City looking to renegotiate its Uptown TIF-related revenue-sharing agreements with other local governmental units (i.e., School Districts 64 and 207, and the Park District), denying Maine Twp. a free $3,000 SUV would be “a bloody flag” that would discourage those three governmental units from doing any kind of a deal with the City on the TIF.

If any reader can even begin to understand that bizarre linkage, please feel free to explain it to us.

But leave it to Sweeney to make even Mazzuca’s ridiculous arguments seem sublime.

After reciting all the things MTEMP allegedly “gives” to Park Ridge – 25 to 30 CERT bags valued at $100 each, CERT training, volunteers directing traffic during flooding, providing a light tower at Taste of Park Ridge, etc. – Sweeney displayed his ignorance (or his duplicity?) about MTEMP when he proclaimed: “I’m not talking Maine Twp, I’m talking the Emergency Management Group”

As if MTEMP is an independent organization rather than a branch of Maine Twp. government funded with $100,000 of Maine Twp. taxpayers’ money, a/k/a, our money.

That launched Knight.

“[MTEMP] didn’t give the City of Park Ridge anything,” he replied sharply.  “They gave it to us by expending taxpayer money.”

Knight then recalled MTEMP’s director’s appearance at the last COW meeting, where he referred to MTEMP as “his” organization.

“It’s not his organization, it’s the people’s organization.  And they don’t give us things, they tax us so that they can buy stuff, and then they give it to us.”

“You tell me how that makes sense.”

BAM!

To read or post comments, click on title.

The current Mayor and City Council appear to be the best group, collectively, of elected officials to oversee City government in more than 20 years.

Unlike most of their predecessors, whose style of governance consisted primarily of mindlessly rubber-stamping mayoral fiats (like Ron Wietecha’s costly anti-O’Hare obsession, and Wietecha’s and Mike Marous’ disastrous Uptown TIF fantasy) and boneheaded staff decisions, while at the same time writing of as many checks as they hoped the taxpayers could cash, the current occupiers of The Horseshoe seem to be much more a taxpayers-first, policy-oriented, trust-but-verify bunch.

But every so often one or more of them seem unable to resist the impulse to do something that is penny-unwise and public policy-foolish.  And tonight’s (08.26.13) Committee of the Whole (“COW”) meeting has the potential for providing another object lesson in that particular form of bad government.

We’re talking about the motion of Ald. Joe Sweeney (1st) to reconsider the August 12 COW vote rejecting – by a 3-3 tie – the wrongheaded and policy-bankrupt “donation” of a City-owned used 2002 Ford Explorer XLS, allegedly worth $3,000, to Maine Township government.  Or, more specifically, to the Maine Twp. Emergency Management Program (“MTEMP”), a branch of Maine Twp. government.

We wrote about the foolishness of that idea in our August 12 post, “It Really Is The Principle, Not The Money,” so we won’t re-hash all those arguments here.  Instead, we’ll focus on its return to the COW agenda: Sweeney was absent from the August 12 COW and, therefore, has a right to seek a do-over because he did not cast a vote for the losing “donation” side.

If you’ve listened to Sweeney’s comments and observed his voting record over the last four years, you know that there’s virtually no amount of spending he won’t vote for if it’s in any way related to police, fire or public safety – all while insisting he’s a staunch fiscal conservative.  If Police Chief Frank Kaminski wanted an M1A1 Abrams battle tank to deter speeders on Touhy, or to repel an invasion by Des Plaines, Sweeney would be the first to leap to his feet in wholehearted, unquestioning support.

Heck, he’d probably even suggest throwing in an armored command car for Kaminski.

So unless one of the three aldermen who foolishly voted for the giveaway two weeks ago –  Alds. Jim Smith (3rd), Roger Shubert (4th) and Marc Mazzuca (6th) – gets religion and changes his vote, Sweeney’s expected “yes” vote will send the giveaway out of the COW to next week’s regular Council meeting for final approval.  Unfortunately, we don’t know what it would take to change any of those “yes” votes because none of the aldermen who cast them bothered to say why.

While Alds. Nick Milissis (2nd) and Dan Knight (5th) explained the reasoning behind their “no” votes on August 12, the three “yes” voters sat in stony silence.  That silence, although completely permissible under Council rules and procedures, cheats the taxpayers out of a public record of the voters’ reasoning – assuming there actually is any kind of “reasoning” behind such votes.

Both Milissis and Knight correctly noted that just because the City’s used SUV is worth only $3,000 doesn’t mean giving it to another separate taxing body like Maine Twp. is the right thing to do.  That’s because whether the SUV (or any other City property) is worth $3,000, $30,000, or $300,000, it still was paid for, and belongs to, Park Ridge taxpayers.  So there better be a darned good reason why property Park Ridge taxpayers paid for with their tax dollars is being given away to other governmental units – like Maine Twp. – which also tax those same Park Ridge taxpayers.

As Knight pointed out: “If we need $3,000, we raise taxes from our citizens.”  That’s what Maine Twp. should do if it needs or wants a vehicle for its MTEMP.

City staff should have known better than to even make such a foolish and policy-bankrupt recommendation to the Council.  But keeping a close eye on Staff is why we have an elected Mayor and an elected City Council.  Too bad three of them – and apparently the MIA Sweeney – don’t seem to be able to figure these things out any better than Staff can.

If these “yes”-voting aldermen and any Park Ridge taxpayers want to give away a $3,000 vehicle to Maine Twp., however, they should take up a collection to buy it from the City (and their fellow taxpayers) and then “donate” it.  Let Sweeney and Chiefs Kaminski and Zywanski chair the effort, assuming they don’t want to each write a check of a grand and fund it themselves.

But if any aldermen insist on voting to give away City property, they should at least end their sphinx-like silence and dazzle us with the reasoning behind what appears to be an unpricipled, foolish and irresponsible vote.

UPDATED 08.27.13: With Ald. Nick Milissis, a solid “no” vote, missing from The Horseshoe last night, it looked like Ald. Joe Sweeney and the other giveaway aldermen would prevail on Sweeney’s do-over.  But Ald. Roger Shubert came up big, changing his vote from “yes” to “no” because he finally “got” the principle involved.  So with a 3-3 tie – Sweeney, Smith and Mazzuca “yes” versus Shubert, Knight and Maloney “no” – once again the SUV donation failed to move out of the COW.

Not surprisingly, Sweeney had all sorts of half-baked reasons why this giveaway was somehow a good deal for the City and its taxpayers, all of which seemed to boil down to: MTEMP does all sorts of things for Park Ridge, so it’s time Park Ridge did something for MTEMP.  But as best as we can tell, most of those services MTEMP allegedly performed were not for the City but, instead, for privately-run events like the Taste of Park Ridge, Winterfest, etc.  So if MTEMP needs an SUV, maybe those private entities should step up to the plate, buy it from the City, and donate it to MTEMP themselves.

Mazzuca, on the other hand, actually may have had an even worse reason that Sweeney for voting “yes”: $3,000 isn’t enough money for the Council to stand on principle.

Seriously, Marc?  What rubbish!

Jefferson flashed no price tags when he wrote: “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

Let us know when you come to understand that concept, alderman.

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Anybody who learned Government 101 – i.e., basic grade school Civics, at least before it got sliced and diced to accommodate more “contemporary” subjects like sociology, psychology, and Inuit studies – knows that there are divisions and levels of government.

Here in terminally-inept-when-not-outright-corrupt Illinois, we have more units of government than any other state: 6,994 separate “local” taxing bodies, or 2,100-plus more than runner-up Pennsylvania.  And of those 6,994 separate taxing bodies, 3,249 are single-purpose “special districts” such as library districts, park districts, fire protection districts, mosquito-abatement districts, etc.

All these taxing bodies are petri dishes for the breeding of fiefdoms loaded with taxpayer-funded jobs and opportunities for well-connected insiders to make deals and do favors for their families and friends.

Not only are all these layers of government expensive to maintain, but their overlapping boundaries also make it difficult to hold any finite, identifiable group of public officials strictly accountable for every dollar taken from the taxpayers, and every dollar spent.  That lack of accountability is another reason why all these units of government are favored by Illinois’ political class.

Which brings us to an item on tonight’s Park Ridge City Council Committee of the Whole agenda that merits a lot more attention than its relatively modest cost – $3,000 – would otherwise invite.

It’s described as “Vehicle donation to Maine Township Emergency Management Program” and it involves the proposed giveaway of a used Park Ridge SUV, worth an estimated $3,000, to a sub-unit of the Maine Township government our residents also support through our property taxes.

According to the materials accompanying Park Ridge Police Chief Frank Kaminski’s “Agenda Cover Memorandum”, something called the “Maine Township Emergency Management Program” (the “MTEMP”).was created by those folks who run the Maine Township fiefdom, and then given the “overall mission” to “provide emergency disaster services” to unincorporated Maine Twp. – areas which are also governed (and neglected?) by a Cook County government that wants to dump them on neighboring municipalities like Des Plaines, Glenview, Niles and…Park Ridge.

Maine Twp. government created MTEMP without getting the approval of, or even consulting with, the Park Ridge City Council.  Maine Twp. government set MTEMP’s “mission” without getting the approval of, or even consulting with, our City Council.  And, appropriately enough, until now MTEMP has been funded solely by Maine Twp. government.  That’s the way it should be: if you create it and control it, you pay for it.

But in another example of governmental “mission creep,” MTEMP apparently decided to expand its “volunteer” efforts beyond “emergency disaster services” for unincorporated Maine Twp. to provide non-emergency amenity services to privately-run events like Taste of Park Ridge, the Chamber of Commerce’s “Winterfest” – along with amenity services to such non-City public events as Maine South football games and the Maine East Carnival – all without the request or formal authorization of the Park Ridge City Council.

Also apparently without being asked or authorized by our City Council, MTEMP reportedly “outfitted our [CERT] team at not cost to the City” – according to Kaminski’s unsigned and undated (Unsigned?  Undated?  C’mon, Chief, you’re better than that!) memo accompanying his Agenda Cover Memorandum.

So now, having provided all those hours of amenity services on a “volunteer” basis as an arm of Maine Twp. government, without being asked or authorized by our City Council, and without any sort of formal intergovernmental cooperation agreement, MTEMP wants $3,000 – in the form of a used SUV.  And Kaminski, without a second thought and with the support of Fire Chief Mike Zywanski, wants to give it to them as a gesture of “support [of] their program and [to] say thank you for their years of service.”

Why?

Why should Park Ridge taxpayers pay for amenities provided by “volunteers” – especially when our elected representatives apparently never asked for those amenities or those volunteers, and never authorized them?  And why should Park Ridge give MTEMP, an entity which Maine Twp. government created without asking Park Ridge, a $3,000 used vehicle when MTEMP’s own Maine Twp. government is admittedly sitting on a fund balance of $1 million but won’t spring for the three grand?

This situation reminds us of those guys who used to swarm cars stopped at traffic lights, wash the windshields, and then expect money for a service neither requested nor authorized by the drivers of those cars.

There’s an old adage that, whenever somebody says that “it’s not the money but the principle,” it’s really the money.  But in this case, $3,000 is effectivley chump change for a City government with an annual budget of over $60 million.  So our objecting to its being “donated” to MTEMP/Maine Twp. government really is based on principle – a principle so basic and fundamental to government that it should be recognized by EVERYBODY in City government entrusted with the money it seizes involuntarily from residents through property taxes.

If MTEMP’s “volunteer” services really were so important to the City, Chief K and/or Chief Z should have asked the City Council, in advance, for authority to use those services and the authority to pay MTEMP for them.  Instead of seeking permission, however, the Chiefs apparently ignored the Council, went ahead and used those “volunteer” services as they pleased, and now want to guilt the Council into donating a $3,000 SUV – a/k/a, taxpayer funds – as some kind of gratuity.

Not surprisingly, that’s a win/win for Chief K and Chief Z, whose departments don’t have to rely on that $3,000 trade-in/re-sale value to get the new vehicles they want.  So spitting away $3,000 of Park Ridge taxpayer funds to help out their Maine Twp. public-safety fraternity brothers is of no consequence to them.  We suspect they’d be a little less cavalier with that $3,000 if they had to cut that amount out of their respective departments’ 2013-13 expenditures, however.

Giving away taxpayer funds to non-governmental entities was a bad idea when the money was being donated to private corporation community groups.  It’s an even worse idea when the money is going to help out the the bucks-up Maine Twp. political fiefdom…whose officials (Carol Teschky, Bob Provenzano, et al.) constantly brag about how well they are managing that fiefdom.

But if Chiefs K and Z really are so appreciative of those volunteer MTEMP services, we encourage them to propose $1,500 of cuts to their departments’ budgets for the current fiscal year.  Or else they can reach into their own pockets and either write personal checks to MTEMP, or agree to reimburse the City for the estimated $3,000 value of the SUV they want the City to “donate.”

How about it, gentlemen: Care to put your money – instead of the taxpayers’  – where your mouths are.

UPDATED 08.13.13.  Last night the City Council’s Committee of the Whole (“COW”) rejected Chief K’s recommendation to make a “donation” – on behalf of Park Ridge taxpayers – to Maine Twp. government, in the form of a used City SUV with an estimated value of $3,000.

Alds. Nick Milissis (2nd) and Dan Knight (5th) made the arguments against this wrong-headed idea, and they were joined in their “no” votes by Ald. Marty Maloney (7th).  Alds. Jim Smith (3rd), Roger Shubert (4th) and Mark Mazzuca voted “yes” without explanation; and, in the absence of Ald. Joe Sweeney (1st), the 3-3 tie prevented the proposal from moving out of the COW.

Whether the three aldermen voting “yes” had any good reason(s) or were mindlessly rubber-stamping Chief K’s recommendation remains unknown, as none of them reportedly spoke to the issue.  Hopefully, they’ll wake up and realize that giving away Park Ridge taxpayer money to any other governmental entity – especially one which most Park Ridge taxpayers already are being forced to support with their property tax dollars – is bad public policy; and they’ll do so before the next such boondoggle comes before them, as it inevitably will.

But for the time being, a big Watchdog bark-out to Alds. Milissis, Knight and Maloney for understanding Civics 101.  Now if only they can teach it to the other folks around The Horseshoe.

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As anyone who’s been paying attention (or reading this blog) knows all too well, the City of Park Ridge is in a financial squeeze – in large part because of the squandering of tens of millions of dollars of borrowed money (a/k/a, bonded debt) on the wrongheaded Uptown TIF development, including millions of dollars in subsidies to the private developer.

But we’ve heard that the City’s economic struggles aren’t deterring Crook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle and her County Board cronies from trying to push some of the expenses and responsibility for the unincorporated areas of Crook County – many of which are economically depressed and which are currently serviced, albeit less than efficiently, by Crook County government – onto municipalities like Park Ridge.

That strategy was recommended in April 2012 by the 13-member Crook County Unincorporated Task Force (the “CCUTF”) which Preckwinkle formed in 2011, purportedly to come up with a better way to deliver services to those unincorporated areas.  In reality, the goal was to find ways for the County to dump its costs for servicing those areas onto neighboring municipalities in the face of what Preckwinkle herself describes as the County’s “staggering budget deficit.”

Interestingly enough, Preckwinkle originally recommended charging the 98,000+ residents of unincorporated Crook County about $150 a year to maintain such County services as sheriff’s police patrols.  But that surcharge must have stepped on somebody powerful’s toes, because Preckwinkle soon dropped it like a hot potato and promptly came up with the idea of the CCUTF.

Funny how that kind of stuff seems to happen so often here in Crook County.

And this being Crook County, where only “somebodies who somebody knows” get political appointments, the CCUTF was made up of a number of usual suspects.

There were overtly political types like County Board members Tim Schneider and Deborah Sims, Maywood mayor Henderson Yarborough, and Maine Township’s own Carol Teschky.  Those of us who’ve watched Teschky over the years know that, in this kind of crowd, Carol was little more than a bobble-head doll readily nodding agreement with whatever she thought would ensure that she gets to keep her job (and pension) as Maine Twp. supervisor.

The covertly political CCUTF members were: Scott Saef, a prominent land use and zoning attorney with Sidley Austin LLP whose ties to Mike “Prince of Darkness” Madigan go back to a tour as the Speaker’s attorney back in 1993; and Barry Nekritz, high-powered real estate attorney with Faegre Baker Daniels and husband of high-profile Illinois state representative Elaine Nekritz.

The ostensibly non-politicals on the CCUTF included Adrienne Archia of Blaylock Robert Van, LLC, a municipal finance and debt underwriting consultant (who wants a piece of whatever bonded debt is needed to force these unincorporated areas into existing municipalities that don’t want them?); and DePaul University professor of “public service” H. Woods Bowman, whose CV suggests that he is 100% on board with anything that expands government services.

Then you have the folks who head up those pseudo-governmental organizations that make noise but accomplish little, like Laurence Msall of the Civic Federation; David Bennett, executive director of the fluff-and-stroke Metropolitan Mayors Caucus; and Randy Blankenhorn, executive director of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning.

But the CCUTF member we’re most interested in is the emissary Preckwinkle is rumored to be sending out in the next couple of weeks to sell this unincorporated assimilation strategy to Park Ridge Mayor Dave Schmidt, Des Plaines Mayor Matt Bogusz, Village of Glenview president Jim Patterson and Niles Mayor Andy Przybylo.

King William Harris.

The King was a member of the CCUTF, ostensibly by virtue of his chairmanship of the Metropolitan Planning Council.  In a January 2009 story, Crain’s Chicago Business described him as an “heir to the Toni hair care and other industrial fortunes.”  He’s got an undergraduate degree and an MBA from Harvard, and he’s held a number of top positions with Pittway Corporation (one of those “industrial fortunes” to which he is an “heir”), Aptar Group and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.  He’s also been a director of those same entities, along with the Alberto-Culver Co. and Penton Media, Inc.

Not only is he a trustee of the University of Chicago, but he’s also a member of the Dean’s International Council of U of C’s Harris School of Public Policy – named after his uncle and mega-donor, the late Irving B. Harris.

This King very well could be one of those Chicago stereotypes: the “guy” behind elected officials like Preckwinkle.  More likely, however, he’s a front or surrogate for those kinds of “guys” who have figured out that people with Harvard and Yale pedigrees provide pretty darn good shields against close scrutiny.

As the King‘s biographical information suggests, he’s several cuts above the typical partisan puppets and jamokes Chicago and Crook County voters regularly elect to public office.  So when the King speaks, people probably listen – which would explain why Preckwinkle is sending him as her designated pitch man.

Whether he’s a match for the estimable Ron Popeil or Vince “ShamWow” Offer is unknown, which is why we’d love to see and hear the royal pitch King will make in trying to get Schmidt and his fellow honchos from our neighboring communities to sign onto annexing such marginal unincorporated areas as Park Ridge Commons and the neighboring areas north of Lutheran General Hospital – areas which are on their way to becoming Park Ridge’s equivalent of slums.

We assume he’ll wax eloquent about intergovernmental cooperation, raise the fear factor of rising crime and violence emanating from those unincorporated lands, and give vague assurances of County financial aid as if such assurances have any value coming from as economically bankrupt and corrupt a cesspool as Crook County government.  Preckwinkle is desperate and needs ways to save money, and pushing County obligations onto municipalities like Park Ridge is a low-hanging fruit way of doing it.

Presumably Schmidt will keep his ears wide open and the City’s wallet tightly shut.

Because no matter what the content of the King’s speech might be, its only purpose is to separate Park Ridge taxpayers from even more of their money.

UPDATE 08.04.13.  An agenda item on tomorrow night’s Park Ridge City Council meeting is the upcoming meeting being scheduled by King Harris for Mayor Schmidt and his counterparts in Des Plaines, Glenview and Niles.

As can be seen from the King’s memo attached to Schmidt’s Agenda Cover Memorandum, “close to 40,000 of the 110,000 people who live in unincorporated C[r]ook County live in Maine and Northfield Townships adjacent to your four communities,” many of whom “live in aging multi-family apartment buildings and are members of moderate to low income families.”  In other words, areas that pass for “slums” up here in the northwest suburbs.

Not surprisingly, the King suggests that, “[v]ia negotiated inter-governmental agreements…[these municipalities] might be able to take over code enforcement, construction permitting, and general police work without annexing any land.”  His memo contains not even a hint of a firm commitment of Crook County funding to cover the costs of these services from which the County wants to walk away – not that a firm commitment, or even a signed contract, would provide adequate security when coming from an economically-staggering governmental unit like Crook County.

If a May 1, 2012 Chicago Tribune article is a reliable guide, many residents of those unincorporated areas don’t want annexation because they don’t want to be under “the taxing and ordinance-heavy thumbs of their more restrictive neighbor towns.”  That sounds to us like code for: they’re a bunch of freeloaders, which appears to be corroborated in that same article by reports that Preckwinkle acknowledged taxes collected from residents of unincorporated areas aren’t enough to cover the cost of the services they use, making the County’s continued servicing of these areas expensive and unsustainable.

Which makes Preckwinkle’s dumping of her original plan to surcharge those areas $150 per year to eliminate that shortfall even more irresponsible and unacceptable.

But you Republican readers who enjoy pointing fingers at all those inept and/or corrupt Illinois Dems might be chagrined to discover that a leading opponent of Preckwinkle’s surcharge was none other than Republican County Board member Tim Schneider – who, along with his family, got bailed out by Crook County taxpayers when the Dem-dominated Crook County Forest Preserve District Board, of which Schneider is a member, agreed to buy their failing 56-acre privately-owned golf course (Rolling Knolls Country Club) for nearly $5.75 million in January 2010.

And, irony of ironies, Rolling Knolls was located in…wait for it…unincorporated Crook County.

Go figure!

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