Today’s Park Ridge Journal reports that that City Mgr. Jim Hock has released a draft 2009-10 City budget that projects a deficit of almost $2 million, based on anticipated revenues of $50.7 million and expenses of $52.6 million. (“Budget Plan Shows $2 Mil. Deficit,” March 11).

Coming on the heels of two straight years of shortfalls totaling approximately $3 million that have cut into the City’s reserves, this latest news is not encouraging just standing on its own.  But it becomes even more troubling in light of how the current City administration of Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and his merry band of Alderpuppets appears to be out to lunch when it comes to finances and infrastructure.

Consider the flooding problem, which earned a front-page mention in today’s Journal (“Sewer Back-Ups, Flooding: Is There No End?”).  That story reports on flooding this past weekend, much of it up in the Second Ward.  The problem has become so chronic and the City so unresponsive that people are taking such drastic action as building their own water storage vaults or, in one instance, even tearing down and rebuilding their home!

That story also shows the cluelessness of Frimark and his most senior City Council lieutenant, Alderpuppet Rich DiPietro.
According to the Journal story, Frimark reportedly visited several flooded neighborhoods and determined that there were sewer problems.  Brilliant!  DiPietro reminisced about the construction of a relief sewer in his own Manor neighborhood 14 years ago, noting that it worked wonderfully until about a year ago.  Brilliant! 

So, guys, how about telling all these flooded taxpayers why the City cut back its relief sewer installation from an already meager 1,240 linear feet (@ $318,749) in budget year 2007 to a positively paltry 940 linear feet (@ $156,000) in budget year 2008?  That 940 linear feet is basically a whopping 3 city blocks!

In typical alderpuppet fashion, DiPietro – who has been little more than the sounds of silence on flooding in his ward and everywhere else until now – suddenly wants to authorize the spending of $80,000 for…wait for it… “an engineering study.”  And that’s for just the Manor Lane area, up in his Second Ward.  But $80,000, however, is more than half of the relief sewer construction budget for 2008, and it won’t keep one basement any drier when it’s done.  Brilliant! 

But the last word on this problem, at least for now, goes to Frimark the Politician, who hoists the empty assurance and the empty promise that: “We have solutions in mind and we will dedicate as much money as we possibly can to fixing these problems.”  In typical Frimark fashion, the solutions and the source of the money are his little secret.

So what we’ve got, it seems, is a community under water; a budget under water; and a mayor who’s all wet.

Like the typical incumbent politician running for re-election, current Park Ridge Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark brags up a storm about how well the City is humming along under his stewardship.  Until recently, his bragging included keeping the City’s property tax increase at around three percent per year by “streamlining” City government.

But that kind of self-promotion is becoming a harder sell as the actual facts about City finances continue to emerge from City Hall.  And those facts, unlike Frimark’s propaganda, suggest that what he calls “streamlining” is really cutting into important City services – while at the same time digging us an increasingly bigger financial hole.

For example, the budget for fiscal year 2007-08 had a $1.7 million hole in it: budget “reality” was $1.7 million worse than budget “fantasy.”  And a similar reality v. fantasy is emerging for the current year’s (2008-09) budget as well. 

According to a Herald-Advocate story (“Higher fees or reduced services may hit Park Ridge,” March 6), building permit revenues were projected at $2 Million (fantasy) but are looking to be a lot closer to $800,000 (reality).  That’s a $1.2 Million – yes, $1.2 MILLION! – fantasy/reality differential.  And while that may be the single worst such differential, the H-A story notes that there is a combined $1 million-plus of additional revenue shortfalls in other taxing categories, like property transfers and telecommunications.

Not surprisingly, Frimark the Politician has already started off-loading responsibility (a/k/a “blame”) for those troubles on his former right-hand man, departed city manager Tim Schuenke.  But, as the H-A reports, the post-Schuenke proposed budget for 2009-10 is already projecting a $1 Million-plus deficit, which likely will lead to higher fees and/or reduced services. 

Worse yet, all these budget holes are occurring even though City expenses have generally decreased, partly because (as you already might have guessed from rattling over our pothole-scarred streets or kayaking in your basements) the Frimark Administration reduced – or should we say “streamlined” – the amount of street resurfacing and relief sewer installations. 

For those of you who enjoy the parallel universe of government fund accounting, we have to point out – again – that the “positive” balance in the City’s General Fund looks to be made up of a lot of I.O.U.s from some of the City’s other funds, like the Uptown TIF fund and the pension fund.  Given the precarious nature of City finances, does anybody want to guess where the money to pay off those IOU’s will be coming from?

Meanwhile, our mayor continues on his hell-bent crusade to borrow and spend boxcar numbers on a new police station, the exact number of millions depending on the day of the week and the composition of the audience he’s talking to.  And when he’s not doing that, he seems to be on the lookout for opportunities to throw our scarce, hard-earned tax dollars at his friends and campaign contributors.

Could that be his version of a Park Ridge “stimulus” package?

We’ve pointed out on several occasions how Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark was asleep at the wheel while the new $500 million-plus runway was being built at O’Hare. 

Whether it was the roar of the planes overhead or the howls of residents living in the Belle Plaine corridor that woke him, since wiping the sleep from his eyes and realizing that there’s an election April 7, Frimark has been scrambling to make it look like he was on top of things all along.  So far, however, all he has succeeded in showing is just how inept and powerless he is on yet another issue of major importance to our community.

As reported in yesterday’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Officials testify on airports,” March 5), Frimark, 3rd Ward Alderpuppet Don “Air Marshall” Bach, and two leaders of ORD-REST testified last week before the Illinois General Assembly’s Environmental Health Committee in support of another too little, too late effort – this one from Frimark political ally and our state Representative, Rosemary “Cracklin’ Rosie” Mulligan, to require a study of the impact of air and noise pollution on the health of people living near airports.

Hey, Rosie!  Where were you with this brilliant idea when it might have mattered…like two, three, four or eight years ago, before the tons of concrete were poured and the new control tower built? 

The H-A doesn’t report whether Frimark treated the Committee to a replay of his other too little, too late effort – his anti-casino mumble & bumble before the Illinois Gaming Board.  And apparently no citizen with a handy-cam “jumped out” at him during that Committee appearance and then posted the results on YouTube. 

We also don’t know whether “Air Marshall” Bach tried to dazzle the Committee members with tales of how he talked to tens/hundreds/thousands of his constituents, all of whom told him they want the new runway shut down immediately – except for super-fuel Funny Car drag racing every third Sunday from Memorial Day through Labor Day.  

But whatever that Park Ridge contingent did wasn’t enough to even get Rosie’s bill out of committee.  So what do you think the chances of passage will be if it ever does make it to the Mike Madigan-dominated House floor? 

If somebody will take “snowball’s chance in hell,” we’ll take the under.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: When it comes to the new runway, the fat lady has finished her solo and is back in her dressing room washing down a platter of fettuccini Alfredo with a quart of Diet Coke.  And the best chance we have for meaningful relief from noise and pollution is if they hurry up and build that southern-most runway, or if the federal government requires the airlines to retro-fit their planes with quieter, cleaner engines.  But neither of those is going to happen anytime soon.

Had “Let’s Make A Deal” and “Cracklin’ Rosie” been awake and engaged on this issue two, three or four years ago, we might be two, three or four years closer to a solution.  But they weren’t, and we’re not.

Just chalk it up to yet another example of your government inaction.

Yesterday’s Herald-Advocate online published an article on the Park Ridge mayoral candidates’ views of City finances (“Mayoral hopefuls outline plans to plug budget gap,” March 3) which provides a relatively superficial treatment of the views of Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and Ald. Dave Schmidt (1st Ward) on City finances.  But it’s better than nothing, so we suggest you give it a read.

The article reports that both candidates agree that budget cutting needs to focus on staffing levels, and that we need more property tax generators.  That sure doesn’t deserve a Nobel Prize in economics, although the current City administration and past administrations never seemed to be able to get much traction on either of these points – as seen from the fact that both candidates agree on staffing cuts, and from the fact that despite the new businesses added to the Uptown development, the Uptown TIF Fund is still millions in the red and continuing to suck money out of the General Fund.

We have to admit that we were entertained by Frimark’s reference to eliminating “extra frills” – and can’t wait for him to explain the difference between “extra frills” and standard frills.

For us, however, the single most decisive difference between Frimark and Schmidt on City finances is their respective views on issuing more bonds – as much as $16.5 million more, which will end up costing Park Ridge taxpayers as much as $28 million – to pay for a new police station.

In typical politician style, Frimark seems to think he can snooker the voters by describing the funding of a new police station in terms of simply “continuing” the bond payments the City has been making on the Public Works building, instead of telling the truth: that new bonds will be issued; and that their terms will be more than twice as long as the Public Works bonds (20+ years v. 10 years), thereby generating a lot more interest and raising their overall cost to the taxpayers.  That’s the kind of deception that has put government at every level, and many private businesses, behind the financial 8-Ball or completely down for the count.  

Such dissembling also calls into question – again – Frimark’s honesty and forthrightness.

But sophisticated economic thinking – or sophisticated thinking of any kind, for that matter – has never been the strong suit of ol’ Let’s Make A Deal, who told the H-A that he thinks the mayor should be involved hands-on in getting new businesses to come to Park Ridge.  That’s no surprise coming from Frimark, a shameless ribbon cutter and self-promoter who reportedly also never misses the opportunity to let new businesses know exactly what business he’s in.

Schmidt, on the other hand, correctly notes that if new bonds aren’t issued for a big new cop shop, the City will see an approximately $1.6 million annual savings beginning next year.  That’s almost the entire amount of the budget shortfall predicted for the current fiscal year, which makes it a pretty smart budgetary move because it really does pretty much plug the budget gap. 

If somebody at City Hall feels compelled to “grease” some consultants, developers, architects and/or contractors for some public works projects, however, at least let’s spend the money on infrastructure needs that are more important to more Park Ridge residents on a day-to-day basis than a big expensive new cop shop. 

Let’s start with some more relief sewers and street resurfacing.  According to the City’s own “Capital Project Summary’ [pdf], both of those items took budget hits in 2008.  Relief sewer installations dropped from a paltry 1,240 linear feet in 2007 to only 940 linear feet in 2008, despite a $90 per linear foot drop in price that brought the total 2008 cost ($156,000) to less than one-half the budgeted amount ($348,000), while street resurfacing slipped from 7.3 miles in 2007 to 5.8 miles in 2008, although the cost there increased by approximately $40,000 per mile.

But they normally don’t put big shiny plaques with officials’ names on relief sewers or resurfaced streets.  Which might explain why the new cop shop is so high on the list of the self-promoting Frimark and his Alderpuppets.   

On April 7th Park Ridge will have its first municipal election that doesn’t involve aldermanic races, courtesy of Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark’s cut-the-council referendum that reduced our City Council to one-half its historical 14-member strength and failed to provide staggered terms for the seven aldermen.

That means we have only one contested City race, although it’s for the big chair at City Hall.  But we also have two City advisory referendum issues related to the Park Ridge Police station: a straightforward one put on the ballot by Park Ridge citizens when the City Council refused, and a vague and ambiguous eleventh-hour throw-away one by Ald. Frank Wsol, who in the past few months seems to be trying to come up with ways to salvage whatever might be left of his tattered reputation as a “fiscal conservative.”

Who deserves to be elected mayor in April depends in large part on how each of the candidates proposes to address the many issues that are crucial to the survival, the character and the prosperity of our community – issues that the citizens of Park Ridge have substantial control over if they pay attention and hold their elected officials accountable for addressing them in the most productive and cost-effective ways.  Those are the issues on which the focus of the mayoral campaign needs to be.

There are two other issues, however, that we appear to have little or no control over, making them nothing more than distractions to the candidates and the voters: The new O’Hare runway and the Des Plaines casino.

For those of you living in the Belle Plaine corridor, the new runway has been an extremely rude awakening.  We are not trying to minimize or ignore its harsh effects on the residents in that area. 

But it’s a $500 million-plus reality that is not going away, no matter how many letters we send to Jan Schakowsky, Dick Durbin, Pres. Obama, or the International Olympic Committee.  And for the time being, reducing flights on the new runway presents pretty much a zero-sum game for Park Ridge, because many of the flights diverted from 9L/27R will be shifted to the other two runways whose flight paths extend over our community: 22L and 22R. 

Neither Mayor Frimark nor his challenger, Ald. Dave Schmidt, tried to do anything about the new runway prior to its opening in November, and there’s no reason to think that whichever one of them gets elected in April will be able to do anything to make that problem go away – not with the FAA, the airlines, the City of Chicago, and the Chicagoland business community arrayed against us.  If you don’t believe us, check to see how well what’s left of the Suburban O’Hare Commission has fared despite spending millions of dollars on unsuccessful litigation.

The same goes for the casino.  This, too, was ignored by everybody in City government – from the mayor on down – until the announcement that it was awarded to Des Plaines and will be built at River Road and Devon.  But while the casino does not have all the federal weight behind it that the new runway does, even the most optimistic among us need only look and listen to Frimark’s pathetic presentation to the Illinois Gaming Board a few weeks ago to know that there is nothing we can do, short of begging for Des Plaines to toss us a few table scraps, to change or improve that situation.  

So let’s not waste the remaining five weeks of this campaign season grilling our two mayoral candidates about the runway or the casino.  And, more importantly, let’s not let those two candidates use the runway and the casino to dodge the more meaningful and substantive Park Ridge issues on which they – and we – really can have some influence.  

If you’re old enough to remember the 1980s, you might recall that during every re-election campaign of former Illinois governor James “Big Jim” Thompson, he painted a rosy picture of our State’s finances – only to reveal the doom and gloom of deficits, service cuts and tax increases seemingly within days after each of his victories.

Like “Big Jim,” Park Ridge Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark has revved up his re-election campaign with claims of fiscal responsibility, modest property tax increases, and assurances that we can afford not only such infrastructure costs of reducing flooding and filling potholes, but also a big new police station – or at least a good-sized expansion, depending on which side of Frimark’s mouth you’re standing when he’s talking about it.

But this past Monday night’s City Council Committee of the Whole (“COW”) meeting was the first in what looks to be a series of reality checks about City finances.  And from what was said Monday night, they may very well be in a lot worse shape than we’ve been led to believe, as we noted in last Friday’s post, “Why Is Hock Playing Hide-And-Seek On City Finances?”.

With a $1.7 million budget deficit already in the books from last fiscal year, City Mgr. John Hock revealed that City expenses will exceed revenues once again by approximately $1.7 million, even with expenses coming in about $1 million under budget!  That’s because last year’s budget appears to have been filled with a bunch of inflated revenue figures by former City Mgr. Tim Schuenke, right before he snuck out of town with a sweet early-retirement package compliments of Park Ridge taxpayers.

Given her title of “City Finance Director,” we have to suspect that Diane Lambesis assisted Schuenke in his budgetary sleight-of-hand – which might explain why she spent most of the Finance & Budget Committee portion of Monday night’s meeting arguing against reinstatement of the City’s “debt cap” ordinance, a proposal made by Ald. Frank Wsol (7th Ward) and supported by Ald. Dave Schmidt (1st Ward).

The City’s debt cap that was lifted by the Council in 2004 limited the City’s debt to 2.5% of the equalized assessed value (“EAV”) of all taxable Park Ridge property.  As reported in today’s Park Ridge Journal (“City Revenue Down,” Feb. 25), the City’s general obligation debt is currently $43.9 million, or 2.3% of its current $1.8 billion (and dropping?) EAV. 

Because the City is a home rule body, it is pretty much unrestricted as to how much debt it can take on without having to go to referendum, unlike non-home rule bodies such as School District 64, which had to go to referendum in 2007 for its multi-million dollar tax increase; and the Park Ridge Park District, which has twice been rejected by the voters when it has gone to referendum seeking the multi-millions it needs to replace Oakton Pool. 

We think anything that imposes fiscal responsibility on governmental bodies which tend to treat hard-earned taxpayer dollars like Monopoly money is a good thing.  And we applaud Wsol for proposing the debt cap reinstatement, and Schmidt for endorsing it.

Which brings us to Frimark’s No. 1 lapdog, Alderpuppet Jim “Chicken Little” Allegretti, who tends to bark – actually, it’s more a “yip” – in Frimark’s stead when the mayor thinks it’s politically advantageous for him to remain silent, as he did on this issue Monday night.

Allegretti, who conveniently tossed $500 into Frimark’s campaign coffers within months of Frimark’s appointing him to fill his vacant Council seat back in 2005 ($300 before, $200 after), has already displayed his fealty to Frimark by duking Frimark’s re-election campaign $1,000 – a full ten months’ worth of Allegretti’s annual aldermanic salary. And some folks swear that Frimark’s lips move whenever Allegretti speaks, although we would want videotape evidence before saying that’s absolutely the truth.

Allegretti repeated his standard mantra that “the residents elected us” to make all decisions for them, including taking on as much long-term debt as Frimark and the Alderpuppets want for whatever pet projects strike their fancies.  Allegretti mentioned the Higgins Corridor and Uptown’s Target Area 4 as large capital projects at which the City may want to throw bundles of taxpayer cash, which will have to be generated through long-term bonds.

In objecting to the debt cap as something that would be “tying our hands” – the same words Lambesis kept using – Allegretti patted himself and his fellow alderpuppets on the back with the assurance: “I trust us to be conservative.”

Guess what, Jimbo?  We don’t.

Last week, both local newspapers published a letter of Fifth Ward Alderpuppet Robert Ryan.  The Journal printed an unabridged version, the Herald-Advocate a shorter one.

Proclaiming that he would “not sink to the depths of name-calling or misrepresentation,” Ryan – in the lengthier Journal version [pdf] – promptly condemned fellow alderman and mayoral candidate Dave Schmidt (1st Ward) as “the biggest obstacle to moving our community forward.”

Well, so much for Ryan not engaging in name-calling. 

We could rebut or question – with documentation – many of Ryan’s assertions, but we’ll leave that to Schmidt and others in the course of the mayoral campaign.  We do feel obligated, however, to address two of Ryan’s points which sure seem like misrepresentations to us. 

The first is Ryan’s contention that Frimark “is worthy of our trust.”  We could write paragraphs explaining why that statement distorts the meaning of both “worthy” and “trust,” but we already have:  “You Can’t Tell The Players Without A Scorecard – Part 1”, “Dumb And Dumber”, “Shameless”, “Why Are We Bidding Against Ourselves?” and “Friends For Frimark”, to name just a few.

But where Ryan goes beyond the pale is with his contention that Schmidt did something “illegal” by “disclosing closed session minutes to the public on personnel issues.” 

First of all, accusing an elected official of “illegal” conduct is not just simple political disagreement.  It’s a charge that should be taken with utmost seriousness by the accuser, the accused, and the people of the community they serve.  So a vague and conclusory accusation like Ryan’s is problematic for a number of reasons, starting with its lack of detail.

It’s time to put up or shut up, Mr. Ryan. 

What specific “personnel” information did Schmidt disclose, Mr. Ryan?  And how, specifically, was that disclosure “illegal”?  And if it was “illegal,” Mr. Ryan, why didn’t you and your fellow Alderpuppets file a complaint about it with the proper authorities?

As we have previously written ( in “Witch Hunt” and “Frimark’s Secret Land Deals No Bargain For Taxpayers,” for example), the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) – which governs under what circumstances a public body can conduct its otherwise “public” meeting in closed session – does not require that any Council discussion or debate be held in closed session, nor does it require that whatever discussion or debate goes on in closed session be treated as confidential or secret.  So Ryan’s saying that Schmidt’s disclosure of some unidentified information related to a closed session meeting was “illegal” – without explanation – isn’t just irresponsible and vile, it’s just plain wrong.

But having followed Mr. Ryan’s career in public office – both on the District 64 Board and on the City Council – “just plain wrong” is often about as good as he gets.  

On Wednesday we lauded the Chicago Tribune’s editorial, “State of Corruption,” for getting in our collective faces for our continued tolerance of corruption and political sleaze from our public officials (“The Tribune Nails It,” February 18).  And we noted, yet again, that one of the ways those of us in Park Ridge contribute to that culture of corruption is by silently accepting the Culture of Secrecy practiced by our local governments.

The Culture of Secrecy, however, is not just those technically-legal-but-not-required (and most definitely not “secret”) closed session meetings that our public officials love to run into for any legally permissible reason.  Nor is it only simply our public officials’ having those “private” meetings with property owners, developers and business people, some of whom just happen to be campaign contributors (Hello, Mayor Frimark.  And say “hello” to Bill Napleton and Bruce Adreani for us, too).

It is also things that appear almost benign at first glance, but which provide many more opportunities for mischief when examined more closely.  A good example is what the City posts on its website, ostensibly in the name of “transparent” government.

Yesterday the City website posted a memo [pdf] to the Mayor and City Council from City Mgr. Jim Hock on “Third Quarter Budget Report.” In its very first paragraph, it states that the report is “attached,” but we couldn’t find hide nor hair of it on the website.  The same goes for those purportedly “attached” Uptown TIF fund preview pages it references.

Now, that missing information could be viewed benignly as a mere slip-up, an oversight, an “I could have had a V-8” moment. But it appears less benign and inadvertent once you read Hock’s memo and think about what he’s saying about the TIF funds and City finances generally.

Hock’s memo states that as of April 30, 2008, the TIF fund had “a negative fund balance of $2,697,000,” which doesn’t sound too good to us.  And that’s not the worst of it, because Hock goes on to report that – because the City is “committed by contract to budget and complete the other half of the Summit Road improvement project, which will begin in May” (who did that, when, and why?) – the TIF fund “will be owing the General Fund as much as 6.5 million dollars” by the end of the next fiscal year!

Yeow!  Welcome to the robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul fantasy world of government fund accounting.  And because we’ve spent far more than a few hours pouring over the financial reports and budgets of the City, District 64 and the Park District over the years, we know that trying to figure them out is a lot like trying to decipher a Chinese menu…printed in Mandarin.

But speaking of fantasy worlds, how about this additional tidbit from Mr. Hock: “The premise that investment in our Uptown area will pay the City back plus stimulate investment resulting in tax revenues has come true.” [Emphasis added].

Can you tell us what color the sky is in your world, Mr. Hock?

Returning to the harsh reality elements of Hock’s memo, however, we discover that it’s not only the TIF fund that sounds like it’s on life-support by the General Fund.  As of January 31, 2009, the other City funds that “had negative cash balances” are: the Uptown Tax Increment Financing Fund (Is that another “TIF” fund?), the IMRF (public employee retirement), Municipal Waste (no comment), Emergency 911 (self-explanatory) and Special Service Areas (where an area of town gets specially assessed for some special benefit).  That doesn’t sound too good, either.

Hock goes on to explain, in typically oblique bureaucrat-speak, that the General Operating Fund (is that the same as the “General Fund” and, if so, why can’t you keep the name straight?) balance of $14 million “is not the same as cash.”  Translation: That $14 million is made up in large part of “debt” owed to the General Operating Fund by those other deadbeat City funds!

So, Mr. Hock, why didn’t you just come out and say that?  And why didn’t you also include in your report just how much of that $14 million is IOUs from those other City funds?  Are you trying to be too cute by half, or are you just following orders?

We wonder…no, we suspect…no, we’re pretty darn sure…that those attachments conveniently missing from Hock’s memo provide at least some answers to our questions.  So why, Mr. Hock, aren’t they posted on the City’s website with your memo?

And while we’re asking questions about City finances, here’s one for Mayor “Let’s Make A Deal” himself: When you brag about how you have kept the annual City property tax increase at around 3.3%, why aren’t you also telling the taxpayers and voters how the City, on your watch, has developed all these smoke-and-mirror funding problems…and posted a $1.7 million budget deficit last year…and is going to post a similar budget deficit this year?

Mayor Frimark?  Howard?  Anybody?  Bueller?

This past Sunday (Feb. 15), the Chicago Tribune published one of its finest editorials in recent memory, “State of Corruption,” in which it correctly blamed us – the people of the State of Illinois – for much of our state’s culture of corruption and political sleaze.

The Tribune noted that all of us ordinary citizens “haven’t asked enough integrity from our public officials, from our laws…from the people paid to enforce them…[and] from ourselves.”  Instead, “[w]e’ve surrendered too much of government in Illinois – too much of our responsibility – to crooks and opportunists.”

We here at PublicWatchdog applaud the Tribune for having the courage to speak that directly, that candidly, and that critically to its own readers for tolerating corruption, instead of indicting only those who actually practice corruption and reap its benefits.  

The kind of corruption that permeates government can take many forms. It can spring from an officials’ power to give out jobs, to issue contracts, to approve zoning changes, to promote or overcompensate certain employees and inflate pensions, or simply to do a “favor.”  As the Tribune puts it, we can’t change this culture until we recognize and appreciate that “we’ve all been cheated as much by favors as by fraud.”

Political campaign contributions are an obvious concern: “The bureaucrat who clouts a contract to his boss’ contributor repays a donation with our tax dollars.” And we’ve seen how even modest contributions can return huge dividends, with a few thousand dollars to a politician yielding millions of dollars in contracts.

And because we here at PublicWatchdog have opposed the “Culture of Secrecy” as an ongoing source of questionable practices by our local governments – especially the City of Park Ridge – we were gratified to hear that no less a corruption-buster than former federal prosecutor (of George Ryan, Robert Sorich, and other politicians and bureaucrats) Patrick Collins appears to share our view of government secrecy.

According to the Tribune, Collins has a simple test for government corruption: “If someone wants to conceal a government act, odds are it’s illicit.”  

We concur, which is why we have so frequently criticized the City’s regular retreats into closed sessions, often to discuss the acquisition of land that Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark has been chasing for a new police station even though there’s no guaranty it will be built and no firm decision on how big it will be – because there’s no consensus on what the taxpayers can afford or are willing to pay.

While the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) permits such closed sessions, it does not require or even encourage them.  And, even more significantly, it doesn’t require that anything discussed in those closed sessions be kept secret – which is why Frimark and his Alderpuppets could muster only a weak and petty “condemnation” of Ald. Dave Schmidt (1st Ward) when Schmidt blew the whistle on Frimark’s under-the-radar pursuit of 720 Garden, and his outrageous demand for a new City appraisal for that property because the first one the City obtained set the purchase price too low!

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the phrase “[s]unlight is the best disinfectant” in advocating for openness and transparency in government and public policy.  That suggests that whatever public action goes on in the darkness – or even in the shade – should immediately become suspect for that reason alone.  And that goes for closed session meetings, secret deal-making, no-bid contracts, and anything else that involves the “classic” Chicago-style wink or nod.

The Tribune editorial also suggested that perhaps the highest price of corruption is the cynicism and apathy it breeds: “If everybody thinks the fix is in, then nobody believes. Nobody cares.”  Of course, that’s exactly what corrupt officials count on.  Convince the voters and taxpayers that changing the corrupt status quo is impossible, and they’ll throw up their hands and walk away.

The Tribune concludes its editorial on a hopeful note by observing that the ongoing success of the federal government in prosecuting public corruption, as well as the outrage over the conduct of George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich, may have created a once-in-a-lifetime chance for real reform.  We sure hope so.

And for those among us who want to become part of the solution instead of remaining part of the problem, the following words of Teddy Roosevelt about the importance of honesty in our public officials should become our creed:

“Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity.”

At tonight’s City Council meeting (City Hall, 7:30 p.m.) the Council will consider a request by Ald. Robert Ryan (5th Ward) to re-zone three properties in Uptown – at the northwest corner of Meacham Avenue and Northwest Hwy., across from the former Napleton Cadillac dealership – from their current B-1 Retail/Office status to R-3/R-4 two-family/multi-family residential. 

Ryan is ostensibly basing his request on the City’s 2002 “Uptown Plan,” which designated that area for “transitional residential” if it gets redeveloped from its existing retail/commercial status; and upon last summer’s heated objection from neighbors to a preliminary plan by CenTrust Bank to build a bank on that site, which CenTrust promptly withdrew.  

As we’ve said many times before, we like NIMBYs and think they play an essential role in drawing attention to matters that might otherwise fly under the community’s collective radar.  But while the NIMBYs’ interests should be given full and fair consideration, decisions ultimately need to be made on the basis of what is best for the community as a whole – so when the community’s overall interest significantly outweighs the NIMBYs’ parochial interests, the community’s interest should prevail.

At this point we don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about whether the best use of that site is as the currently-zoned retail/commercial, or as residential.  But we wonder why Ryan is making this move now, after having sat on his hands since last summer even though that site has been in its current fallow condition (an empty parking lot) since Napleton closed its Cadillac dealership across the street and moved it over to Greenwood and Busse, before ultimately shutting down for good last Spring?

After all, Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and his Alderpuppets keep talking retail, retail and more retail for the Uptown area.  Here’s a site on the western edge of the Target Area II redevelopment, catty-corner from Trader Joe’s and across from the well-trafficked Hinkley Park.  While the neighbors objected to a bank there, that doesn’t necessarily mean that every possible retail/commercial use for that site should preemptively be taken off the table by re-zoning it now – before any developer even has stepped forward with a concrete residential plan.

But foreclosing retail/commercial development from that site is what is likely to happen if Ryan’s request is granted, because any retail/commercial developer is not going to like his chances for getting approval of a project that effectively will require a do-over of Ryan’s re-zoning.

That’s why Ryan’s proposal – especially coming less than two months before the hotly-contested mayoral race – has an unmistakably political odor to it.  For that reason alone we think the site should be left with its current zoning designation, thereby remaining hospitable to retail and commercial developers, at least until after the April 7 election.

If any identifiable residential developers wish to come forward with a proposal for that site, however, they can do so; and the City can consider the re-zoning at that point, based on the qualifications of an identified developer and the objective merit of the residential project being proposed, instead of on the mere abstraction of “transitional residential” presented by the Uptown Plan.

But that assumes there already isn’t a “connected” developer lying in the weeds waiting for this re-zoning to become a done deal before stepping forward with some residential plan, or a motivated and/or “connected” property owner (Napleton?) trying to get its money out of that site any way it can. 

Update (2/17/09)
We understand that last night the City Council, on motion by Ryan and seconded by Ald. Schmidt, voted to send the matter to the Planning & Zoning Commission for its consideration and recommendation.  Ald. DiPietro took pains to assure the audience that the Council was not recommending the zoning change, although Ald. Bach indicated that the Council would likely follow whatever recommendation P&Z comes up with.

On being asked by Schmidt whether the city has been approached by anyone with a development plan for the site, Acting Director of Community Preservation & Development Carrie Davis stated not since CenTrust Bank.  Interestingly, an attorney for Napleton told the Council that his client is opposed to the zoning change because it will curtail the profit potential for sale of the property.