An agenda item at tonight’s City Council meeting (7:30 p.m., City Hall) is a request from Park Ridge 2004 LLC, the developer of Executive Office Plaza (“EOP”), to defer the City’s consideration of the Stage 2 development plan for 18 more months, until March 2011.

Back in November 2007, a 4-3 majority of the City Council voted to sweeten the pot for the developer – a joint venture that included Norwood Builders and Chody Real Estate – by giving it 8 more residential units than the City’s zoning code allows, notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of neighboring residents and others in the community who saw no reason for such a variance and/or who suspected it to be the product of insider wheeling and dealing.

As can be seen from the Staff memo dated September 21, 2009 [pdf], the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission (“P&Z”) recommended, back on November 24, 2008, that the Council approve the developer’s Stage 2 plan, but with four conditions. Under the City’s zoning code the Council was supposed to review that recommendation within 30 days, which would have been in December 2008. 

But because “the applicant was not prepared to move forward,” the Council apparently took no action, although we find it puzzling that we can’t seem to find anything in any Council minutes that would explain the legal and/or factual basis for the Council’s inaction – which effectively has given the developer an almost 9-month de facto extension because either someone at City Hall was asleep at the wheel or somebody intentionally (but inexplicably) left it off the Council’s agenda.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

In any event, according to a letter from the developer’s attorney [pdf], the “current economic climate does not permit the Developer to secure financing for the Project nor is it advisable to compel the Developer to commence construction of the Project at this time.”  The letter goes on to say that “[i]t benefits neither [sic] the Developer, the City, nor local residents for construction of the Project to occur on the Property at this time.”

Says who?

First of all, we’re more than a little confused by the attorney’s citation to provisions of the City’s zoning code (e.g., Section 5.5(D)(2)(b)(i) and Section 5.5(C)) which – based on the version that’s available on the City’s website – don’t seem to support or even reference the arguments the attorney is making.  Surprisingly, there’s no mention of that in the Staff Memo.

But, more importantly, it seems to us that if this project is going to go forward, there is no benefit to the City or its residents to delay it; and the developer’s attorney didn’t identify any such benefit in his letter.  That also wasn’t questioned in the Staff Memo.

Oddly enough, Community Preservation & Development Director Carrie Davis, the author of the Staff Memo, doesn’t provide the Council with an actual substantive recommendation on the 18-month extension request under the “Recommendation” heading.  Instead, she simply, and without explanation, ignores it – stating only that, if the Council goes with the extension, then the developer should be required to immediately replace all boarded-up windows with glass and remove all the litter.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

This week’s editions of the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate and the Park Ridge Journal carried accounts of how the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission (“P&Z”) is addressing the development proposal for the three residential properties located at 1963 through 1975 W. Touhy – immediately east of the Town of Maine Cemetery (“Commission suggests changes for Touhy condo developer,” Herald-Advocate Sept. 10; “Park Ridge Condo Plan Requires Variances,” Journal Sept. 9).

In case you missed it, Hoffman Homes, Inc. wants a change those parcels from their current R-2 status to R-4, and then construct 32 (per the H-A) or 20 (per the Journal) condominium units where only 12 would normally be allowed.  For the record, the City’s own report for the August 25th P&Z meeting [pdf] references the 32 unit figure, so we’ll go with that – and we wonder where the Journal came up with only 20. 

Which means that Hoffman is looking for 20 units more than the R-4 designation permits for that site!  Absurd?  Not from what we’ve seen from P&Z or our City Council over the years. 

In fact, with the way land is re-zoned and variances handed out over at City Hall, a development that observes the zoning code and doesn’t ask for variances – like the Neri Companies’ Gateway Estates at 315 S. Northwest Hwy. – is the rare exception rather than the rule.

Remember the proposed Heinz development at Greenwood and Northwest Hwy.?  Or Norwood Builders’ Executive Office Plaza development on Northwest Hwy. and Washington?  Each one of those got a significant number of additional units, although it looks like the recession has put both of those developments on the back burner for the time being. But that’s why we aren’t surprised when Hoffman shows up asking for all those extra units.

Oh, we hear Community Development Director Carrie Davis saying that “density is probably the biggest issue.”  No, Ms. Davis, an overage of almost 200% in residential units, or “density,” is DEFINITELY the biggest issue, or at least it should be. 

Because Hoffman Homes has not yet submitted a formal application for a planned development, P&Z considered what is known under our zoning code as a “concept plan review.” 

The City’s Community Preservation and Development Department recommendation was that P&Z should “[p]rovide comments” on the concept plan and ask Hoffman to “provide some indication…as to what public benefits listed in Section 5.5 [of the zoning code] are to be provided in exchange for the exceptions….”

We wonder why they didn’t simply tell Hoffman: “Come back after you have read our zoning code and have a project that conforms to it”? 

Last week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate reports that the Park Ridge Public Library Board recently voted to give the Lakota Group a $5,860 contract to redesign the area south of the Library entrance, in the wake of the destruction of a tree during a June storm. (“Board selects firm to redesign reading area,” September 3)

The redesign is supposed to include the “removal of the bluestone gravel surface” and the addition of more trees “to create more shade in that area for people to sit” – according to Library Director Janet Van De Carr. 

We realize that in the scheme of the Library’s annual budget – which, incidentally, we could not find on the Library’s website – $5,860 might be considered chump change.  But we noticed that the Library Board is spending this money to redesign an area that was designed just two short years ago by…wait for it…the Lakota Group.  

We assume, or at least we would hope, that the original Lakota Group design for the “City Commons” was worth the money spent on it, which we recall as exceeding $1 million, all in.  So unless that Lakota design has somehow become obsolete in the intervening two years, why is the Library Board voting to redesign that entire area?  

C’mon, folks!  If destruction of the tree on that site is what’s driving this effort, then instead of spending almost $6,000 to redesign that area why not put that money toward replacing the fallen tree? 

We subscribe to the theory that when somebody says “It’s not the money, it’s the principle,” it’s usually the money.  But in this case, with the City’s finances in shambles and the recession impacting virtually every revenue source the City has, it should be about both money and principle. 

And if Lakota Group can’t come up with a design that remains viable for more than two years, why is the Library Board giving them yet another design (or “redesign”) contract?   

This week the Herald-Advocate reports that the City of Park Ridge is experiencing an increase in sewer collapses. (“Sewers collapsing more frequently,” Sept. 1)  

Some of the descriptions of this problem are disturbing, like the 21-inch clay-tile sewer in front of 496 N. Northwest Hwy. that “basically disintegrated on one side,” according to Water & Sewer Dept. foreman Ron Brubaker.  He also warned that these older sewers would continue to crumble, and pointed to “the lack of funding in the past several years” as the culprit in the reduction in the number of sewers being replaced or reinforced.

Public Works Director Wayne Zingsheim echoed Brubaker’s concern, noting that a half-million dollars for sewer reinforcement – lining the old clay tile sewers with a stronger material – was cut from this year’s budget by the City Council.  He also advocated for funding to put television cameras throughout the sewer system so that conditions could be regularly monitored.

What these comments suggest is that our elected officials, and City Staff, have neglected these infrastructure problems not just for the past several years but for most of the past decade, if not longer.  Of course, sewer maintenance, repair and replacement isn’t very glamorous, and it certainly isn’t as much “fun” as throwing millions of dollars at the developers of a snazzy residential complex in Uptown, or the landscaping around the Library. 

It also doesn’t give elected officials their political jollies the way pandering to a couple hundred residents looking for $2,500 windfalls in the name of “flood control” does for Aldermen Frank Wsol and Don Bach.  Both of them also wanted to borrow $16 million or more to build a big new cop shop, too, but at least the voters were given the opportunity to tell them to pound sand (at least for the time being), thanks to the citizen-initiated referendum organized by resident Joe Egan – which was so good it couldn’t even be bollixed up by the ridiculous, last-minute referendum question submitted by…wait for it…Ald. Wsol.

And let’s not forget that it was Wsol who led the boneheaded effort to prevent Richie Daley’s water rate increase to be passed through to water users, adding at least $400,000 to this year’s budget deficit.  Bach led the cheers for Wsol on that one, too.

But Bach and Wsol aren’t alone in their financial foolishness.  You haven’t heard Alds. Jim Allegretti, Tom Carey, Rich DiPietro or Robert Ryan worrying publicly about the sewers when they are discussing how to continue and even increase their deficit spending, like by voting to give even more feel-good money to private community groups who just can’t seem to gain the public support needed to fund themselves without going on the taxpayers’ dole.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, it should become painfully obvious soon: The City is in a world of economic hurt, and the officials who are supposed to be solving these problems are whistling past the graveyard – when they’re not throwing gasoline on the fire!

Until the Council and Staff figure out that every $2,500 spent on a back-check valve is $2,500 less for repair or replacement of a crumbling sewer, the quality of our community’s infrastructure is going to continue to disintegrate like those clay tiles running 10 feet under our streets.   

After almost five years of stonewalling and secrecy, the private corporation that enjoys a no-bid monopoly on running Taste of Park Ridge finally provided a peek behind the curtain when it recently disclosed a few facts about its operation of that signature civic event. 

As a result, we now know that Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”) claims to have taken in $266,000 over the three days of operating Taste, the event, last month; that its expenses were “$90,000+” (even though we’re not exactly sure what that means, because no actual expense numbers have been furnished); and that it has given $5,200 to “various [unidentified] community groups” this year. 

We also now know for the first time – courtesy of the City, apparently in response to an inquiry from Mayor Schmidt – that Taste, the event, costs the City (i.e., us taxpayers) almost $23,000 in services by our police, fire and public works departments because Taste Inc. doesn’t reimburse the City for those expenses.

Unfortunately, it is still impossible to determine how much “profit” (i.e., revenues over expenses) Taste Inc. generates because its operators are still keeping secret the amount of those costs – disclosing only the rough percentages of how those costs are “allocated.”  

As we’ve said many times before, we think the Taste is a fine event – even if we question why the Taste Inc. folks and a few “friendly” aldermen insist on claiming that Taste, the event, is a “source of pride for our community.”  But that’s only because we think Park Ridge has many more, and better, sources of pride than the mere staging of a three day street festival that seems little different from similar festivals staged by virtually every other neighboring community. 

Just because the people of Park Ridge have finally been given a tiny glimpse of the big bucks involved in Taste, the event, however, doesn’t mean that Taste Inc. is operating with an adequate degree of transparency – especially given its continuing no-bid monopoly on the event and its receipt of that $23,000 in free City services. 

It seems to us that any event that generates $266,000 in revenues over just three days using almost entirely a “volunteer” labor force should be producing enough “profit” to pay the City in full for any and all services the event requires.  So why isn’t such payment being required by the City?  Or, better yet, why aren’t those self-proclaimed altruists who run Taste Inc. offering such reimbursement without having to be asked, especially in view of the City’s annual budget deficits?

We also question why Taste Inc. is so close-mouthed about who its vendors are and how much it pays them.  We’re not buying Taste Inc.’s palaver about its “respecting the confidentiality of the private businesses and organizations that contract with [it]” because disclosing that information “would be disrespectful to all parties involved and actually be detrimental to the success of the event.”

What a bunch of horse hockey.

Most/all of the people with whom Taste Inc. contracts seem delighted to plaster their names and their association with Taste, the event, everywhere they can.  What could possibly be so secret about what Taste’s vendors provide (and at what price) that it would be “disrespectful” to disclose?

Frankly, that sounds like something we have come to expect from Richie Daley whenever he’s asked about sweetheart deals to sell City of Chicago land at bargain prices to his buddies, or when giving out arguably-inflated wrought-iron fence contracts.  While that might be S.O.P. in Daley-ville, that should not be acceptable here in Park Ridge; and we think that kind of “policy” is a lot more “disrespectful” to the taxpayers than full disclosure would be to the vendors who presumably are making a buck or two from Taste, the event.

And it’s also “disrespectful” to the taxpayers for Taste Inc. to dodge transparency by pointing out that “[t]he law allows public access” to Taste Inc.’s federal and state tax filings, as it did in its recent public relations statement [pdf].  The respectful thing for Taste Inc. to do would be to post those tax filing documents on its nifty web site – for every year it has operated its no-bid monopoly.  That way, any interested residents could check it out at their convenience, without having to contact Taste Inc. and make arrangements to get or view those forms.

Of course, when you’re trying to conceal information while appearing to be forthcoming, any obstacle you can throw up – even minor inconveniences, like requiring a specific request for the information – is an ally in obstructionism, something most governmental bodies discovered about the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) years ago.  

But don’t expect the folks who run Taste Inc. to admit to that.  They’re too busy patting themselves on the back, and counting the money.

We can’t believe we’re saying this, but here goes: We agree with Ald. Don Bach (3rd Ward) that City Mgr. Jim Hock has not done enough to cut City expenses. 

There…we did it.  Whew! 

We suspect that Bach, like the proverbial stopped clock, is right on something no more than twice a day.  But this just happens to be one of those instances, because it is simply unacceptable for the City Mgr. to propose a budget with a $1.8 million deficit [pdf] of expenses over revenues, especially on the heels of several additional years of budget deficits that have shrunk the City’s reserves to an uncomfortably low level.

That’s where our agreement with Bach stops, however.  Because not only did he and his City Council allies adopt Hock’s deficit budget, but they have irresponsibly added to that deficit by approving increased spending since that budget’s adoption.  And now Bach and his spendthrift wing-man, Ald. Frank “The Politician” Wsol (7th Ward), want to add another $400,000+ in spending on their totally wrongheaded flood control rebate program.

So when Bach proclaims – as he did at Monday night’s City Council meeting – that “I would like to see us with no red ink on the books in two years, and I think that’s possible, but only with quick, decisive action regarding staffing levels,” we have to wonder what he’s smoking…and whether the FDA has approved it for over-the-counter sale without a prescription. 

Despite his big, blustery talk about staffing cuts, Bach doesn’t appear even to have attempted any of the heavy lifting that goes into figuring out exactly who should be cut to reduce the size of the current budget hole City government has dug for us.  Nor have we heard him publicly endorse the first cuts that have been made to City staff: the recent termination of four employees of the Public Works Department.  

Public Works Director Wayne Zingsheim is reporting that those cuts will result in the elimination of the City’s curbside brush pick-up.  It will also eliminate one of the city’s two street sweepers, thereby cutting in half the number of rounds the sweeper makes across the city each year.  And Zingsheim warns that these cuts also will adversely affect snow removal this winter. 

Hey, Ald. Bach…are you happy with those cuts, both in staff and in services?  And can you tell us what the next staffing cuts should be? 

Not surprisingly, Frankie the Politician also threw his two faces…um, we mean, his two cents… into this debate, claiming that while he doesn’t “like the idea of adopting” these cuts, he does “like the idea of us pushing staff and the city manager to justify every full-time employee we have or present us with real reductions that make sense.”   

That’s a real hoot, coming from a guy that wants to blow $400,000+ on flood control rebates, led the vote against passing through to water users the $400,000+ in water rate increases from the City of Chicago, and would have saddled us with the debt service on $16,000,000+ of bonds for a new cop shop if he could have had his way.  But what else can we realistically expect from a “politician” like Frankie? 

Bach (and Wsol) can talk the budget-cut talk, but so far they haven’t measured up when it comes to walking the budget-cut walk.  And neither has the rest of the City Council. 

Whether because of Mayor Dave Schmidt’s quest for transparency in all aspects of City government, or because of questions raised by this blog, Taste of Park Ridge, NFP (“Taste Inc.”) has finally, after five years of operating Taste of Park Ridge (“Taste, the event”), issued a written statement [pdf] about its history and its operations.  

While solidly self-serving (and perhaps a bit revisionist?), it does reveal some surprising information about what Taste Inc. is and how it operates, starting with its claim that its 2009 gross receipts were $266,652!

That’s right: $266,652…for a three day event.  Suh-weet!

Taste Inc.’s statement also reports that this “civic celebration…costs $90,000+.”  If we take that to mean that Taste Inc.’s expenses are $90,000+, then Taste Inc. is making a cool $176,000 in annual “profit.” 

That’s not too shabby for three days of actual business, although Taste Inc. insists that its “management committee volunteers approximately 8,000-10,000 hours over the course of every year,” worth “over $50,000.”  Fair enough…drop the “profit” down to $126,000.  That’s not too shabby, either. 

Taste Inc. contends that “[t]he $5,000 costs to the city are the services it provides as its sponsorship.” Apparently Taste Inc. didn’t get the City memo that Taste the event is costing the City almost $23,000 a year in City services, not merely $5,000.  That’s one heck of a “sponsorship” – especially for a public body (the City) that is running multi-million dollar budget deficits.

And if Taste Inc. is generating an annual “profit” of $176,000, what’s it doing with all that money – considering that it claims to have contributed only $5,200 “to various community groups in 2009”? 

But the most intriguing item Taste Inc. reports is its status as a 501(c)(6) enterprise. That designation is reserved not for “charitable” organizations, but for associations of persons having common business interests with a purpose of promoting those common business interests. 

While we’re not even close to “transparency” with Taste Inc., this initial disclosure – after five years of secrecy – makes it a bit more understandable why Taste Inc. has been so protective and close-mouthed about its no-bid monopoly on Taste the event.

We have finally discovered at least one financial fact about Taste of Park Ridge, NFP (“Taste, Inc.”), the private corporation formed in 2005 to receive a no-bid deal to run “Taste of Park Ridge” (the event) from the administration of newly-elected Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark, and which – according to reports [pdf] available on the Illinois Sec’y of State’s website – inexplicably dissolved itself on February 20, 2009, before inexplicably re-incorporating on March 4, 2009. 

That one financial fact?  That, just this year alone, the City spent almost $23,000 of our tax dollars on City services for Taste, Inc.’s 3-day event.  Or so says the City’s “Special Events 2009” report [pdf], which is one of the agenda items for tonight’s Park Ridge City Council Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting (City Hall, 7:00 p.m.).

With the City now routinely running multi-million dollar budget deficits and the City’s reserves dwindling, the cost of everything it does, and the value provided for that cost, has become more important than ever before.  So a review of the 10 community events listed by the City shows that Taste (the event) consumes more City resources than any other event – even more than the City-run July 3rd fireworks show.

What does the City get in return for our $22,838 investment?  We have no idea – and, apparently, neither does the City: as best we can tell, this is the first time it has even tried to figure out what Taste (the event) costs…which is at least a reasonable, albeit belated, first step.

For the 5 years Taste, Inc. has run Taste (the event), the people running Taste, Inc. – currently, president Dave Iglow, vice-president/secretary Albert Galus, treasurer Jim Bruno, and directors Dean Patras, Sandy Svizzero, Barb Tyksinski and John Warnimont – have operated under a strict “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as to how much Taste, Inc. takes in, how much it spends, who it spends it with, and how much it gives away through its “Community Cares” fund.

At the August 17 City Council meeting, Iglow and Galus showed up in their signature orange Taste, Inc. shirts to read a self-congratulatory statement about just how wonderful they and their event are – which you can see and hear at http://www.motionbox.com/videos/7a98ddb51819e4c3f5, starting at approximately the 43.00 minute mark of the video.  

Not surprisingly, they spoke nary a word about Taste, Inc.’ s revenues, expenses or finances, other than (a) to make pointed references to the “dedicated, non-compensated” Taste, Inc. organizers and the numerous volunteers who provide Taste, Inc. with a dependable pool of free labor, and (b) to laud the un-quantified contributions Taste, Inc. claims to have made to other community organizations.

If you go to the Taste, Inc. website, www.tasteofparkridge.com, you’ll find more of the same vague, self-congratulatory bluster about Taste, Inc.’s “Community Cares” fund, which purportedly supports other community groups and projects “[w]hen we can, based on available funds.”  Of course, nothing on the website discloses when Taste, Inc. had any “available funds” and how much of them it gave away to whom.

Frankly, we’re getting fed up with Taste, Inc.’s public displays of self-indulgent back-slapping while it keeps all its financial information completely hidden from public scrutiny.  When a private corporation, “non-profit” or “for-profit,” holds a monopoly on the City’s biggest civic event and sucks up $20,000+ a year in tax dollars to run it on a no-bid, no accountability basis, we’re going to be pretty darn suspicious of exactly who is getting what, and why – especially when you can’t even find Taste, Inc.’s IRS Form 990s on Guidestar.org., unlike such smaller local organizations as the Kalo Foundation.