Today’s edition of the Park Ridge Journal features a page one story titled “Citizens Take Control,” which reports on a citizen-based organization that will champion the City’s interests in connection with the new O’Hare runway. 

The currently un-named organization is headed by resident Christine Kutt Zolt, and hopes to develop and maintain “a high profile and constant contact” with our U.S. senators, congress-people, and the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”).  The organization will operate through four working groups: communications, technology, legal, and finance.

We applaud these residents, as we do all citizen activists who step up to express their own opinions and attempt to influence government policy or actions.  This O’Hare issue is crucial to the residential value and quality of life of our community – something noted by 4th Ward Alderpuppet James Allegretti at this past Saturday’s special Town Hall meeting.

Which causes us to wonder why Allegretti, in particular, ignored the potential for this situation back in 2005, before construction of the $500 million runway 9L27R began and it might have been easier to do something about it?

A full three years ago, as reported in the minutes of the December 5, 2005, City Council meeting [pdf], then-Ald. Jeannie Markech (2nd Ward) – the Council’s alternate (to Mayor Frimark) liaison to the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (“ONCC”) – distributed new noise contour maps that disclosed “significant changes” that would affect many areas in Park Ridge.  She also encouraged more involvement in ONCC matters by the mayor and other Council members:

“Ald. Markech asked the Mayor to attend the General Meetings to represent all of Park Ridge…She asked for a representative from the 4th Ward to attend the Residential Committee Meetings, which are on Wednesdays.”

From what we can tell, Frimark attended only one ONCC meeting between that December 2005 Council meeting and the new runway opening; and Allegretti attended none.  If we’ve missed their attendance, however, we invite them to correct us.

Which causes us to wonder if something isn’t seriously wrong with our City government – and a Council cut in half by Frimark’s referendum in 2006 – when the defense of something as important as our community’s property values and quality of life has to be taken up by a group of un-elected citizen volunteers, however public-spirited they may be.

Especially when our mayor and at least one of his hand-picked alderpuppets couldn’t be bothered to involve themselves in O’Hare matters for the past three years.

Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark wants a big new cop shop.  That’s one of the reasons why he’s spent much of the past year or so running around trying to get the City to buy land for that purpose – preferably from one of his buddies, like Bill Napleton. 

And because Frimark and his Alderpuppets are cowards, they don’t want to be held accountable to the taxpayers for spending a bundle of our tax dollars and digging us a 20-year, $20 million-plus debt hole for this kind of a boondoggle after the voters go on record (via indisputable referendum voting results) as opposing such an expenditure. 

So when 1st Ward Alderman (and mayoral candidate) Dave Schmidt, at the December 1 City Council meeting, proposed that the Council adopt a resolution putting an advisory referendum issue about a new cop shop on the April ballot, the Alderpuppets wouldn’t even give his motion a second. 

Outraged by that conduct, Park Ridge resident Joe Egan and a bunch of his fellow residents have taken up Schmidt’s referendum and begun a petition drive to do what the City Council wouldn’t.  Their question reads almost exactly like Schmidt’s:

“Shall the City of Park Ridge replace its current police facility with a new, larger structure at a cost of at least $16.5 million plus additional, but currently unknown, costs for the land on which it will be situated and bond interest?”

As reported in last week’s Park Ridge Journal (“Citizens Take On Police Station Referendum,“ Dec. 10), Frimark’s response to news of the petition drive was to attack the referendum issue: “The way Schmidt had it questioned, no one in their right mind would vote for that. It has to be a fair and honest question.”

In typical Frimark style, he didn’t give any specifics about what was unfair or dishonest about the referendum question posed by Schmidt, or the slight variation proposed in the citizens petition.  Nor did Frimark offer any suggestions for a new cop shop referendum question he could support.  So we have come up with a few alternatives to help kick-start the mayor’s thought processes:

*  “Do you want a new police station at whatever cost those City Council members you elected choose to spend?”

*  “The City paid experts a lot of money to tell us we need a big new cop shop, so do you think you know more than those experts?”

*  “Should we spend as much money as necessary to make sure Park Ridge doesn’t have a dinkier police station than our neighboring communities?”

Frimark and his Alderpuppets, like the Park Ridge Library Board and Staff back in 2002, consider any referendum issue that discloses the cost of a project as being inherently unfair.  We here at Watchdog, on the other hand, think that a referendum issue that doesn’t include the cost is unfair – and supremely dishonest.   

But we have to agree with one thing the mayor said: “No one in their right mind” would vote for a new police station that will cost at least $16.5 million plus the cost of land and bond interest. 

That’s why Frimark and the Alderpuppets want to keep that vote for themselves.

As we noted in Monday’s post, While Park Ridge Slept, Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and the rest of our City officials must have been been hitting the Ambien CR for the past few years while the City of Chicago was busy constructing the new runway known as 9L/27R at O’Hare.  What else could explain their virtually total silence on the subject for all that time?

But now the runway is open and attracting a steady stream of noisy planes buzzing the southern half of Park Ridge like Baron von Richtofen’s Flying Circus and irritating a lot of residents in the process.  And the newly-awakened Frimark and his unofficial air marshall, 3rd Ward Alderpuppet Don Bach, are going hyper-active trying to make up for all that lost time.

So they hastily scheduled a “town hall” meeting for tomorrow (December 13) at 9:30 a.m. at City Hall, apparently as a tune-up for the main event next Thursday (December 18, 7:30 p.m.) at the Maine South High School auditorium, where O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (“ONCC”) executive director Brian Gilligan, ONCC chair (and Arlington Hts. mayor) Arlene Mulder, and an FAA player to be named later are scheduled to show up to say and do…we’re not sure what. 

Could it be another meaningless song and dance like we got from the Com Ed representatives who showed up for Frimark’s last dog-and-pony show, following the power outage of August 2007?  Come to Maine South next Thursday and find out.

But really, folks, what can we realistically expect to do about a new runway that has cost in excess of $500 million and is touted as being necessary to cutting the delays at O’Hare that purportedly trickle down to the rest of the country?

Well, if you’re Air Marshall Bach, you make foolish public comments about Park Ridge possibly rejoining what’s left of the Suburban O’Hare Commission (“SOC”), before recanting less than a week later and claiming that your original comment was merely “intended to put pressure on the [ONCC]” – as was reported in an article in yesterday’s Herald-Advocate (“Join SOC again? Bach doesn’t support idea,” Dec. 11).

Yes indeed, that’s sure a great way to win friends and influence people on the ONCC: Tell the organization with 28 member communities that you’re going to quit it and join the dynamic duo of Bensenville and Elk Grove Village in their unending crusade to spend jillions of dollars on their litigation to nowhere. 

You may remember those two erstwhile Park Ridge “allies” as the sharpies who nicked O’Hare-obsessed former mayor Ron Wietecha and his City Council (2nd Ward Alderpuppet Rich DiPietro being the sole surviving dupe from that Council) for $650,000 of our tax dollars on a half-baked scheme to build a third Chicago airport near Peotone.  Back then, Wietecha (with DiPietro’s backing) heralded that giveaway as an “investment” – which it turned out to be, but of the Enron variety.

But back to Bach, who despite recanting his interest in rejoining SOC is nevertheless now questioning Park Ridge’s continued membership in the ONCC and the quality of information it provides its members.  He’s also claiming that Park Ridge and the other ONCC communities were advised that 9L/27R would only be used in poor weather and by smaller aircraft.

From whom exactly did you hear that, Air Marshall Bach?  Was there a memo?  How about even some handwritten notes scribbled on a cocktail napkin by somebody who used to work for the FAA?  Anything?  Anybody?  Bueller?

The bottom line, folks, is that while 9L27R was being built our current mayor was too busy with other things – like cutting the size of the Council and working out deals for his buddies/campaign contributors on such things as zoning variances for the dormant Executive Office Plaza project, $2.4 million of concessions for Napleton, and trying to buy some land for a new cop shop. 

You might want to remember that each time another jet roars over your house.

As has been previously reported, Ald. Dave Schmidt’s motion for a resolution to put the issue of the proposed new police station on the April 2009 ballot as an advisory referendum died for want of even a second (“Frimark, Council Stiff Voters On Cop Shop Referendum”).  None of our elected City officials other than Schmidt want to give the voters of Park Ridge even the opportunity to advise (but not bind) the Council as to its plans for a big, expensive new cop shop that will put the City multi-millions in debt for the next 20 years or so.

Given that kind of arrogance and disregard for what those taxpaying voters think, resident Joe Egan has started up a citizens petition drive to put the issue of a new cop shop on the ballot anyway.  As reported last Thursday on Park Ridge Underground (“Comment in the Spotlight”), Mr. Egan is seeking recruits to help him get the required number of signatures.

We have repeatedly challenged the need for a new cop shop – as opposed to a remodeling/renovation of the current space, with or without a modest addition – and the wisdom of incurring more than a million dollars a year of debt service on such a facility that will burden our taxpayers for the next two decades, especially given all the more immediate infrastructure needs that are not being met, such as street paving and relief sewers. 

We have also criticized the less-than-forthright way the proponents of the new cop shop are going about justifying their fiscal recklessness: That they won’t be raising taxes for the new cop shop because all they really will be doing is just “extending” the annual debt service payments that the City has been making (using our tax dollars, of course) for the past 10 years or so on the bonds that financed the Public Works Building, after those bonds are paid off next year.

We also don’t agree with Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and his Alderpuppets when they claim that they were elected to make these kinds of decisions, presumably without first measuring their constituents’ views on such a project in the best way available: By votes cast on the issue itself.

What a crock!

We encourage everyone who thinks there are better ways to spend our tax money, and/or that the voters deserve to be heard at the ballot box on such a significant and expensive matter, to contact Mr. Egan and volunteer to gather signatures, as many as you are able.

Because if we don’t get a vote on this issue, we can be sure that Frimark and the Council will push this project forward – and they will do so with their standard alibi that they “talked to [a handful?] of their constituents” and found “overwhelming support” for this cop shop boondoggle.

With new O’Hare runway 9L/27R open and bringing a steady stream of planes over the southern half of Park Ridge for the past two weeks, a couple hundred people – many of them Park Ridge residents – showed up at the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (“ONCC”) meeting last Friday (Dec. 5) in Rosemont to angrily complain about the noise.

The consistent theme expressed by the residents who spoke, including Park Ridge Alderman Don Bach (3rd Ward) was: “We were lied to” by the Federal Aviation Adminstration (“FAA”) and the Chicago Dept. of Aviation about the number of daily flights and the size of the planes using the runway.

We don’t ever put it past King Richie Daley or federal bureaucrats to lie to anybody, especially when it comes to their grand, billion-dollar O’Hare expansion plan.  But we’re having a hard time finding any evidence of the kind of iron-clad promises or representations about the use of the new runways that people seem to be creatively remembering.  

The ONCC home page, www.oharenoise.org/index.htm, states that the new runway is designed to accommodate “planes as large as the 747” and is “intended mainly to be used for planes like “the Airbus A318, A319, A320, the MD-80, the DC-9 and the Boeing 727, 737, and 757.”  We couldn’t find any mention of Piper Cubs, Beechcraft Bonanzas, or even Gulfstream business jets.

This new runway plan was announced back in 2005 which, coincidentally, was the year Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark was elected to the big chair at 505 Butler Place.  But we’ve been unable to find anything Frimark has done since taking office to try to minimize the adverse effects of this new runway on our community. 

Maybe that’s why it was no surprise that Mayor Howard was nowhere to be seen at Friday’s ONCC meeting.  Instead, Bach was there, criticizing Chicago and the FAA and – according to Saturday’s Chicago Tribune article (“Noise from new O’Hare runway angers Park Ridge residents”) – suggesting that Park Ridge might be better off re-joining the Suburban O’Hare Commission (“SOC”) from which it withdrew in 2003.

Just because the new runway is causing a lot of problems for Park Ridge, however, doesn’t make re-joining SOC a good solution – unless our goal is to help Bensenville and Elk Grove Village further enrich long-time SOC attorney Joe Karaganis by financing his endlessly unsuccessful court battles.

The sad fact appears to be that for the past three years, while Chicago was building its new $500 million runway, our City officials – starting with Mayor Frimark – were asleep at the switch and doing nothing – NOTHING – to address the potential problems that the new runway could cause. 

And they didn’t wake up until they heard the jet roar overhead.

Since as far back as 1991, the Park Ridge Library has been whining about not having enough space. 

Back then, in the heat of a Library expansion referendum campaign, the Library staff piled books on the floors to create the false impression that there wasn’t enough shelf space to hold them.  But as soon as the voters rejected the expansion proposal and there was no need to continue that charade, those books mysteriously vanished.

Several years later, the Library Board’s and Staff’s edifice complex was resurrected with plans for Uptown Redevelopment – and the suggestion by then-City Mgr. Tim Schuenke that a new Library could be rolled into that TIF-financed project.  So while Board and Staff deferred needed maintenance and repairs on the existing building, the Uptown Advisory Task Farce included a new Library in its deliberations.

Fast forward to 2002, when plans for a new Library were steaming ahead to the point where the City distributed promotional materials about our community at a national convention that mentioned a new library as if it were a fait accompli.  That kind of arrogance ticked off plenty of citizens, who appealed to members of the City Council to pass a resolution putting an advisory Library referendum on the November 2002 ballot.

When the Council declined, a group of citizen activists conducted a petition drive that collected over 3,700 signatures and put three Library–related issues on the ballot: whether a new library should be built on the current site; whether a new one should be built on a different site; and whether retail should be added to the Library block.

The voters overwhelmingly rejected all three.

But ever since that November 2002 defeat, the Library Board and Staff have been trying to come up with a new scheme to get a bigger building.  Their latest: Create a shortage of staff space by converting some of that space into more room for kids programs, and then tack on a cheesy-looking office trailer or “modular building” to hold the displaced staffers.  

Librarian Janet Van De Carr’s explanation: “We get a lot of requests from parents to provide more programs for children, but right now we have the one library meeting room that must be shared with young adult programs as well as community groups, so we can’t offer any more than we’re offering now.”  

Of course you’ll get “a lot of requests” for kids programs, especially free ones.  We seem to have plenty of parents who want their kids to be as programmed as possible, especially if somebody else (i.e., the taxpayers) is paying for it.  And for the Library Board and Staff, it’s a great way to increase those usage totals they use to argue for that bigger Library that has never left their radar screen. 

But the best part of this plan for the Library Administration is that it will create an “eyesore” – as an office trailer or “modular building” is likely to do – that they expect to be so offensive and irritating to enough Park Ridge residents that it will start a groundswell of support for a new Library, or at least a decent-sized addition.

Actually, it’s a pretty clever scheme, and the Library Crew is pretty devious to come up with it.  The only question is whether the taxpayers are dumb enough to fall for it.

When, early into Monday night’s (Dec. 1) City Council meeting, 1st Ward Ald. (and mayoral candidate) Dave Schmidt made his motion to seek the voters’ advice on whether the City should spend in excess of $16 million (not including land acquisition and bond interest) on a big new police station, the silence from his fellow aldermen was deafening.

Some stared down at their desks while others looked blankly into space, as if trying to avoid eye contact with Schmidt or the citizens in the audience whom they claim to represent.  Only their shameless leader, Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark, spoke…and that was only to ask the question to which he already knew the answer: “Is there a second?”

There wasn’t, and the motion died.  And with it died the Park Ridge voters’ best hope for getting an honest chance to tell City government whether or not they want their money spent on an expensive new cop shop that – under the most recent plan expressed by 7th Ward Ald. (and aspiring Frimark Alderpuppet) Frank Wsol – will likely cost the taxpayers over $1 million a year for 20+ years in debt service payments, of which approximately $200,000 a year would be just the interest on the bonds.

By our unscientific calculations, those annual interest charges alone could pay for two police officers, three-four blocks of new relief sewers, or our current city manager.  Any of those three options seems like the better deal for Park Ridge taxpayers, especially since Frimark and the current Council members have shown the inability to manage city finances – as evidenced by the $1.7 million deficit City Mgr. Jim Hock reported for last year, and an even bigger deficit being projected for this year.

But those kinds of calculations and budget deficits don’t seem to matter to our current City officials when the alternative is building a big new monument to themselves – and which also enables them to dish up a lot of sweet contracts to consultants, architects, engineers and contractors.

But with Schmidt’s motion having died without a second, the voters are unlikely to get a chance to express their opinions on the big new and expensive cop shop in the way it can best (and most honestly) be measured: at the polls on Tuesday, April 7.  That’s because the only vehicle for putting an advisory question on the ballot, other than by Council resolution, is by a citizen petition, which would have to be filed no later than January 20, 2009, and which we understand would require something in the neighborhood of 3,000 signatures (although the exact amount is a question for an election law attorney and/or City Clerk Betty Henneman).

Why would Frimark and the Alderpuppets want to put our voters to the onerous task of collecting all those signatures in the dead of winter to get such an important public policy issue on the April ballot when the Council, from the comfort of its warm and cozy chambers, could make that happen in minutes? 

Because if the referendum doesn’t go their way (which is what we believe would be the case), they would have to disregard the manifest will of the people if they still wanted to build their “Taj Mahal” cop shop.  Without a referendum, however, they can continue to talk about the “need” for such a structure and claim – without any way of being proved wrong – that the residents they’ve heard from really want another expensive pile of brick and mortar.  

Frimark and the Alderpuppets think that makes them “leaders.”  What it really does is expose them as cowards.

UPDATE 12/03/08 @ 4:20 p.m.

Today’s Park Ridge Journal contains an article (“At This Point, Can City Even Afford New Police Station”) about the new cop shop debate that should be a “must read” for anybody interested in this issue and the current City administration’s fiscal management, if only for the quotes from 3rd Ward Alderpuppet Don Bach in which he blames the current police station for everything but the heartbreak of psoriasis.

Bach, channeling fellow Alderpuppet Jim “Chicken Little” Allegretti, calls the current cop shop “a lawsuit waiting to happen” with “unsafe and dangerous prisoner facilities” that is such “a disgrace, a joke” that it is creating a “morale problem with our police officials.”  Big talk, Mr. Bach, but where are your facts – not opinions, but hard evidence – that any of your spiel is true, and that the City has suffered any adverse financial effects because of it?  And isn’t it true that any time a new officer vacancy opens up, the P.D. is flooded with applications?

Despite the current recession, hundreds of homes sitting stagnantly for sale (many of which are in foreclosure), and the City budget awash in red ink, Bach – the same Alderpuppet who earlier this year voted to give Mayor Frimark crony Bill Napleton as much as $2.4 million of our tax dollars because (Bach claimed) a whopping 30 of his constituents said it was okay – insists that the new cop shop presents no financial issue.  Watchdog to Bach: “It’s the economy, stupid!”

But, for us, the defining quote from Bach is his claim that: “The overwhelming majority of residents I talk to in my ward on a weekly basis tell me they favor building a new facility.” 

If you’re not smoking the funny stuff or outright lying through your teeth, sir, you’ve just given away your only excuse (lame as it is) for not having a referendum: That you’re afraid of an overwhelming “No” vote.  Otherwise, you’d be eager to be proved correct by the voters.

So either publicly recant your opposition to Schmidt’s cop shop referendum, or tell us where you get your Maui Wowie.  Or should we just check to see how much your nose has grown?

According to Jim “Chicken Little” Allegretti, Fourth Ward Alderpuppet of Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark: “I don’t know how we can be any more open” with City government. 

Allegretti was speaking at the “strategic planning” session a couple of weekends ago, and he was referring to the perception expressed by a number of Park Ridge residents who responded to The National Citizen Survey of 566 Park Ridge residents conducted this past spring.  And as reported in last week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Survey says residents don’t think government is open enough,” Nov. 27), Allegretti was joined in his disbelief by fellow Alderpuppets Tom Carey (6th Ward) and Don Bach (3rd Ward), the latter of whom thinks this perception of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing can be cured with some good old positive public relations.

But 1st Ward Ald. (and newly-announced mayoral candidate) Dave Schmidt thinks that the perception is justified.  Schmidt correctly noted that the City Council goes into closed session far more frequently than it needs to, and he has been a vocal critic of the Council exceeding the bounds of the closed session exemptions to the open meeting requirement of the Illinois Open Meetings Act when it does go into closed session.

Not surprisingly, perhaps the biggest proponent of closed Council meetings and private deal-making is Mayor Frimark himself, who has seemingly spent the better part of his current term of office meeting privately with land owners like Frimark campaign contributor Bill Napleton, real estate brokers like Frimark campaign contributor Owen Hayes, and real estate attorneys like Frimark campaign contributor Jack “Mr. Insider” Owens, in his quest to find a site for a big new Park Ridge police station at which he can throw our tax dollars. 

Frimark has also met privately with interested parties behind the scenes of other attempted or completed deals, such as the developers (and Frimark campaign contributors) of the Executive Office Plaza project when they were seeking City approval of an 8-unit zoning variance; the developer of the “Heinz” project who also sought height and density zoning variances; and representatives from the Park Ridge Ministerial Association and PADS, in connection with the one-night-per-week homeless shelter that PADS ultimately walked away from rather than accept the lawful special use zoning amendment recommended by the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission and approved by the City Council with slight modifications.

Which is why Frimark and his Alderpuppets apparently have embarked on a campaign of denial, misdirection and sniffling dismissal of the notion that there is significant public distrust of City government and that residents believe they aren’t being listened to by the City.  Part of that campaign should be on display at tonight’s City Council meeting, the agenda [pdf] for which includes Ald. Schmidt’s proposal [pdf] for the City Council to put an advisory referendum issue about a new police station on the April ballot.

The last thing Frimark and his Alderpuppets want is a public vote – even an advisory one – that might undermine their contention that we need a big new cop shop and that the taxpayers are in favor of it. 

But while it’s hard enough for those guys to deny the City’s own survey results that reveal serious resident misgivings about the openness of City government, it may be even harder for them to dismiss the award recently won by the Frimark Administration: a “Worsty,” presented on October 9th in Springfield by the Illinois Press Association (the “IPA”). 

The Worsty Awards are given to governmental bodies or public officials who ignore requirements of the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) or the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.  Park Ridge won the third-place Worsty – the “bronze,” if you will – in the IOMA category for scheduling a “by invitation only” City Council meeting at the Park Ridge Country Club (where Frimark is a member) for the purpose of interviewing the City Manager finalists.  Once the local press got hold of that information and questioned the City about it, however, the meeting was quickly rescheduled for City Hall.

Not surprisingly with a mayor and a majority of the City Council who like secrecy as much as the current ones do, we can’t seem to find any mention of this Worsty on the City’s website, nor have we heard Frimark crowing about it in his usual self-promotional way.  Heck, we don’t even know if somebody from the City showed up in Springfield to accept it. 

But knowing ol’ “Let’s Make A Deal” the way we do, secrecy is far too essential to the way he operates for him to be content with this year’s “bronze” Worsty.  We’re betting he’s already thinking about ways City government can “Go for the Gold” in 2009.

Since becoming an alderman in May 2007, dependable Mayor Frimark Alderpuppet Robert Ryan (5th Ward) has distinguished himself several ways. 

The most notable, though not the most auspicious, is by having the worst attendance record of any City Council member, although in fairness to Ryan his attendance has improved since he was cited for his many MIAs by the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate in both an article and an editorial in its June 19th edition (”City Council attendance rates vary in Park Ridge” and “Who’s missing city meetings?”).  

More troubling than Ryan’s no-shows, however, are the things he says and does when he actually shows up – like his votes for sweetheart deals for Frimark campaign contributors Bruce Adreani/Norwood Builders and Bill Napleton, or his outspoken advocacy of delegating aldermanic duties to non-elected citizen “experts.”

As reported in this week’s Herald-Advocate (“Ald. Ryan seeks citizen experts to serve on council committees,” Nov. 27), Ryan basically wants to delegate those aldermanic duties that require heavy lifting to non-elected citizens who appear to possess “expertise” on various matters related to City business.  For example, he cited resident accountants and financial professionals as “experts” who could figure out City finances “in a far more competent manner than [the City Council members].”

We don’t deny that other residents – in fact, a lot of other residents – might be more competent than Ryan or other Council members when it comes to City finances, judging by how Ryan and the rest of the Council rubber-stamped former City Mgr. Tim Schuenke’s efforts (aided by Finance Director Diane Lambesis?) to produce a balanced budget by what now appears to have been the fabrication of larger revenue numbers to fill the budget gaps.  And as can be seen from the report [pdf] distributed at Tuesday night’s Finance & Budget Committee meeting, the City is already admitting that it “[w]ill not realize budgeted revenues” in at least four of its accounts.  

Joining Ryan in his call for delegating aldermanic responsibility is fellow Alderpuppet Jim “Chicken Little” Allegretti (4th Ward), who may be best known for reflexively chirping “we’re gonna get sued” any time there’s a discussion of his latest pet project, the big new police station.  Allegretti is quoted in the Herald-Advocate article as admitting that he is “often perplexed” about police station discussions because he’s not a builder or an architect.

Judging by his comments and his votes, Allegretti is perplexed by more City government issues than just the police station.  But it should be obvious to anybody with at least a high double-digit I.Q. and a modicum of common sense and good judgment that while the current cop shop is less than optimal, we neither need nor can we afford the big new facility recommended by the hired-gun “experts” who were retained by the City solely for the purpose of making such a recommendation.

Fortunately, both 1st Ward Ald. Dave Schmidt and 7th Ward Ald. Frank Wsol have voiced objections to Ryan’s proposal, with Wsol correctly pointing out that aldermen are elected to study the facts and make the decisions that Ryan and Allegretti are trying to off-load.  Wsol also questioned whether aldermen might improperly defer to the advice they receive from these “experts” and vote however the experts suggest.

If Ryan and Allegretti can’t understand what’s going on with City government, however, they should be voicing concern about the competence of a City Staff whose members are being paid – in many cases, quite handsomely – to do the day-to-day business of the City and who, as part of their duties, should be ready, willing and able to communicate what they’re doing and how they’re doing it in ways that a competent and diligent alderman can understand. 

And while we have nothing against citizens’ committees, commissions and task forces, we are more than a little concerned when we can find nothing about the backgrounds and qualifications of the appointees to these bodies posted on the City’s website.  That suggests that their most significant qualification for appointment might be their connection to the Mayor who does the appointing.

But if Ryan and Allegretti want other Park Ridge residents to do their jobs for them, they can always resign and let one of those residents step up to the task. 

Today we offer three vignettes for this week’s Park Ridge Journal that illustrate the kind of cluelessness that causes local governments to make bad decisions which end up costing the taxpayers bundles of cash and/or a lot of wasted effort.

The New O’Hare Runway: Let’s start with our fearless leader, Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark, who – as quoted in today’s Park Ridge Journal (“Heads Up,” November 26) – proclaims that “[w]e’re getting killed” on the south end of Park Ridge with airplane noise from the new northern east-west runway at O’Hare.  So Frimark and Third Ward Alderpuppet Don Bach headed over to a meeting of the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (“ONCC”) to complain. 

But where has Frimark been for the past four years while this new runway was being planned and built?  Why wasn’t he showing up at ONCC meetings then, or calling Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky then, or contacting the FAA then, or even talking to his diminutive Chicago counterpart, Richie Daley, about the problems the new runway would cause for Park Ridge?

Like with so many other City matters, Frimark couldn’t be bothered with such trivial pursuits.  He was too busy cutting the size of the City Council, getting a majority of his alderpuppets elected, cutting sweetheart deals for buddies like Norwood Builders and Bill Napleton, and trying to build a big new police station that we can’t afford.  

Which is why Frimark, after being asleep at the wheel for the past four years, now finds himself with the Hobson’s Choice of trying to help the residents on the south end of town by returning more flights to runway 22 Right, the noise from which has plagued those Park Ridge residents on the north end of town.  And which also explains why a clueless Frimark may be setting up his own little civil war.

District 64 Bond Refunding: Elementary School Dist. 64 is refunding Emerson construction bonds from 1997 in order to reduce the interest rate for the remaining term of the bonds.  As reported in the Journal article (“Dist. 64 Bond Refunding May Save Taxpayers A Buck”), the annual savings to the average taxpayer from this refunding will be $1.00 per year.

We’re happy about anything that will save the taxpayers money, even a little bit.  But given the District’s inept financial management over the past decade, we think the taxpayers deserve a little more candor and respect than what was offered by School Board president and long-time board member Sue Runyon: “This seems meaningless, but it represents our commitment to manage our spending and give back to our taxpayers whenever we can.”

No, Sue, you can’t manage your spending, which is why the District spent most of the past six years trying to stay out of the Illinois State Board of Education’s financial dog house; and why, since it passed the tax increase referendum last year, has cluelessly gone back to its free-spending ways while failing to distinguish itself academically when compared to many other districts, including some that spend less per pupil. 

And for those of us who have seen the Dist. 64 portion of our tax bills soar by hundreds of dollars, that $1 refund sure seems like chump change – and we’re the chumps.

Col. Mustard In The Restaurant With The Big Screen TV: A contributor to the Journal’s “Speak Out” column laments how “no one comes to Park Ridge to spend money” because the City is “restricting businesses from succeeding.”  According to this speaker, the lack of “TVs, pool tables or the like” is why “so many restaurants go out of business here so quickly.”

We always thought what kept restaurants in business was good food and good service in an attractive setting at a fair price.  That formula seems to have worked quite well, thank you, for places like Zia’s, Don Juan’s and Nonno Pino’s right next door in Edison Park.

We do agree, however, with the writer’s contention that “[o]ur property taxes are out of hand, our streets are not repaired, and our fees and permit costs are ridiculous.”  But we think the answer is less wasteful spending and better overall financial management by the City, not the addition of TVs, pool tables and arcade games to mediocre restaurants.