In our last post, “The Uptown TIF: Crapitalism Without Accountability,” we discussed how a misguided and poorly-executed decision on the Uptown TIF – by former public officials who seem totally unwilling to accept any accountability for it – has saddled current City officials and the taxpayers with some major long-term consequences.

It’s not just about the money, although a $5 million (and counting) TIF fund deficit which the City is required to make up with money from its General (operating) Fund is nothing to sneeze at.  All the subsidies the City gave to Uptown developer PRC Partners, LLC for project elements like the underground parking garage and a variety of street-scaping also didn’t do the taxpayers any favors.

And let’s not forget the arguably “bargain” price that the City charged PRC for those prime parcels of Uptown land: the “Reservoir Block,” as well as the former Bredemann property the City acquired (at less than a bargain-basement price) in order to sell them all to its developer of choice.  We’re still amazed how the City inexplicably failed to obtain an appraisal that might have confirmed whether the properties’ value really was the $6.129 million for which the City sold it, rather than the $8-10 million that some local real estate people thought it might be worth.

Was the “fix” in for PRC?  Who knows?  But for those of you who didn’t sit through any of those City Council meetings where the merits of the competing designs were being discussed, all we can say is that then-city manager Tim Schuenke and several elected officials around The Horseshoe back then sure seemed to be herding the rest of the cats in PRC’s direction.

But where the rubber meets the road anytime large sums of public money is expended, or boatloads of long-term public debt is incurred, is what other projects and services are effectively foreclosed by those commitments of money and/or debt.

For example, you folks who are frustrated by the pace of the City’s flood relief projects probably should cast a jaundiced eye on the bungled TIF financing and expenditures, because that current $5 million TIF fund deficit represents $5 million of potential flood remediation that might not get done.  And if that $5 million deficit spirals into the $27 million “worst-case” deficit forecast by the City’s new TIF consultants, flood control and other important City infrastructure projects might not get done, at least not without a substantial increase in our property taxes.

Unfortunately, it appears that a lot of infrastructure needs were neglected in the years leading up to the Uptown TIF fiasco, during which former mayor Ron “All O’Hare, All The Time” Wietecha obsessed over Uptown redevelopment in those few waking hours when he wasn’t consumed by shoveling tons of City bucks into that bottomless Suburban O’Hare Commission pit and its Peotone airport annex.  Within months of getting the Council to pass the TIF resolution in July 2003, Wietecha resigned mid-term without prior notice and fled to Barrington.

What a stand up guy!

He was followed by two mayors – Marous and Frimark – who acted as if they were every bit as committed to doing the Uptown deal as Wietecha, if not more so; and who couldn’t be bothered with something as mundane as inspecting, maintaining, repairing and replacing sewers when there were monuments to be built.

That might explain the July 15, 2013 Agenda Cover Memorandum by City Engineer Sarah Mitchell, which states that the City didn’t “resume” its sewer lining program until 2011 – although the memo doesn’t say when that program was suspended.  The schedule of sewers designated for re-lining during 2013-13 total 7,417 linear feet at a price of $310,000.  That schedule shows sewer lines ranging from 8 inches to 21 inches in diameter.

Are 8-inch sewer lines too small?  How about 15-inchers, or 21-inchers?  The City isn’t saying, nor is it saying how many more 8-inch, 15-inch or 21-inch sewers are out there, and in what condition.

Could those be contributing to, or even causing, a signficant amount of the flooding we’re experiencing?

We don’t know.  And, frankly, we doubt that anybody at City Hall or the Public Works building knows – at least not with the degree of certainty a pro-active infrastructure maintenance and improvement program requires.  But we have to believe that the $5 million that already has been sunk into covering those Uptown TIF deficits could have been put to much better use inspecting, maintaining, repairing and replacing that aged sewer system.

This isn’t to say that the Uptown project is a bad thing.  But considering that the combined Reservoir Block and Bredemann parcels was so attractive to developers back in 2002-03 that the City’s Uptown redevelopment RFQ/RFP drew 19 responses, 5 of which were “short-listed,” it’s a tad nauseating to think about how the City ended up handcuffing itself with long-term bonded debt in order to give PRC multi-millions of dollars in subsidies – especially now that PRC has banked its profit and walked away from the project, while the City will be struggling mightily to meet those debt obligations for the next 14 years.

Are the three amigos who led the Uptown TIF and PRC subsidies efforts (former mayors Wietecha, Marous and Frimark) willing to step up and publicly hold themselves publicly accountable for the Uptown TIF millstone?  How about the former aldermen who rubber-stamped the deal?

So far they’ve all been MIA.  And unless the TIF finances were to miraculously turn around, we suspect they’ll remain MIA.  And why not?  They’ve already basked in the glory of the project as proud parents when it was young and full of promise.

But now that the TIF is looking like a bust, it has become the red-headed step-child.

Or an orphan.

To read or post comments, click on title.

This week, both the TribLocal and the Park Ridge Journal published articles about the City Council’s discussion of Park Ridge’s Uptown TIF at this past Monday night’s Committee of the Whole meeting: “City Staff Reworking TIF To End Deficits,” (Journal, 07.24.13) and “Park Ridge hopes to reduce TIF drain” (Trib, 07.25.13).

At that meeting, City Finance Director Kent Oliven reiterated that the Uptown TIF fund – the special enterprise fund created to operate the TIF district – has already “borrowed” more than $5 million from the City.  Oliven also reiterated the findings of TIF consultant Kane McKenna and Associates, Inc. that, by the expiration of the TIF in 2027, the TIF fund is projected to owe the City over $20 million.

That’s not the kind of return one would hope for on the City’s approximately $40 million TIF “investment.”

It’s also one big reason why Moody’s downgraded the City’s bond rating in January 2012, while also assigning a negative outlook to the City’s finances.  And it’s got the City scrambling to salvage whatever it can from this long-term mess, using some of the ideas and advice given the Council several months ago by Kane McKenna.

For example, one way to put more TIF district tax revenue in the TIF fund is to segregate TIF district property that has gained in value from the property which hasn’t.  But that reportedly will take TIF revenue away from other taxing bodies, like School Districts 64 and 207, and the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District.  We suspect those taxing bodies might have something to say about that effort, even though they – and especially D-64 – were complicit in the creation of the TIF back in September 2003.

Back then, because D-64 had the most to lose from the TIF’s diversion of property tax revenues, the D-64 Board went through the effort and expense of hiring a top-notch Loop TIF attorney, John Murphey., He repeatedly advised then-D-64 Board members Joe Baldi, Rich Brendza, Ares Dalianis, Christine Heyde, Dean Krone, Steve Latreille and Sue Runyon that the land in question did not legally qualify for “TIF” status because it could be developed without a TIF; and that D-64 would likely be successful if it sued the City to stop the TIF.

For reasons that were vague even back then and virtually impenetrable today, however, the D-64 Board wimped out and cut a less-than-optimal financial deal with the City that the City reportedly will be looking to renegotiate now that the TIF has become an economic black hole.

Which illustrates, painfully, one of the biggest problems with government generally, but especially local government here in Park Ridge.

Lack of accountability of public officials for the decisions they make.

Less than 10 years after the foolish TIF-related decisions were made, not one of the elected City officials who made those decisions, or either of the two key City staffers who facilitated them – mayors Ron Wietecha and Mike Marous; alds. Mike Tinaglia, Don Crampton, Rich DiPietro, John Benka, Sue Bell, Andrea Bateman, Sue Beaumont, Howard Frimark, Dawn Disher, Mark Anderson, Rex Parker, Larry Friel and Jeff Cox; and city mgr. Tim Schuenke and finance director Diane Lembesis – remain in elective City office or City employment.

That leaves current Mayor Dave Schmidt and Alds. Joe Sweeney, Nick Milissis, Jim Smith, Roger Shubert, Dan Knight, Marc Mazzuca and Marty Maloney – along with City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton and City Finance Director Kent Oliven – to come up with desperate after-the-fact solutions to borderline-impossible problems created by the departed perpetrators of this TIF debacle.

Not only don’t those perps have to clean up their own mess, but we suspect they are delighted whenever they read superficial alibis for the TIF’s failure, like the TribLocal’s “a weakened economy and soft real estate market,” which gloss over how the $20 million-plus, bond-financed subsidy the City gave TIF developer PRC Partners, LLC was the product of fundamentally boneheaded public policy.  Or that, as we understand it, the servicing of that $20 million of bonded debt contributes mightily to the annual deficiency in the TIF fund.

That’s a “gift” from the perps that will keep on giving for years to come.

Giveaways of public money for private benefit are what properly have been dubbed “crapitalism.”  Unfortunately, it appears to be on the rise nationwide.  And irrespective of whether that crapitalism occurs at the federal, state, or local level, the politicians who make it possible and the recipients who crapitalize on it always seem to make out like the bandits they are.

While the rest of us taxpayers get stuck with the bill.

To read or post comments, click on title.

It’s time to bury the hatchet.

And not in anybody’s skull.

As readers of this blog well know, since our July 7, 2008 post, we have been unabashedly outspoken critics of Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”), the private corporation which, back in 2005, was given a no-bid exclusive “deal” to run the City’s signature event, Taste of Park Ridge (“TOPR”).  Our beef has been simple and straightforward: why is the City getting stiffed on the reimbursement of expenses and the profit sharing that was intended in the original 2005 TOPR “deal”?

Since that first post we discovered that TOPR had been run from 2005 to 2009 by a for-profit corporation masquerading as a non-profit one (i.e, and “NFP”) – which the City (a/k/a, the taxpayers) was subsidizing to the tune of $10-20,000, or more, worth of City services (police, fire and public works), even as Taste Inc. built up a bank account approaching six figures.  The fact that politicians like then-Maine Twp. Supervisor Bob “the Dude” Dudycz and then-mayor Howard Frimark were instrumental in Taste Inc. made the situation even more problematic, as did the inexplicable lack of oversight by both the 14-member, pre-2006 referendum Council, and the 7-member, post-2006 referendum Council.

We called out the Taste Inc. folks and our City officials – the former for ripping off the taxpayers, the latter for letting the former get away with it.  We also called for transparency from Taste Inc., reimbursement of the City by Taste Inc. for TOPR expenses, profit-sharing between the City and Taste Inc., and a competitive RFP/bidding process to ensure that the taxpayers were getting the best bang for their buck, both economically and entertainment-wise.

Needless to say, that didn’t endear us to those Taste Inc. folks and many of those public officials imitating the see/hear/speak-no-evil monkeys.  C’est la vie.

Last year (for TOPR 2012), however, Mayor Dave Schmidt finally overcame all the wailing and gnashing of teeth to get the Council to take its duty to the taxpayers seriously.  They demanded that Taste Inc. do all those things it should have been doing since 2005.  Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate.  So while Taste Inc. reimbursed the City for its expenses, there wasn’t any profit sharing to be had.

But as anybody who was around last weekend can attest, the weather for TOPR 2013 couldn’t have been better.  And the crowds that came out for the expanded (to 4 days) TOPR should end up making this year’s event a contender for most successful TOPR.  Evah!

For Taste Inc. and for the City.  Which is all we ever wanted in the first place.

So in the spirit of “all’s well that ends well,” we think it’s time for all of us who were justifiably critical of how TOPR was being operated to wipe the slate clean, and to give the Taste Inc. folks – Dave Iglow, Dean Patras, John Warnimont, Barb Tyksinski, Mel Thillens, Franklin Ramirez, et al. – a big Watchdog bark-out.  Hopefully, all of us learned something worthwhile from the “refining” process TOPR went through these past few years.

And hopefully TOPR 2013 will prove to have been successful enough to put some needed dollars in the City treasury this year…and in years to come.

To read or post comments, click on title.

We’ve never given a “Chutzpah of the Year Award.”  And we doubt we’ll institute one this year – if only out of concern that too many Park Ridgians might channel their inner Michele Bachmanns and mispronounce it the “choot-spa” award.

But if we were to give one out, the leading contender through the All-Star break would have to be Frank Gruba-McCallister, who chaired the Park Ridge Police Chief’s Advisory Task Force (the “PCATF”) from its creation in 2010 until it was disbanded by Mayor Dave Schmidt and the City Council in May of this year.

The main reason the PCATF was created was to provide a group of citizens to help the Police Department implement changes suggested in the 2008 Audit of the PRPD by attorney Terry Ekl (the “Ekl Report), especially improvement in police-community relations in the wake of several troubling incidents – like the wrongful and deceptive arrest of resident Jayne Reardon, and the police brutality claim by a 15-year old allegedly roughed up by an off-duty police officer after the youth had been arrested and handcuffed.  That latter incident cost the City a $185,000 settlement, plus the attorneys’ fees incurred in defending the case prior to settlement.

But simply helping with community relations must have been too pedestrian a task for the PCATF members who, almost immediately following the PCATF’s creation, turned it into a hammer in search of more nails.

It became the chief instigator and cheerleader for over $1 million of “improvements” to the police station–a collection of “wants” rather than “needs” which became a priority only after the PRPD’s grand plan for building a big new $16-20 million cop shop crashed and burned via an April 2009 referendum.  That cop shop improvement program encouraged further PCATF “mission creep” into many other areas of police activities – which it got away with largely because neither the Mayor nor the City Council was paying close attention while they grappled with more pressing financial problems.

With that mission creep came claims of achievements that, not surprisingly, could not be objectively measured or otherwise supported by hard data – other than the brick-and-mortar of the aforementioned cop shop improvements.   That lack of hard data, however, didn’t stop Mr. G-M and several other PCATF members from acting like the proverbial rooster taking credit for the dawn, taking bows for all sorts of real and imagined “successes” running the gamut from the purported curtailment of underage drinking to “coping with the budgetary stresses experienced by governmental bodies.”

Yes, that’s what Mr. G-M claimed – on the sixth page of what became the PCATF’s final Report to the Mayor and the Council.

That Report and last year’s PCATF meeting minutes suggest that the PCATF already had identified the next big thing for it to jump into.

Mental health.

The Report contains (by our count) 23 references to “mental health” (or its permutations), easily outdistancing the 13 references to “underage drinking” (and its permutations).  It also contains a gratuitous yet opportunistic reference to “Sandy Hook” that displays  a heat-over-light strategy for stampeding chronically skittish and analytically-challenged residents into unquestioning support for giving the PCATF an even broader role in City government going forward.

But that was before Schmidt and the Council decided that three years of the PCATF was enough.

So Mr. G-M showed up at the July 8 City Council meeting to recommend the Council create a “Public Safety Commission” as a replacement for the PCATF – with 20-members, 14 of whom would be specific former PCATF members whose appointments would be exempt from the normal screening by the Mayor’s Advisory Board, comprised of the chairmen of the City Council’s four standing committees.

But where Mr. G-M distinguished himself as the front-runner for a first-ever chutzpah award was his recommendation that the new commission’s chairman be…wait for it…Mr. G-M, himself.  And his appointment also would be without any Mayor’s Advisory Board screening, naturally.

Fortunately, the City Council seemed unimpressed by both the idea of a Public Safety Commission and Mr. G-M’s recommended staffing of it.  That reaction suggests the formation of such a commission is unlikely, which seems to be the right decision.

The Police Department issues targeted by the Ekl Report appear to have been addressed, thanks in large part to the management and leadership of Chief Frank Kaminski.  To the extent the PCATF may have contributed to improved community relations, we’ll toss them a bone for that even though we see and hear far more anecdotes than evidence in that regard.

But although Chief K is rightly concerned about continuing to build public trust in the Police Department and its officers through “constant interactions” between police and citizens, we don’t think either the PCATF or a Public Safety Commission is the best way to accomplish this, given the improvements we’ve observed in the 5 years since the Ekl Report and four years into Chief K’s tenure.  Further improvement in that regard would appear to require more internal, organic development within the department itself.

Chief K warns that “[t]he more you isolate the department from the community, the more problems you are going to have.”  We agree wholeheartedly.  And since Chief K clearly appreciates the problem, we trust his decades of police experience and his Kellogg (Northwestern) MBA in management make him equal to the task of solving it.

As for Mr. G-M and his PCATF alums, assuming they really are serious about dealing with mental health and underage drinking, they should check out the City’s Community Health Commission.  The City’s website indicates that 5 seats will be opening up in September, although we assume the appointment process will require Mayor’s Advisory Board screening.  No exemptions.

And, Mr. G-M, you probably shouldn’t expect to be anointed chairman of the CHC should you apply for and get an appointment.

Unless you really are shooting for that chutzpah award.

To read or post comments, click on title.

As we move all too quickly into the second half of summer, the attention of many residents is shifting to vacations (now that most kids’ summer sports schedules are ending), and even to the resumption of school.

That means a lot less attention will be paid to what goes on with our local governmental bodies.  Which makes it a dangerous time for taxpayers…and their pocketbooks.

Fortunately, one potential costly problem has been eliminated now that the “Acting” adjective has been removed from City Manager Shawn Hamilton’s title.  And one longstanding bad precedent has been abandoned, at least temporarily, in the process.

The “bad precedent”?

The kind of multi-year, fixed-term contract that was foolishly given to former city manager Jim Hock.  Both he and his predecessor, Tim Schuenke, were handsomely rewarded by a collection of irresponsible and profligate mayors (Wietecha, Marous and Frimark) and aldermen (2000 through April 2011) who inexplicably acted as if mediocre-to-terrible performance somehow deserved escalating salaries and benefits.

By the time he retired from the City in 2008 – after helping engineer most of the Uptown TIF giveaways to the developer, but before the full extent of the damage done by those giveaways was well known – Schuenke was pulling down over $179,000 in salary, which our then-mayor and aldermen jacked up a whopping $12,000 (from $167,000) in his last two years on the job, also goosing up his pension.  Hock’s base salary, on the other hand, remained at $165,000 for his four year stint prior to being sacked last year.

So Hamilton’s new salary of $155,000 is almost a bargain when measured against his predecessors, especially since he is not getting the $350,000 interest-free loan, a City vehicle, or the six-figure severance Hock received.

Hamilton’s salary might even have been lower if Ald. Marc Mazzuca had his way.  Mazzuca wanted Hamilton’s compensation to be benchmarked against the federal government’s civil service pay scale, which would have put Hamilton’s salary $20-30,000 lower.

Mazzuca was a little vague on why City employees should be benchmarked in that fashion.  And as Mayor Dave Schmidt noted, that kind of salary would have made Hamilton the lowest-paid city manager among comparable north/northwest suburban communities, and put his salary only slightly above his subordinates despite the significantly greater responsibility and accountability.

That’s just another one of the consequences – it’s called “wage compression” – of continually raising union and non-union wages for reasons unrelated to either individual employee performance or a measurable economic benefit to the City.

But the real benefit to the City of Hamilton’s “deal” – negotiated by Schmidt and recently approved by the “new” Council – is that it’s an employment-at-will arrangement, which is the generally-accepted standard of employment for the vast majority of Illinois employees.  And there are none of those outrageous benefits lavished on Hock, like a $350,000 interest-free mortgage loan and the $110,000+ severance.

Hopefully this will establish a new precedent for future hires of city managers and senior staff.  Heck, maybe it will even catch on with mayors, presidents, councils and boards of surrounding communities, who seem to be as boneheaded and irresponsible with their taxpayers’ money as our former elected officials were with ours.

And the “at-will” nature of Hamilton’s employment is important in view of his uneven performance during his “Acting” year, including bedeviling lapses in judgment and dropped balls that are simply unacceptable for a city manager making this kind of money – some of which we have identified in our posts of 06.06.13 and 06.20.13.

We still are optimistic that Hamilton can raise his game and become a real asset to this community, rather than someone who can merely clear the exceedingly low performance bar set by his predecessors.  Most of that optimism, however, is derived from the more exacting demands that we expect to be placed on him by Schmidt and the new aldermen.

Whether Hamilton has the smarts and the spine to hold his own subordinates to more exacting performance standards remains an open question.  So far, we haven’t seen that or heard it.  We also haven’t seen or heard the kind of hard-nosed, tight-ship management ideas we expected from a guy who was hired in large part because of his private-sector business background.

But at least Schmidt and the Council have brought a welcome dose of reality to City Manager compensation.  Now its up to them – especially Mazzuca and those other aldermen who have over-ridden Schmidt’s vetoes of previous arbitrary, non-merit based raises for both union and non-union City staff – to keep the momentum going.

And it’s up to Hamilton to prove he’s worth what he just got.

To read or post comments, click on title.

On this Independence Day we once again pause for a moment to think about the system of government that was bestowed on us by this country’s Founding Fathers 237 years ago; and the obligations and ongoing responsibilities we owe that system, its Founders, and each other.

In that vein, the following quotes seem particularly appropriate:

“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being.  With freedom comes responsibility.  For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”  Sigmund Freud

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”  Winston Churchill

“Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment.  It is part of the right of free speech.  It embraces freedom of the press.”  Hugo Black

“You have citizens who don’t understand how government works and they’re kind of soured on it.  All they do is criticize.  They have no idea that they can make things happen.”  Sandra Day O’Connor

And last but not least, one that should especially resonate with those of us here in Illinois, notwithstanding a reservation or two about the motives of its speaker, who makes a living as an entertainer:

“Freedom isn’t free.  It shouldn’t be a bragging point that ‘Oh, I don’t get involved in politics,’ as if that makes someone cleaner.  No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic.  Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn’t insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable.”  Bill Maher

Happy 4th… and carpe diem!

To read or post comments, click on title.

…to 505 Butler Place tonight, 7:00 p.m.  That’s when the Park Ridge City Council Committee of the Whole (“COW”) will take up two hot topics.

The “guns” are on the agenda by virtue of the State of Illinois’ new concealed carry law (HB 183), which is expected to be signed by Governor Pat Quinn on July 9, 2013.  Because of reportedly bizarre provisions of HB 183, municipalities like Park Ridge will have only 10 days from Quinn’s signing of that law to enact their own gun ordinances, such as ordinances banning “assault weapons.”

How and why municipal regulation of “assault weapons” was somehow tied to a state handgun concealed carry law – apparently through an amendment to the Firearm Owners Identification Act – is beyond our powers of comprehension. But, then again, we can say the same for a lot of what comes out of Springfield these days…and what doesn’t come out of Springfield, like genuine pension reform.

That’s why we agree with Mayor Dave Schmidt that whichever state legislators came up with the idea of this 10 day window for enacting “assault weapons” regulations or be permanently barred from doing so are “morons” and/or “idiots.”  We’d even toss in “imbeciles” for the trifecta of descriptions of people of low intelligence, except that special-interest pandering may once again be masquerading as low intelligence.

That’s not uncommon down in Springfield.  Or in Washington D.C., for that matter.  But we digress.

History is filled with really bad legislation passed quickly and reflexively rather than deliberately and thoughtfully, especially when the principal motivator of the legislation is fear.  Exhibit A: the “Patriot Act,” the least “patriotic” piece of legislation since at least when Congress voted to intern Japanese Americans in camps during World War II, although we give the nod to the Patriot Act because it affects all Americans rather than just one ethnic group.

Thanks to the proponents of HB 183, a mindless rush to judgment by the Council – whether for or against an “assault weapons” ban – is virtually certain.

Which is why we understand both the pro-gun and the anti-gun forces have been contacting our public officials over the past several days.  And why we wouldn’t be surprised to hear some mindless references to “cold dead hands” and “Sandy Hook” before the night is out.

The “money” part of tonight’s festivities will come in the form of a discussion of the “Uptown TIF Strategic Plan” for dealing with the albatross around the City’s neck known as the Uptown TIF.  Unfortunately, that Plan doesn’t appear to offer a lot of hope for the City’s being able to extricate itself from the economic drain Park Ridge taxpayers were saddled with approximately 10 years ago while their collective vision was distorted by all sorts of rosy promises, predictions and projections from our then-public officials and their hired-gun consultants.

The City is currently $5 million in the hole on the TIF-related debt service payments that the City’s TIF fund was supposed to be making, but hasn’t been able to make because the TIF revenues have been grossly insufficient.  And that doesn’t account for the tens of millions of dollars of long-term General Obligation bonds that still need to be paid off over another 13-15 years.

Fortunately, the current City administration and senior staff realize that managing the Uptown TIF deficit and debt is the single most important strategic issue facing the City.  But that task is as difficult as it is painful, with no good or easy answers.  And it doesn’t lend itself to nifty, emotional appeals like the pro-gun and anti-gun fanatics have become so adept at.

Whether the NRA and Sandy Hook sympathizers show up at tonight’s meeting to make their pitches about “assault weapons” remains to be seen.  But we’re betting there’s a better chance of them making an appearance than of any of our three pro-Uptown TIF former mayors, or any of those pro-Uptown TIF former aldermen, showing up and bragging to the current Mayor and Council about why the Uptown TIF was such a good deal back then, and why they voted for it.

And the “lawyers”?

We’re not sure exactly where they fit into tonight’s Council agenda.  But if the Council starts to make any stupid decisions on either of the two main-event items that put the City between a rock and a hard place, we hope there’s at least one lawyer handy to set the Council straight.

Because we can see the prospects of litigation arising from both of them.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Last week we published a post about the “he said, she said” dispute over a significant term of the recently approved contract between the City and the Int’l Union of Operating Engineers (the “OEs”)-represented Public Works Dept. employees.

The Reader’s Digest version of that post is: the “old” City Council – which didn’t include the two new aldermen – approved and then over-rode Mayor Dave Schmidt’s veto by votes of 6-1 (Ald. Dan Knight dissenting) of a contract with the OEs that contained at least one significant term different from the contract the OEs reportedly ratified; and then the City started docking Public Works employees’ checks for higher health insurance premiums contained in the new City-approved contract but not in the OE-ratified one.

So now the City is forced to litigate over it before the historically “management”-unfriendly Illinois Labor Relations Board (“ILRB”), and may be forced to arbitrate an unfair labor practice for the higher benefit deductions.

After running a OE-friendly story last week, this week the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate is running a second story featuring the City’s attack on the OE’s claims (“Park Ridge strikes back against union’s bait-and-switch claims,” June 17).  And this time, the H-A reporter correctly referred to City Council members as “aldermen” instead of “commissioners,” so consider that a small but positive step toward actually understanding what’s going on over at City Hall.

How could something as simple as both sides approving the same contract language get this screwed up?

Let’s start with these negotiations being conducted in secret “closed sessions” intentionally concealed from the taxpayers who will end up paying the bill for whatever deal is cut. Opening such negotiations to the public – and having them videotaped by WOW, like City Council meetings – would provide a clear audio-visual record of exactly what the parties agreed to.  It also would show the taxpayers whether either side, or both, were being greedy, unreasonable, or just plain silly in the negotiations.

But failing that, we have to wonder why the Council voted on a deal BEFORE the OEs ratified and signed it?  Had each alderman had a contract already signed by the OEs before they voted on the deal, any opportunity for either side’s creating a revisionist history of the deal would have been prevented.

Instead, we’ve got another stupid waste of time and tax dollars by City officials.  And, as best as we can tell, the City has no better than a 50-50 chance that it will actually prevail.

If you haven’t participated in public-sector union negotiations, you probably can’t imagine how bizarre they can be.  But if the newspaper’s reports are to be believed, the OE’s complaint alleges that its negotiators provided the “last offer” that included employees paying 10% toward their health insurance and locking in non-merit based raises of 1%, 1.75% and 1.75% for the next three years.  The OEs verbally communicated these terms to the employees and obtained an affirmative ratification vote.

Subsequently, the City’s labor attorneys sent the OEs’ labor attorney a written contract and asked her to confirm that the terms as stated were “acceptable.”  And according to Acting City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton, the OEs’ labor attorney “advised the City that the draft was acceptable.”

Unfortunately, the City’s counterclaim filed with the ILRB and posted on the City’s website for this past Monday (06.17.13) night’s meeting under “Labor Relations Update” is long on allegations and explanations, but short on documentation – most notably, documentation of exactly HOW the OEs advised the City that the City’s draft was “acceptable” to the OEs.  And considering that the ILRB counterclaim form has a line that specifically requests “Supporting Documents,” we have to wonder why the City didn’t attach any smoking-gun documentation it has.

That suggests to us that there is none.  Or that instead of the kind of smoking-gun documentation Hamilton is touting as proof the OEs are misremembering, misunderstanding, or outright lying about what contract terms were agreed to, the City’s got nothing more than an empty shell casing or two.

Once again, we find ourselves channeling Casey Stengel: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

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Since O’Hare International Airport’s new runway, 9L27R, opened several years ago, many Park Ridge residents south of Touhy Avenue have become zealous converts to the anti-O’Hare expansion cause – in ways they never even thought about before the $1/2 billion runway was completed and planes started buzzing their homes.

That’s because, before then, O’Hare airplane noise tended to disproportionately bother the folks north of Touhy and living under the northeast-to-southwest flight paths of runways 22L and 22R.  Since the east-west 9L27R opened, however, the howl from the newly-affected residents has been fairly constant and sometimes louder than from the airplanes overhead.

Not only did the noise provoke consternation and woe among those south siders, but talk about the emissions from low-flying planes took on tones evoking Love Canal, Chernobyl, or a Dr. Kevorkian cocktail.  And Maine South High School began being referred to as an air crash disaster site waiting to happen.

Consequently, the new runway provoked the creation of a City task force that subsequently evolved into the current O’Hare Airport Commission (“OAC”).  Yet during that same time period, neither the Council nor the voters have expressed support for spending substantial sums of money battling new O’Hare runways, more flights, more noise or more pollution.

We get the sense that most residents believe the deck is stacked against Park Ridge by the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”), the airlines, the State of Illinois, and even our neighboring communities that comprise the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (“ONCC”), an impotent tissue-paper tiger of an organization created by former Chicago Mayor Richie Daley and managed until recently by Daley’s favorite political tool-time girl.

No, not Pamela Anderson, but the recently-retired Arlington Heights mayor, Arlene Mulder, who liked Park Ridge about as much as the aforementioned Ms. Anderson reportedly likes abstinence.

Despite resident pessimism about the City’s ability to effect positive changes regarding O’Hare, the City Council – at its June 3 meeting – heard a lengthy presentation from attorney Richard Porter of the Chicago law firm Hinshaw & Culbertson.  Porter provided the City with strategies for persuading and/or forcing, the FAA to update or re-do the 2005 Environmental Impact Study (“EIS”) that was completed before the new runway was operational.

The hope of proponents of an EIS do-over is that measurable increases in noise and pollution levels might qualify Park Ridge for various forms of relief – such as more soundproofing of public and privates buildings (including homes), reduced traffic for the new runway, modified take-off and landing patterns, etc.

The first steps recommended by Attorney Porter would cost in the $15,000-$30,000 range.  If those are unsuccessful (and it sure sounds like they will be), the ultimate alternative would be litigation costing $150,000 or more.  Not chump change, to be sure.  But if it could significantly alleviate the noise and pollution over 1/3 to 1/2 of Park Ridge, it still might be a sound investment, if not a bargain.

But only if it’s successful.  And that’s a really, really big “if.”

Given the investment of so many special interests in O’Hare expansion and the newest runway, there’s no way either Chicago or the FAA will significantly reduce that runway’s traffic; and both of our U.S. Senators, Durbin (D) and Kirk (R), and our Congressman Schakowsky (D), barely even pay lip service to the problems O’Hare presents to our quality of life.  So any kind of relief will likely be modest, at best – along the lines of some sound insulation and perhaps the implementation of the “Fly Quiet” program which none of the special interests have embraced so far.

Is such modest relief worth $150,000-plus?

For people who can’t open their windows without being bombarded by aircraft noise, the prospect of even modest relief may be enough to inspire zealous advocacy and support, irrespective of cost.  That kind of me, me, me attitude, however, doesn’t mean that the Council shouldn’t seriously consider pursuing those remedies.

Unfortunately, Park Ridge has a long history of pouring money – boxcars of it – down the anti-O’Hare rat-hole, including a $650,000 “investment” in a new Peotone airport that was so speculative, so poorly conceived and executed, and just so plain stupid, that in olden days public officials responsible for such foolishness and waste of the public purse might have been tarred and feathered, if not horsewhipped, by irate taxpayers.  Not surprisingly, the chief perpetrator of that debacle, former mayor Ron Wietecha, ended up resigning his post and fleeing to Barrington almost immediately after the loss of that entire “investment” was confirmed back in 2003.

Given such a history, the Council should scrutinize any plans and proposals related to combatting O’Hare’s adverse effects on our community with all the circumspection and outright skepticism it can muster.  Anybody who tries to sell the City on any strategy or remedy must be probed, interrogated and cross-examined with the kind of vigor, rigor and tenacity reserved for Al Qaeda operatives at Gitmo.

Waterboarding discouraged, but optional.

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When is a contract not a contract?

When the union officials for one of the City’s collective bargaining units – in this case, the Public Works employees – aren’t happy with the deal they may have negotiated.  Or didn’t.

According to an article in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Union: Park Ridge hiked insurance rates without telling us,” 06.10.13), Local 150 of the Int’l Union of Operating Engineers (the “OEs”) claims it reached an agreement with the City’s negotiators regarding an insurance rate increase, but the contract approved by the City Council contained an increase averaging $68/month more than what the OEs actually negotiated.

So the OEs have filed a complaint with the Illinois Labor Relations Board to resolve this dispute.  They reportedly will also be filing another complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor because the City promptly began imposing that new rate, even though the OEs allegedly have not ratified the contract.

At this point we can’t tell whether this is a SNAFU or just another one-off FUBAR, but it sure looks like yet another annoying example of how the City’s labor negotiators are like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, regularly being out-maneuvered and out-negotiated by their union counterparts.  And then compounding the problem with some form or other of boneheaded conduct – like implementing a contract that hasn’t been ratified by the union, assuming the H-A story is accurate.

And, for the record, such an assumption might be suspect, given that the H-A reporter – one Rick Kambic, pinch-hitting for H-A City beat reporter Jennifer Johnson because the latter reportedly might have a conflict of interest via a close relative’s being a City employee – repeatedly refers in his story to the City Council “commissioners” rather than aldermen.  But, hey, that’s close enough for government work, or for reporting about it.

You may recall that this was the contract where Acting City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton was instructed by the Council to negotiate a cost-neutral deal; i.e., the cost of any increase in wages would be off-set by an equal dollar amount of union concessions on benefits.  You may also recall that Hamilton and friends simply ignored the Council’s direction and returned with a deal that, instead of cost-neutral, will cost the City (i.e., the taxpayers) $25,000/year of “new” cash for the next three years.  And Hamilton didn’t even offer an explanation of why they did it.

If this were a college basketball game circa 2000, that kind of in-your-face from the ACM would have had Hamilton fans chiding the Council with chants of: “Who’s your daddy? Hamilton!”

But the “old” Council didn’t seem to mind that kind of facial, meekly approving the contract and then over-riding Mayor Dave Schmidt’s veto as it’s last official act before the “new” Council – or, more accurately, newly-elected Alds. Nick Milissis and Roger Shubert – were sworn in.

Given this backdrop, it probably should come as no surprise that the taxpayers may take another trimming, compliments of Hamilton and his “negotiating team.”  And with this state’s Labor Relations Board and Labor Department stacked with the pro-union appointees of King Michael Madigan and whatever governor – Democrat or Republican – he deems worthy to actually sign such appointments, the chances of the City winning what likely will end up as a “he said, she said” game of liars’ poker are not good.

Fortunately, the amounts we’re talking about here aren’t bank-breaking.  But as we’ve written many times before, each arbitrary, non-performance based raise sets the stage for the next one, and the one after that.  And when it comes to police and fire contracts where impasse requires binding arbitration, the spiraling raises given to other employees provide the perfect excuse for an arbitrator to impose similar arbitrary, non-performance based raises on the City (a/k/a, the taxpayers) for police and firemen.

Of course, the simplest and best way to avoid this kind of chicanery would be to open the negotiations of these contracts to the public.  Not only open the doors and windows on them, but televise and videotape them so the taxpayers who foot the bill for these cock-eyed processes can actually see and hear how they are being represented by their public officials – and also see and hear the unions’ cases for consistently higher pay and better benefits without greater or more productive effort.

That way, when “he said, she said” disputes about what the parties agreed to arise, we could just “go to the videotape” – as legendary New York sportscaster Warner Wolf repeatedly invited – rather than run to the Dept. of Labor or the ILRB.

But public employee unions absolutely hate the idea of exposing all their demands and posturing to public scrutiny.  It’s a whole lot tougher to wrap yourself in the mantle of downtrodden-but-altruistic public servants when the public gets to see and hear your demands for multi-year contracts with 7% annual raises.  And as we saw with the harebrained firefighters’ negotiation “Ground Rules” secretly proposed by Fire Chief Mike Zywanski, our public officials don’t seem to like the idea of the taxpayers looking over their shoulders, either.

So long as our elected officials keep enabling this kind of behavior, however, it will continue – in the darkness and under radio silence.  So long as unions think they can get a do-over.

Starting with planting a story in a local newspaper.

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