Nominating petition challenges are a good thing.

They serve as a basic, first-level screening to identify those candidates who are at least competent, committed and conscientious enough to gather sufficient petition signatures so that no reasonable challenge can be posed.

And to identify those who are not.

So when someone like Patrick DeStefano files only the bare minimum 67 petition signatures to get on the 6th Ward aldermanic ballot, and then gets bounced because 17 of them are disqualified by the Cook County Clerk’s office, voters can legitimately wonder whether his candidacy was anything more than a lark, or the product of some late-night gripe session ending with a “Screw this, I’m running for alderman!”

The same can be said for incumbent Maine Twp. High School Dist. 207 Board member Jin Lee, who reportedly filed only 55 signatures – a mere 5 more than the required minimum – and then had to gather several affidavits to prove to the election board that enough live registered voters actually signed his petitions. Instead of owning his ineptitude, however, Lee whined – according to a recent article in the Park Ridge Journal (“Maine High School Candidates Names Will Be Placed On April 4 Ballot,” Jan. 15) – that he “wish[ed] there was more of a way for first-timers to know how to handle objections.”

Here’s a thought: Try getting 25 or 50 signatures more than the bare minimum, so you don’t have to “handle objections.”

That should also be the lesson for Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 candidate Monica Wojnicki, who reportedly has been knocked off that ballot by filing 52 signatures, only 2 above the required minimum, of which 32 were successfully challenged. And a lesson for Park Ridge Park District Board candidates Jennifer Barcal and Carol Becker, whose ballot challenges are still being sorted out.

But getting on the ballot is the bare minimum level of competence, commitment and conscientiousnous. At least one more level of screening is necessary to determining whether a candidate might be worthy of the office.

Motive.

For example, you can immediately write off any candidate who claims to be running to “give something back to the community.” That’s the default answer for all those empty-suit candidates trying to avoid admitting that they “got nothin’ ” in the way of ideas or agendas. And it’s those kinds of empty suits who end up becoming puppets or stooges for some special interest – assuming they aren’t already some special interest’s puppets or stooges trying to fly below the radar with their “give back” mantra.

If you want to know one reason why the D-64 School Board consistently ends up with so many puppets and/or stooges for the Park Ridge Education Association (the “PREA,” a/k/a the teachers union) and the PREA-beholden administrators, check out the sixth page of the recruiting handout for prospective D-64 Board candidates who attended Supt. Laurie Heinz’s dog-and-pony show last October 12, and you’ll see “give back” as one of the four reasons for Board service.

And if you can stomach wading through the rest of that propaganda piece (on which we detect the fingerprints of D-64 propaganda minister Bernadette Tramm as well as Heinz’s), we dare you to find the words “taxes” or “taxpayers.” That’s because Heinz and her current D-64 Board puppets/stooges don’t want nobody the taxpayers sent – or anybody that’s going to hold all those very well-paid PREA members and those overpaid administrators like Heinz and Tramm accountable for the boatloads of tax dollars being spent on what seems to be, by all objective measures, relatively modest educational quality.

Barely one notch above the empty-suited give-backers are the “teasers.” They’re the candidates who try to win over those clueless and/or stupid voters by teasing and tantalizing them with vague or veiled suggestions about what they might do about some situation or other…if only they were to be elected.

For example, this past Tuesday night mayoral challenger Lucas Fuksa posted news about the closing of the Jos. A. Banks store in Uptown and then (a) suggested there are “real reasons” for that retailer’s closing, which he teasingly chose not to identify; and (b) claimed Park Ridge needs to be made “business friendly” (How?), zoned “appropriately” (How?) and with improvement to “our parking situation” (Like what?).

But since that might not be quite enough teasing for some voters, Fuksa added – in a comment to a comment to his post – that we need “infrastructure improvements [Paid for how?], less restrictions [On what and why?], zoning changes [What kind?], branding [For the City’s cattle?], and long term future planning” [Gee, now that’s original!]. For a candidate who is already viewed as mostly a pawn of certain developers, that’s a whole lot of foam but very little beer.

Our favorite, however, is his teaser claim that he “spoke to Jos. A. banks [sic] so I know what some of those issues are” – presumably related to its closing – but he apparently is keeping those secrets to himself for now.

Doesn’t that just make you tingle with suspense?

It sounds to us like Fuksa is channeling 2013 mayoral challenger Larry Ryles’ business development strategy which – as we wrote about in our 03.19.13 post – consisted in large part of hugs and handshakes. But at least Ryles actually named some of the businesses he wanted to bring to Park Ridge: Urban Outfitters, Forever 21, Ann Tayor, Clarks and GameStop.

As best as we can tell, Fuksa was MIA four years ago during that last mayoral race, so we can understand how he may have missed such a failed campaign strategy and now considers it his original.

Besides, it’s so teasing and tantalizing.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Dan Knight never really wanted to be an alderman.

He was content doing the things many 50-something suburban dads do when not working, such as coaching their kids’ sports teams and doing charity work – both through his church, St. Paul of the Cross, and through other organizations.

Little did Dan know what path he was starting down that day back in 2008 when he agreed to support some of his neighbors in challenging the misguided installation of a homeless shelter in the basement of St. Mary’s Episcopal, just a block from Dan’s home.

The instigators of locating such a shelter – operated by a private, Palatine-based not-for-profit corporation called PADS to Hope, Inc. (“PADS, Inc.”) – in Park Ridge were some prominent residents and a group of local clergy calling themselves the “Park Ridge Ministerial Association” (“PRMA”). And, not surprisingly, they were backed by opportunistic local politicians such as then-mayor Howard Frimark.

Like many of his neighbors, Dan didn’t buy into the idea of strangers – most of them acknowledged or suspected alcoholics, drug abusers and/or emotionally disturbed – being trucked into their quiet residential neighborhood one night a week from October to April just so PADS, Inc. could add another shelter to its roster, the better to leverage even more public and private grant funding. So Dan not only joined his neighbors, he became one of their leaders. He attended City Council meetings and other public hearings, asking tough questions and voicing his neighbors’ concerns, even to the point of calling out his own pastor for using religion to play politics.

But Dan also objected to the idea of treating such disadvantaged people like cattle, herding them night by night from a church basement in Park Ridge to a school gym in Evanston, to a church hall in Morton Grove, etc. So he tried to enlist PADS shelter supporters in an effort to provide longer-term housing, either by renting vacant local residences or by booking blocks of rooms in a nearby motel so that the homeless could actually have a “home”: the same place to go to, night after night, for the six months per year the PADS shelter program functioned.

Not surprisingly, that longer-term concept didn’t fly with either the PADS operators or their PRMA allies. But by the time PADS, Inc. and the PRMA walked away from Park Ridge rather than comply with the City’s requirement that PADS, Inc. obtain a special use permit in compliance with the City’s Zoning Code, Dan was hooked.

He became a trusted advisor to then-ald. Dave Schmidt (1st Ward), especially on financial issues. And when Schmidt decided to take on an incumbent Frimark in the 2009 mayoral election, Dan became not only a key part of Schmidt’s policy team but also his campaign treasurer.

Dan’s advice was instrumental in the creation of Schmidt’s noteworthy campaign platform of “H.I.T.A.” – Honesty, Integrity, Transparency and Accountability – that helped Ald. Schmidt become Mayor Dave in an upset victory over Frimark; and it was a hallmark of Schmidt’s administration until his sudden and untimely death last year.

For the initial two years of Mayor Dave’s first term virtually every financial policy initiative he proposed, and virtually every financial position he took, was informed and/or vetted by Dan. So valuable were Dan’s contributions that Mayor Dave encouraged him to run for 5th Ward alderman in April 2011. And so strong was Dan’s support in that ward that nobody ran against him.

Ald. Dan continued to be Schmidt’s sounding board on City issues great and small.

Just weeks into his aldermanic tenure Dan began working closely with the City’s relatively new Finance Director, Allison Stutts, to unravel the City’s arcane and sometimes misleading finances which were in shambles – in no small measure because of that white elephant known as the Uptown TIF that nobody previously had attempted to really understand.

Dan spent countless hours not only with Stutts but also with her successor, Kent Oliven, and his successor, Joe Gilmore, analyzing how best to address all those TIF deficits that kept sucking up money faster than City taxpayers could supply it – and that caused a downgrade in the City’s bond rating.

Once Dan and the finance directors went as far as they could go on their own, Dan advocated for bringing in TIF consultant Kane McKenna to provide the City with the first informed and honest assessment of what the TIF had done to City finances, and it was an eye-opener: as of year-end 2012, the City was still on the hook for over $39 million in TIF-related debt service; and the best-case scenario was that the TIF would end up costing the City over $7 million rather than producing the $20 million in profits the TIF perpetrators had predicted back in 2003-05.

But finally understanding the situation ultimately led to some TIF-related bond refunding that already has saved the City several million dollars of debt service, with the possibility of more to come. And that refunding, along with the policy of “prudent austerity” combined with “reasonable…tax and fee increases” (according to Moody’s Investors Service) instituted by Schmidt, not only helped put the brakes on the decline in the City’s bond rating but, also, caused Moody’s to remove the “negative outlook” for the City’s Aa2 general obligation bond rating.

Yet all this is only a fraction of what Ald. Knight did for this community in his slightly more than five years in office – most of which the general public will never know or appreciate. Which is the way he wanted it.

Dan never shied away from telling it like it is, often displaying the candor of his South Side Irish origin by calling “B.S.” on any public official or special interest lacking the proper respect for the City and its taxpayers. That’s why you could find no more honest and genuine a public official – in any branch of Park Ridge local government – and why he earned the respect and trust of his Council colleagues and of his constituents, who re-elected him without opposition in 2015.

“The pipes” called Danny Knight last week at age 58, leaving a legacy of service and accomplishments not unlike those of his friend and ally, Mayor Dave. Although they were public officials, they most definitely were not “politicians” because they would rather be right, and do right, than be popular.

Both of them left us far too early and with much still to be done. But they also left behind colleagues committed to H.I.T.A. and to putting the taxpayers first.

James Madison said: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” 

So we take some small comfort in believing that where Danny now is, no further duties will be required of him. 

Slán, Dan…do anois.

Not all that many years ago the most consistent comment about Park Ridge, especially its Uptown business district, was criticism of the lack of commercial and retail tenants to occupy the vacant storefronts.

Not anymore. Today’s laments now run toward the kinds of businessses: too many salons, sushi restaurants and banks. And those laments are not totally unjustified.

According to an article in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“New hair salon proposed for Uptown Park Ridge,” Nov. 25), 16 addresses in the Uptown area are listed as the sites of hair salons or barber shops. We don’t know if that includes the ubiquitous nail salons, but you get the picture.

We also count 4 sushi restaurants in Uptown, not including the grab-and-go sushi available at Whole Foods and Jewel on Uptown’s periphery.

And by our count Park Ridge is home to 13 banks, with the prospect of yet another one going in next to the new Walgreen’s at South Park’s Talcott Terrace shopping center – a prospect that has already met with criticism by residents who have a variety of preferential businesses but no interest in putting their own money where their mouths are.

Then there also are some business owners who don’t like the idea of competition. Or at least not when that competition moves in next door, or even down the block. Those businesses would like our City government to step in and protect them from competition by every way imaginable, including by denying the new competitors business licenses.

But as the interim director of community preservation and development noted: “Competition should not be a consideration” in business licensing decisions.

One of the tenets of capitalism, credited to Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, is “creative destruction” – where new ideas, products and services are constantly rising from the ashes of the old. A classic example is the buggy whip, the manufacturers of which went out of business as horse-and-buggy transportation was replaced by automobiles. More recently, we have seen video stores – which employed approximately 175,000 people a decade ago – extinguished by Redbox, Netflix and streaming video.

The folks who don’t want another bank in South Park, or another salon in the 100 block of Vine Avenue, or another sushi restaurant in Uptown, have every right to object. But those objections should not trump the initiative of entrepreneurs willing to risk their time, money and effort in a new business – whether it be a bank, salon or sushi parlor; and whether it be next door or down the street from a competitor.

From the sound of their comments, some Park Ridge residents (and non-resident Park Ridge business owners?) would prefer that the City engage in a little Soviet-style central planning. You know, the kind where the government puts its public thumb on the scale either by refusing to license competitors or by giving economic “incentives” (i.e., bribes) to certain preferred businesses.

A decade or so ago, a clown-car city council with an uber-clown mayor at the wheel did just that: It wasted tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars giving a few preferred Uptown building owners money for “façade improvements” that produced no measurable ROI (Return On Investment) for the City. And then those same alderdopes fattened the wallets of the Uptown redeveloper by irresponsibly borrowing (i.e., issuing non-referendum General Obligation bonds) tens of millions of dollars which they then irresponsibly “invested” in the Uptown project (also without a referendum) that guaranteed them no additional control of the project and no ROI.

The debt from that non-performing “investment” crushed the City’s finances from 2008 through 2014, and remains a multi-million dollar drain on the revenues the City collects from its taxpayers.

Fortunately, the clowns were swept out of office by Mayor Schmidt and his supporters who believed in letting the free market do its thing. So when the developer working with Whole Foods (Lance Chody, also owner of Garrett’s Popcorn) demanded that the City provide almost $3 million of sales tax revenue-sharing as an “incentive” (a/k/a, a bribe) to do the deal, Mayor Dave and that council wisely called his bluff with spot-on reasoning: If WF needs a multi-million dollar bribe to locate in Park Ridge, they should look elsewhere.

Two weeks later the developer and/or WF folded, leaving Park Ridge and its taxpayers $3 million richer. And since then, WF has been joined by Mariano’s, FFC Fitness, Holt’s, Harp & Fiddle, Shakou and other small businesses willing to take the risk of marketplace competition.

It should come as no surprise that the entrepreneur looking to open the hair salon on Vine is Frank Ernesto, who currently has two businesses on Main Street – Gumba Joe’s and F. J. Ernesto’s – and was a long-time fixture in South Park as the proprietor of Sonny’s restaurant. Here’s a guy who, having made a long term commitment to our business community, suddenly is being vilified for taking the risk of starting yet another business…in an area where his competition is already established.

We need more of that spirit, not less.

As for those who still keep drinking that “Why can’t we get national retailers?” Kool-Aid, a little history lesson is in order.

When that clown-car council was in hot pursuit of Uptown Redevelopment we were told that, if we built that new retail space, the likes of upscale Crate & Barrel, Ann Taylor, The Gap and Barnes & Noble would come. But even before that space was finished, all we had were down-sized Chico’s, Joseph A. Banks and Trader Joe’s. And big-time retailer interest was so low that 15,000 square feet of planned retail space was redesigned into more condos.

Four years ago a mayoral candidate talked about attracting the likes of Urban Outfitters, Ann Taylor, Forever 21 and GameStop. None of them came knocking, either.

Now a reported potential mayoral candidate, apparently slugging down the same Kool-Aid, is talking about Pottery Barn.

The bottom line is that these “national retailers” know what markets they want, where they want to be, and why. They decide on Park Ridge, not the other way around. And until they decide they want to be here because here’s where they can make good money, there’s virtually nothing the City can do about it.

Unless you consider offering multi-million dollar bribes a “marketing strategy.”

To read or post comments, click on title.

We do our best to avoid government and politics outside the friendly confines of Park Ridge, if for no reason other than partisan state politics makes us even more nauseous than thinking and writing about Park Ridge-Niles School District 64.

But today is election day and we feel obligated to say something about our local races.

Michael Madigan first took his seat in the Illinois House of Representatives in 1971. Richard Nixon was president. The governor was a one-term Republican named Richard B. Ogilvie, who sponsored this state’s first income tax. And Illinois was among the top 15 most prosperous states in the Union.

Over the next 45 years, while Ogilvie and his RINO successors – “Big Jim” Thompson (1977-1991), “Slim Jim” Edgar (1991-1999) and George “No. 16627-424” Ryan (1999-2003) – eagerly jumped into bed with Madigan to form and perpetuate the “Illinois Combine” that has raped Illinois’ economy and stolen its soul, Madigan remained the single constant.

Elected Speaker in 1983, Madigan has held that position ever since, except for two years (1995-1997) when the Democrats lost their House majority. Meanwhile, he has grown enormously wealthy through a law practice that specializes in getting huge property tax breaks for big business, shifting the tax burden from them onto the rest of us.

During his 31 years as Speaker and the single most powerful official in Illinois, our state has plummeted from its Top 15 ranking to battling California for 49th place.

Yet the sheeple of Illinois have kept Madigan in the Speaker’s chair by consistently electing his Democrat stooges like state representative Marty Moylan to preserve Madigan’s House majority. And they also have enabled Madigan to extend his control to the Illinois Senate through his sock puppet, Senate president John Cullerton, by electing and appointing Democrat stooges like state senator Laura Murphy.

Regular readers of this blog know that one of our favorite quotes, attributed to Albert Einstein, is the definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

If Illinois is ever to climb out of its sinkhole 45 years in the making, someday its voters need to stop empowering the one man arguably most responsible for digging that hole.

Today’s that day.

Just say “No!” to Madigan by just saying “No!” to his Democrats.

To read and/or post comments, click on title.

There is a famous East Coast sportscaster, Warner Wolf, who would punctuate his television reporting of game results with his catchphrase “Let’s go to the videotape” so that viewers could see the play he was describing.

If you want to see the difference between people who belong on the School Board of Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 and the folks we’ve actually put there, take a scant 24 minutes of your time to “go to the videotape” of last Monday night’s D-64 Board meeting – starting at the 1:03:20 mark.

At the risk of gilding a perfectly good lily we will tell you that, in less than 15 of those 24 minutes, resident Jayne Reardon and resident Joan Sandrik articulated more sound public policy and more critical thinking, respectively, than has emerged from the folks sitting at the big table so far this year. And maybe stretching into last year as well.

There also was a third speaker, Ms. Reardon’s husband Mike (a Library trustee), who had to play truth squad for Board president Tony “Who’s The Boss?” Borrelli’s first-ever “Citizens’ Corner” sideshow because Borrelli apparently couldn’t even quote Reardon accurately from the previous meeting.

Ms. Reardon – the executive director of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Commission on Professionalism – led off by making Board member Tom Sotos her beyotch when the latter foolishly tried to spar with her over the Board’s lack of transparency and its cowardly abuse of FOIA in continuing to hide the terms of the tentative contract with the PREA from the taxpayers until after the Board locks those same taxpayers into what is likely to be a 4-year, $200 million-plus deal that “Who’s The Boss?”, Sotos and their fellow lemmings will rubber-stamp any day now.

We’ve already placed a $1 bet on that new contract requiring that the next contract negotiation 4 years hence require closed-sessions, just like the current one negotiated in 2012 by Board negotiators John Heyde and Pat Fioretto saddled the current Board this time around.

Simple Sotos actually asked Ms. Reardon whether, if the contract would be published in advance of a Board vote on it, might he actually have to listen to all the taxpayers who have comments about it; and if he chooses to listen to those taxpayers, whether he would be expected to let those opinions dictate his vote on the contract?

Seriously, he actually asked her that.

Borrelli jumped in and tried to stanch Sotos’ bleeding-from-the-ears after Sotos asked Ms. Reardon: “What does [publishing the contract] have to do with transparency?”

Seriously, he actually asked that, too.

Translation: “What does being transparent have to do with transparency?”

It’s apparently all Greek to Sotos – literally and figuratively – as can be seen from a string of posts on the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate Facebook page which include a colloquy between Sotos and the editor of this blog that features a legal analysis (highlighted in yellow) of why there would appear to be no legal consequences from the Board’s or any individual Board member’s publication of the tentative PREA contract.

Batting second was Sandrik, who has become a semi-regular at those meetings, thereby displaying both an unusually high threshold of pain and the public-spiritedness to speak truth to abuse of power.

[SPOILER ALERT: Watch how Board member Vicki Lee – who has yet to prove she’s anything but a rubber-stamp for more spending with less transparency and accountability – puts her clasped hands to her forehead and appears to slip into a trance about eight seconds after Sandrik gets to the podium; and then returns to what passes for consciousness just as Sandrik concludes her remarks. It’s precious.]

Monday night Sandrik noted that while no D-64 schools were among Chicago Magazine’s recent Top 20, the more important fact was that 15 of those Top 20 schools reportedly have lower educational costs than D-64.

Sandrik also took proper umbrage at “Boss?” Borrelli’s and Simple Sotos’ suggestions that Park Ridge taxpayers like herself might not be smart enough to understand the contract language because we didn’t see and hear what went on during the negotiations – you know, those negotiations which Heyde and Fioretto, four years ago, chose to hide from us by the terms of that 2012 contract; and which the terms of the new contract are likely to hide from us in 2020, by which time “Who’s The Boss?” and most/all of the current lemmings (and perhaps Supt. Heinz, finance czarina Luann Kolstad and propaganda minister Bernadette Tramm as well) will have pulled an Elvis and left the building.

We’ve read all 61 pages of the current contract and we’re betting Sandrik has, too. And any literate adult with either a college degree or a good high school education should have no problem understanding its most significant terms and conditions.

Once Sandrik concluded, “Who’s The Boss?” took the floor to launch the maiden voyage of his “Citizens’ Corner” with a robotic reading from a script that we’d bet good money was written for him by Tramm – presumably with some editing from his ventriloquist, Heinz, who has yet to be observed drinking water while the “Boss?” is talking.

We could provide a play-by-play and commentary of that effort, but we’re stopping here because nothing besides those 24 minutes of that meeting video can do them justice.

So watch, listen, and learn for yourself why Mark Twain famously said: “God created the Idiot for practice: then he invented the School Board.”

And thereby insulted the Idiot.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Several weeks ago we took a few shots at the Park Ridge Fire Dept. and Chief Sorensen in our post: “Fire Chief’s Salary Beef Too Little, Too Late” (06.16.16)

As we wrote back then, we believed Chief S was better than that particular performance would indicate. So we’re happy to read a Sept. 1 article in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate about how he and the department’s executive officer Paul Lisowski were able to secure a FEMA grant that will provide $500,000 toward the replacement of the department’s 21 year-old fire engine that had become a maintenance problem due to the almost 130,000 miles it has logged.

The cost to Park Ridge: $50,000.

That warrants a big “Huzzah!” to Chief S, EO Lisowski, and whoever else made this possible.

Fortunately, that $500,000 grant comes with another dividend that should not be overlooked: the trenchant observation by Chief S that his department’s inability to get the new engine other than by this grant was the result of the City’s financial condition.

For those folks who just can’t seem to figure out public-sector economics, the idea that the City does not have the available cash to spring for a new fire engine might be scoff-worthy. They tend to see government, in its every form and iteration, as some kind of uber-wealthy uncle always able to pick up the dinner tab and still indiscriminately dole out virtually unlimited funds.

But the City’s inability to easily buy new fire trucks – at a cool half mil a pop – is just one of the many consequences of almost two decades of foolish spending, idiotic borrowing, irresponsible under-taxing, and sweetheart deals under former mayors Wietecha, Marous and Frimark, aided and abetted by at least one manipulative and outright dishonest city manager, enabled by a gaggle of complicit alder-dunces.

Those mistakes are still tying the hands and purse-strings of the current mayor and Council, and will continue to do so for years to come. But beginning in 2009 with the administration of the late mayor Dave Schmidt, the adoption of more transparent and accountable taxing, budgeting and spending policies and practices started to turn things around. And that turnaround has continued under the stewardship of Acting Mayor Marty Maloney and the current Council,

Unfortunately, that steady course of improvement over the past 7 years is not yet sufficiently institutionalized to the point where it can’t be blown up with just a few injudicious and expensive ideas and/or decisions, especially if they involve large amounts of long-term bonded debt. Should you need an object lesson to understand this concept, look no further than the City’s foolish issuance of tens of millions of dollars of 20-plus year General Obligation bonds a decade ago, used effectively to subsidize the private Uptown Redevelopment project pushed through without even giving the taxpayers a chance to express their opinion via a referendum.

Equally problematic is what appears to be an increasing number of newer residents who talk and act like every one of our units of local government is sitting on its own gold mine staffed by a contingent of elves who simply dig up a few more shiny nuggets anytime teachers and administrators want raises, parents want hot lunches, and kids want Chromebooks.

Yes, Kathy Meade, f/k/a “Kathy Panattoni Meade,” that means you.

On September 1 Ms. Meade posted the H-A story about the fire engine grant on the Park Ridge Concerned Homeowners Group FB page, and then commented about this being “a phenomenal opportunity to get a brand new state-of-the-art engine for the price of an entry-level Lexus.”

Such childlike naïvete (or freeloader-ism, take your pick) completely ignores the tens of millions of dollars Park Ridge taxpayers send to Washington (i.e., FEMA) and Springfield each year with only a tiny fraction of that treasure being returned through things like FEMA fire engine grants – while federal and state politicians use the rest of our tax dollars to fund other communities’ fire trucks, police cruisers, community centers, libraries and schools even though some/many of those communities are no more economically-distressed than Park Ridge.

Maybe even less.

So when all is said and done, we didn’t get a new fire engine for the price of an entry-level Lexus: We got a new fire engine for the price of several Lexus dealerships.

Meanwhile, we’re now into the fourth decade of corrupt Madigan Democrat rule, aided and abetted by complicit and/or corrupt RINO governors Thompson, Edgar and No. 16627-424, that has turned state government into one big shell game, except with several dozen shells to most effectively bamboozle the clueless taxpayers. That’s how Madigan, Cullerton, et al. can keep on robbing Peter to pay Paul – and Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon, Jude, Thaddeus, Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John, Paul, Cosmas and Damian – without looking at the business end of the federal indictments they so richly deserve.

Simply by throwing communities like Park Ridge an occasional bone. Or fire engine.

Don’t get us wrong: a fire truck from FEMA beats a sharp stick in the eye any day. And you can be darn sure that if we didn’t get it, Rockford…or Fargo ND…or Athens GA…or Bakersfield CA…would. That’s the kind of merry-go-round spending that keeps the freeloaders hooked like crackheads, and our governments growing like Topsy.

So another round of applause for Chief S and EO Lisowski for getting us that shiny new fire engine for the price of a Lexus.

Entry-level.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Today we’re going to give that clown car more commonly known as the Board and Administration of Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 an undeserved break from the barbecuing they’ve earned with: (a) their deceitful and secretive closed-session deliberations about raises for D-64 administrators; and, (b)worse yet, their deceitful and brazen refusal to post the new teachers’ contract well in advance of its being voted on.

We’ll get back to them soon enough.

Today’s topic is why the City of Park Ridge needs, or at least should have, a parking deck in Uptown that can hold in excess of 100 vehicles. And why it should be built on the land currently serving as a City parking lot on Summit at Euclid.

Is parking a terrible problem in Uptown?

Not really, except for those folks who believe they are entitled to a spot within 20 feet of their destination and then whine about how bad the parking is when they don’t get one.

Nevertheless, being proactive in this situation is better than being reactive, especially where the success of our newest and older restaurants, as well as the other businesses in that area, will increasingly depend on building a larger and larger customer base by luring non-residents who will want reasonably convenient parking.

Is a parking deck optimal? No. Many people will drive around for 5 or 10 minutes looking for surface parking rather than park in a deck, much less in an underground garage.

But it’s not too difficult to conceive of a time when we really won’t have enough surface spaces to satisfy what we hope will be a growing demand. So a deck that can park at least 100 cars would be a welcome addition.

And what better place to put it than on property already off the tax rolls because it’s already owned by the City? A four-story deck at the corner of Summit and Ridge – with a three story building sitting to the west and a 5/6-story building across Euclid to the east – would not be an overwhelming presence.

How to do it?

We would prefer to see a private developer purchase the land from the City so that it goes back on the tax rolls like it was before the City acquired it about a decade ago. Let it resume generating property taxes, at the higher commercial rate, so long as a covenant is imposed on the land that requires it to be a parking deck – at least until some future City Council decides to remove that covenant in pursuit of a higher and better use.

If that doesn’t work, the City might consider incentivizing a developer to front the design and construction costs by offering a multi-year ground lease where the developer pays some nominal “rent” and perhaps shares parking revenues with the City.

The third alternative is for the City to fund, build and operate the deck. But we’ve often said that if the private sector doesn’t think something is worth investing in, it probably isn’t worth the taxpayers’ investment, either.

If there truly is a “need” for more parking in Uptown, a private developer is far more capable of determining that need and its value than a bunch of government bureaucrats. Or a bunch of elected officials who know nothing about the parking business. Or some hired-gun consultant who will produce whatever kind of analysis the bureaucrats or politicians who hired him want.

Whether this is an idea whose time has come, or not, remains to be seen.

But the best way to find out is to put that City lot on the market and see what kind of interest it draws.

Tick tock, City.

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Back on July 7, 2008 we published a post proclaiming “Time For A Transparent ‘Taste’ “ – which we followed up with “Time For A Transparent ‘Taste’ – Part 2” two days later, and with “After The Taste: The Culture Of Secrecy Continues” several weeks after that.

In those posts we questioned the secrecy related to what was supposed to be some sort of a public-private partnership between the City of Park Ridge and what ultimately was discovered to be a private corporation – Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”) – that appeared to be profiting from its no-bid monopoly of that event and thousands of dollars a year of free City services, which we wrote about in a variety of subsequent posts, including on 07.13.09, 08.24.09, 08.03.10, 08.17.11 and 08.27.12.

Those early posts stirred up a lot of comments, most of which were anonymous and presumably came from Taste Inc. officials, friends and apologists – and maybe from a few of those aldermen who foolishly/negligently/corruptly(?) succumbed to then-mayor Howard Frimark’s self-serving lobbying and gave away the TOPR event back in 2005.

But eventually Frimark’s successor, mayor Dave Schmidt, and a more responsible city council demanded transparency and accountability from Taste Inc., and began charging it for the City services it used.

And guess what?

Despite all the dire warnings and veiled threats from some of the folks running Taste Inc., nothing changed beyond the new transparency and accountability. And beyond the tens of thousands of extra dollars finding their way into City coffers instead of Taste Inc.’s bank account.

This past weekend residents and non-residents alike saw that for themselves as another good time was had by all – despite the notable absence of TOPR founder and stalwart Dean Patras, who passed away weeks before this year’s event after battling cancer.

Patras was a hale fellow well met, a solid citizen who appeared to give far more than he took from this community and from City government. Yet even he seemingly fell under the spell of those who view government, including at its most basic local level, as a soft-touch rich uncle – always ready with a handout – and not like an empty vessel deriving virtually every penny of its “wealth” by squeezing it out of the taxpayers.

It’s a tribute to Patras’ character, therefore, that he and several other Taste Inc. leaders chose to change from part of the problem into part of the solution. And this community, and the TOPR event, became better for the transformation.

Which illustrates once again how government – especially at the local level – really is pretty easy when you choose to be honest and transparent, to pay your own way, and to be personally accountable for your acts and omissions; and to demand the same from your fellow citizens and from your government.

It also helps to cast a keen and suspicious eye on those who prefer secrecy, look for others to pay their way (i.e., “freeloaders”), point fingers everywhere but at themselves, and alibi about how “complicated” and “complex” it all is. After all, they seem to be saying, how can they be expected to do the “right” thing when the “right” thing is so complicated, complex and just plain hard?

They still haven’t learned, and likely don’t want to learn, the simplest yet wisest answer to that age-old question: “How do you eat a whole elephant?”

One bite at a time.

To read or post comments, click on title.

This week’s edition of the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate contains an article (“Park Ridge City Council says no to red-light camera removal,” July 11) about the Park Ridge City Council’s decision last month to keep the red light camera at the corner of Northwest Highway and Oakton, which was installed in 2010.

The decision was in response to complaints by several business owners in that area that the red-light camera was hurting their businesses.

Did we miss the memo saying that drivers need to obey stoplights only when police are physically present? Or that stopping is optional if you’re on your way to buy something?

Frankly, we don’t like the Big Brother approach to law enforcement, with cameras seemingly capturing our every move from the moment we leave our houses until we return. And, given the technology that exists and the government’s (NSA, anyone?) penchant for “intelligence-gathering,” maybe even our homes are no longer sanctuaries.

So we subscribe to Ben Franklin’s view that trading liberty for safety makes one deserving of neither.

That being said, we recall the determination being made when that red-light camera was installed that there were frequent traffic violations there; and the red-light camera was chosen as an alternative to having police officers devoting an inordinate amount of time to policing that intersection at the expense of other areas.

According to the H-A article, “the vast majority” of those violations (202 of 289 in June) are for improper right turns on red. We’re not exactly sure why that’s such a chronic problem, but a violation is a violation.

Is the revenue derived from that camera desirable? Absolutely! If June’s total of $16,000 in fines is a typical month’s haul, that’s almost $200,000 a year – or approaching the all-in cost of employing two police officers.

But should revenue be the primary decision-driver? Absolutely not.

If “safety” is the real reason the Police and Council implemented the red-light camera, its success in promoting safety should be the first and foremost consideration for keeping it.

As noted above, there are a variety of reasons for being suspicious of camera-based law enforcement. A principal one is spelled C-H-I-C-A-G-O, that almost-bankrupt banana republic on our southeastern border that seems willing to tax anything that moves…or stands still for too long…in order to feed its century-plus culture of corruption and its current generation(s) of incompetents, crooks and grifters.

Another even more ominous reason is depicted in Orwell’s “1984.”

But to remove the Oakton red-light camera because of complaints that business is being lost from customers ticked off about getting ticketed for blowing a red light in their pursuit of commerce is half-witted, bordering on crack-potted.

The beefers who raised this issue, however, have performed a public service irrespective of how nutty their complaints might sound. They caused the Council and Police Department to revisit the red-light camera issue and its continuing success in fulfilling its avowed purpose. That should be done from time to time with every program and practice.

And the Council got it right by keeping the camera where it is, at least for the time being.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Last week Acting Mayor Marty Maloney got some good news that he shared with Park Ridge taxpayers by a press release: Moody’s Investors Service issued a new “Credit Opinion” which removed the “negative outlook” from the City’s Aa2 general obligation bond rating.

For a City that had seen its bond rating downgraded from Aa1 to Aa2 back in January 2011 and stigmatized with a “negative outlook” – thanks to more than a decade of irresponsible borrowing and spending, and general mismanagement, under that trio of bumbling mayors Ron Wietecha (now of Barrington), Mike Marous (still of Park Ridge) and Howard Frimark (now of Harwood Hts.) – just stopping the slide was a major accomplishment that took a significant revision to the City’s financial philosophy to include “prudent austerity” and “reasonable – but not painless – tax and fee increases,” according to the press release.

As noted in the release, that new financial philosophy started with our late mayor Dave Schmidt, who in 2009 became the only adult in a room full of children effectively demanding Snickers bars and Skittles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That earned him the nickname of “Mayor No,” of which he was justifiably proud because it distinguished him from the majority of his fellow City officials (and their predecessors) who were either too stupid or too selfish to understand and care about all the long-term damage such financial irresponsibility and debt was doing to the City, both present and future.

If you want a little more history on those points, you can check out our posts of 01.12.12, 01.30.12 and 07.25.13.

Schmidt’s vetoes weren’t always upheld, especially when a majority of the City Council consisted of holdovers from the Frimark regime. But the ones that were not over-ridden saved City taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars short-term, and will end up saving the City millions more if the policies and practices underlying them continue to be carried forward by present and future councils.

With the prospect of the City’s needing to issue tens of millions of dollars of new bonded debt to repair, replace and/or improve its infrastructure, stopping the City’s bond rating slide is a crucial first step to reducing the cost of that debt to the City’s taxpayers. And as Maloney was quoted in the press release:

“Our next goal is to raise the rating itself.”

That will require the continued support of the taxpayers “who have contributed the extra tax and fee revenues while accepting the various economies necessarily imposed on City services.” And maintaining that support will challenge both the brains and the spines of our elected officials, as it will challenge the vigilance of those taxpayers who don’t get back-end benefits from front-end tax and fee increases; e.g., City employees and their families.

As we’ve recently seen with our Fire Dept., City employees – like many/most employees in both the public and the private sector – will continue to expect more money for the same amount and quality of their work. Unfortunately, the market economics that manages such expectations in the private sector have pretty much become foreign to the public sector, especially in Illinois and even here in sleepy ol’ Park Ridge.

For example, senior bureaucrats find it much easier to support rather than resist their subordinates’ demands for raises because “salary compression” resulting from such raises provides a convenient argument for similar or even greater increases in compensation for those very same senior bureaucrats.

And even where those City (or school district, or park district, or Library) employees are also taxpayers of the unit of government that employs them, a $100 property tax increase is an outstanding bargain when it comes with a $500 or $1,000 raise.

The same analysis applies to those various private-corporation community groups who denounced Schmidt and the city councils that shut the spigot of tax dollars that had been flowing unaccountably to those groups year after year. Even the unpaid directors of those groups delighted in a $100-per-home (avg.) property tax increase that put $20,000 or more into their organizations’ coffers, thereby reducing their own funding and fundraising obligations.

And it also applies to certain “private” special interests as well.

Like those Mayfield Estates residents who bought their homes at discounted prices because of the flooding in that area – resulting primarily from their cheapskate predecessors’ rejection of the City’s request that they pay for the installation of storm sewers when that area was annexed, and from their or their predecessors’ expansion of their usable front yards by filling in the drainage ditches that substituted for storm sewers.

They’re the ones who show up at City Hall seeking a multi-million dollar bond issue and accompanying property tax increase to finance flood remediation in their neighborhood. That’s because they know full well that their $100/year-per-home tax increase will buy each of them $100,000+ of flood remediation, with a likely $100,000+ increase to the value of their residences if/when they want to sell them.

All of it is a variation of what we call “freeloading” practiced by “freeloaders”– our shorthand term for those residents who are always looking to leverage maximum benefits for themselves, their families and/or their friends by shifting the costs of those benefits onto the backs of their fellow taxpayers.

If that freeloader mentality continues to gain traction, we can all say ”goodbye” to Maloney’s goal of raising that Aa2 bond rating and say “hello” to the likely return of the negative outlook.

A/k/a, Moody’s blues.

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