We received a reminder from a member of the Concerned St. Paul of the Cross Parents group that tonight’s Park Ridge City Council meeting (7:30pm at City Hall) has an agenda item dealing with treating a homeless shelter as a “special use” under the City’s zoning ordinance.

The City Council “Cover Memo”[pdf] to that item states that St. Paul of the Cross “has indicated that should the City require a special use for a homeless shelter [at St. Paul], they will go through the process.”  But the City still has to require it; and, even then, St. Paul has made no firm commitment to comply.  Which looks to us like just more of the same gamesmanship by St. Paul pastor Fr. Carl Morello and his Park Ridge Ministerial Association [“PRMA”] cronies, most likely aided by their consiglieri, prominent Park Ridge attorney Jack “Mr. Insider” Owens.

With Owens on the case and with Park Ridge Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark shamelessly courting the favor of the PRMA members, opponents of the PADS shelter at St. Paul (or anywhere else in Park Ridge, for that matter) have reason to remain concerned, wary and attentive – not only so the City won’t give St. Paul and PADS (which should be required to be a co-applicant, based on the planned use of its organizational and screening services at the St. Paul shelter) a pass on the special use permit, but also so that St. Paul and PADS are required to meet all of the conditions needed for such a permit rather than be allowed to slide by with a Chicago-style wink-and-nod. 

This same Concerned St. Paul Parent also provided us with a page from yesterday’s St. Paul bulletin containing the customary weekly editorial from Fr. Morello, called “Fr. Carl’s Corner”[pdf].  True to form, Morello refuses to look in the mirror and, instead, points the finger of blame at others for “causing division among members of this community.”  He even provides a gratuitous alibi for himself and his PRMA cronies: “It was not my intent, or that of any of the ministers in the [PRMA], to cause any divisiveness.”

Spoken like a typical politician.  But, then again, Morello and his PRMA cronies have been acting like typical politicians from the very beginning of this PADS fiasco…at least during those times when they haven’t been acting like outright dictators.

Morello’s propaganda piece also reveals to his congregation – and to the Park Ridge community as a whole – that this PADS shelter decision was a lot more the product of Morello’s and the other PRMA members’ egos than it was of any congregation-wide, or community-wide, consensus building: “I personally had hoped that by taking the lead on P.A.D.S. and working together with the Ministerial Association of Park Ridge, we might even reach a higher spiritual goal.”

That kind of “I, me” attitude has been the problem with this PADS deal all along.  It’s called hubris – “exaggerated pride or self-confidence,” according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary – and it’s not an attractive or desirable quality in human beings generally, much less in priests and ministers who are supposed to be modeling humility and the other virtues for the rest of us to emulate.  That’s the same attitude that kept the PADS homeless shelter process hidden from most of the rank and file church members and community members for almost two years. 

Once again, we want to thank the Concerned St. Paul Parents “organization” for taking the baton from the St. Mary’s NIMBYs and forcing the City to look out for the interests of the community that Fr. Morello and the PRMA have been so willing to disregard.  You are showing once again that “The People” can make a difference, for the better, in local government IF they pay attention and if they have the courage to hold the politicians – both those at 505 Butler Place and those wearing the special collars – accountable for what’s happening in our community. 

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: “Here they go again.”

As reported in yesterday’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate, a recent telephone survey conducted by the Public Opinion Laboratory at Northern Illinois University – one of the pollsters of choice for governmental bodies (especially public libraries) looking to construct “friendly” results – shows that “over two-thirds of respondents…expressed support for expansion of the library building at 20 S. Prospect Ave.” (“Survey says: Support is for bigger library,” July 17)

“Over two-thirds” of the 404 total respondents is approximately 270, allegedly drawn at random from a community of over 37,000 residents, including around 24,000 registered voters.  At a cost of $12,000, that’s almost $30 per response for what may not even be a “statistically significant” sampling, judging by the fact that we don’t hear anybody connected with it publicly bragging that it is.  So our initial reaction is that it wasn’t worth what we paid for it.

That seems even more true when one considers how “cooked” the results might be, judging from the slanted introductory statement read to the respondents before any questions were asked:

“The Park Ridge Library is currently at capacity. In order for the library to add new materials or services, it must eliminate other materials or services or it must expand the library facility. The Library Board of Trustees wants to learn what options residents favor or oppose regarding an expansion on existing library property to accommodate new materials and services.”

Talk about loading the question with buzzwords and phrases designed to strike fear in the hearts of the citizenry.  We’re surprised they didn’t just come right out and say: “We’re going to start firing people and throwing out your favorite materials tomorrow!”

But the real evidence of the deception at the core of this latest Library tactic is not what was said in that introductory statement but what was left out: The cost.  The Library Board and Staff, along with their accomplices at the Public Opinion Laboratory, didn’t need anything getting in the way of the “I want it” mentality they were trying to foster in the respondents,  including what may be the single most important factor affecting the spending decisions we make in real life. 

And if history is our guide, this $12,000 survey is just Step 1 in what will be at least a 3-step process to get a Library construction project going.  These “favorable” survey results can now be leveraged into the Library Board’s/Staff’s spending another $50,000 on Step 2, a “space needs” study, which in turn can give them the impetus to spend another big chunk of our taxes on architects/engineers to come up with some designs. 

Once they get to that point, don’t expect them to let the voters weigh in on whether to spend however many millions of dollars this new grand plan will cost.  They’re a lot more comfortable orchestrating a “yes” from 270 of 404 survey respondents than having to hear a “no” from 8,948 of 14,734 voters, as happened in 2002 when over 3,500 voters put the issue of a new library on the ballot through a citizens’ initiative after the Library Board/Staff and the City Council refused to do it themselves.

That’s why, despite already wasting $12,000 on a cooked survey and planning to waste another $50,000 on a “space needs” study that will recommend – “Surprise!” – a bigger library, Library Board vice-president Shlomo Crandus publicly dissembles with a proclamation that: “We don’t have expansion plans right now.”  We wonder if he said that with a wink, a nod, or with his fingers crossed behind his back.

With our country and our community reeling from skyrocketing energy prices, leaping inflation, a plummeting dollar, falling home prices and growing unemployment, spending $60,000-plus on something they claim they aren’t planning to do “right now” is as fiscally irresponsible as it is insulting to the taxpayers who are paying for it.  So we’re happy to give “credit” for this incipient fiasco where credit is due: The Library’s Executive Director, Janet Van de Carr, and the following Library Board members:

John Schmidt (President)
Shlomo Crandus (Vice President)
Margaret Harrison (Secretary)
Dorothy Hynous (Treasurer)
Eileen O’Neill-Burke
John Benka
Kathleen de Grasse
Patricia Lofthouse
Richard T. Van Metre 

And let’s not forget the man behind the curtain who appointed or re-appointed all of these Library Board members: Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark, who has voiced his support for a new or bigger Library on several occasions. 

We see your dog, Mr. Mayor, but where are you hiding your pony?

Last Friday we suggested another alternative to locating a PADS homeless shelter at St. Paul of the Cross: Locating it at the Park Ridge Senior Center, where there are no children and where the hours of operation are more compatible with the PADS operation. 

PADS supporters Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and one of his more generous campaign contributors, local attorney Jack “Mr. Insider” Owens, are both reportedly Senior Center members, so we’re pretty sure they could convince their fellow members to put a PADS shelter there.  Plus fellow PADS supporter Dick Barton is the Park Ridge Park District Board president, so the three of them should be able to work some intergovernmental cooperation magic with the Senior Center, a Park District facility, if they really want to.

There’s a Park Board meeting this Thursday (July 17) at 7:30 p.m. at Park District headquarters (the Maine Leisure Center, 2701 Sibley).  If anybody wants to sound out Mr. Barton and the Park Board members about whether the Park District would support the Senior Center as an alternative to St. Paul of the Cross for a PADS shelter, that would be a good time to do it. 

Meanwhile, we received the following 12-point proposal from one of the Concerned St. Paul parents, and it appears to have even more merit than the Senior Center – because it takes the Palatine-based PADS corporation (PADS to HOPE, Inc.) out of the equation and puts local resources totally under local control to focus on our local homeless:

1. We DO NOT INVOLVE the PADS people at all. Their screening is not satisfactory and their program has been dangerous in other towns. Their system only offers one night of undignified help and invites in homeless from other towns. PADS will increase the homeless population in Park Ridge. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

2. The Park Ridge Police Department would locate and identify the PARK RIDGE HOMELESS (which likely number 6-10 individuals). The PARK RIDGE HOMELESS are then fingerprinted to ensure that none of these individuals are a danger to us or our children.

3. Every church in PRMA would shelter one homeless person per night. This idea eliminates a large group assembling around a church before and after they are sheltered.

4. The homeless would be sheltered in the rectory or another location in the church, but not in an area used by children.

5. Volunteers (and there are many) would be scheduled to come to each location, actually meet the homeless person, and bring a warm meal. Many volunteers and their families may want to spend time with the guest, have dinner with them, and engage them in meaningful conversation. (Rather than just “supervise” them as PADS volunteers do.) This would be a great way to teach children about how to care for others.

6. An additional volunteer can take the persons clothing home to be washed and returned fresh and clean (something else that is lacking in the current plan.)

7. With this system, the homeless can also spend time with one of our priests and discuss our faith (something that is actually prohibited by PADS policy).

8. Unlike the PADS idea, the homeless would not be forced to share a bathroom with 10-20 other homeless people, or wait in line for a toilet.

9. A comfortable fold out bed can be purchased for the guest to sleep on, in a dignified location, rather than on a hard mat or cot on the floor of a gym.

10. The guest could have access to a shower, a television set, and caring people. The PADS system would require the homeless to wash themselves in a sink in the boys bathroom.

11. In the morning, the guest would have breakfast and leave – showered, wearing clean clothes, and feeling that they just spent time with good Christian people who truly care about them. Their experience would be far more meaningful and dignified than any PADS shelter could offer.

12. Finally, as the guest leaves, he would be told which church to go to that night. That would ensure that only one person shows up at each location. It also ensures that we take care of the Park Ridge homeless, and not people from Chicago and other suburbs.

Additionally, this program addresses the issue 7 days a week. PADS only addresses it for one day. This program spreads the homeless out at numerous churches, rather than a large number at one location.

Frankly, this proposal sounds a whole lot more “Christian” than the one-night-per-week, feel-good-with-minimal-inconvenience PADS version that the Park Ridge Ministerial Association leaped to embrace for reasons we still can’t quite understand, unless all those “Christians” running the PRMA really were looking only for a no muss, no fuss turn-key operation that required the least possible commitment and accountability – a Christianity “Lite” version more concerned with expanding the PADS franchise to a new community then with actually solving our local homeless problem.

And better yet, the Concerned Parent proposal would be more likely to maintain the local homeless people’s ties to this community, thereby increasing the chances of their escaping homelessness at rates that exceed the meager results that PADS has been producing from its “if it’s Tuesday, this must be Schaumburg” musical-communities model.

Plus it looks to us like the Senior Center proposal and the Concerned Parent proposal could be pursued on parallel tracks simultaneously.  That’s good, because either of them appears to be a substantial improvement over the current St. Paul PADS plan.  

Well done, Concerned St. Paul Parent!  And another good idea produced by the NIMBY mentality.

As is becoming known both by word of mouth and newspaper reports, the attempt by St. Paul of the Cross pastor Fr. Carl Morello and the Park Ridge Ministerial Association to bring a PADS homeless shelter to St. Paul’s school is dividing the members of that parish.  We think a better solution is available.  

That’s why, in a previous post, Better Than PADS And Affordable, Too (6/9/08), we offered one alternative to locating a PADS to Hope, Inc. “franchise” in a school or church building, where it poses a risk to children: Rent rooms for the homeless at one of the local motels each Sunday night.  The cost to each of the 12 member churches of the Park Ridge Ministerial Association for rooms at a motel like the Days Inn on Touhy Avenue in Niles could be as little as $1,500 per PADS “season.”

But that’s not the only solution.  There’s another one that involves a public building that the taxpayers are already subsidizing to the tune of approximately $200,000 a year: The Park Ridge Senior Center, at 100 South Western Avenue. 

The Senior Center has a multi-purpose room that can easily hold the same amount of homeless “guests” that are contemplated for St. Paul of the Cross, along with bathroom facilities and a kitchen.  It’s got its own adjacent parking for “guests” who will be driving there.  It’s also surrounded by park land and a good half block away from both Washington Elementary and Lincoln Middle schools.

And unlike St. Paul of the Cross, where the Sunday night PADS session would displace that school’s customary slate of Sunday night school sports activities and bump up against its Monday morning 7:00 a.m. extended-day student program, the Senior Center hours are much more accommodating.  The Center closes at 5:00 p.m. Sunday and doesn’t re-open on Monday morning until 9:00 a.m.

What will it take to get this deal done?  Obviously, it will need the endorsement of the Park Ridge Ministerial Association, whose next display of common sense and community sensitivity on this issue will be its first.  And it will need the approval of PADS, which has built its corporate franchise and brand on putting homeless shelters in churches and schools. 

But those should be only minor impediments for the PADS proponents throughout the community, especially considering that two of the more prominent local PADS supporters are Park Ridge Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and Park District president Dick Barton, under whose jurisdiction the Senior Center falls.  Not only are Frimark and Barton friends, but Frimark is also reportedly a Senior Center member – so he should be able to marshal the support of his fellow Center’s members for what he considers a very worthy cause.

Of course, the PADS shelter will still need a special use permit from the City, but putting the shelter at a public building will at leaset eliminate that pesky “separation of Church and State” issue that PADS and the PRMA keep whining about.  And getting a special use permit should be right up the alley of another Senior Center member and PADS supporter, local attorney Jack “Mr. Insider” Owens, who has been counseling Fr. Morello in bringing the PADS to St. Paul. 

If a PADS shelter in Park Ridge really is as good an idea as its supporters insist it is, we can’t imagine the triumvirate of Frimark, Barton and Owens failing to make this deal happen if they really put their minds to it. 

Gentlemen?

Monday’s post about the Taste of Park Ridge, run by Taste of Park Ridge NFP, an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, provoked so many questions and comments that we thought the topic deserved a second discussion – which we will devote primarily to questions raised by previous comments:

Question 1: Did the Chamber of Commerce willingly give up “the Taste” (event) in 2005; and, if so, why (lack of profit, too much work, lack of volunteers)?

Question 2: Who elects/selects the officers of Taste of Park Ridge NFP (especially if, as commentator and former 5th Ward Ald. Joe Baldi insists, it has no shareholders)?

Question 3: Why isn’t the Taste of Park Ridge NFP identified on the “Taste” website as the owner/operator of Taste (the event)?  Is it a secret?

Question 4: Since Taste (the corporation) effectively is receiving a monopoly from the City to run a festival that closes off one of our main business streets and receives ample assistance from the City and the Park District, why doesn’t it publicize its financials on its website as a show of good faith and in gratitude for its government-sanctioned monopoly?

Question 5: Because there is so much emphasis on “volunteers” for the Taste (the event), do any of the Taste corporation’s officers or directors, or any of the committee members, receive any compensation for their services, or any contracts to provide event-related services (insurance, security, fencing, etc.)?

Question 6: Why did Taste (the corporation) contribute $1,000 to Friends of Bob Dudzyc on September 10, 2007?  What other “contributions”/”donations” has Taste (the corporation) made since 2005?

Question 7: How many “scholarships” has Taste (the corporation) given out, in what amounts were they, were they all awarded in connection with essay contests (like the 2007 one), who have been the winners/recipients, and where can we read the winning essay(s)?

Question 8: Why is there no mention of the essay contest, winners or general information on the Taste website, especially since (as Joe Baldi helpfully pointed out) the March 22, 2007 Herald-Advocate article reporting the contest contained the direction: “For general information on the event, visit www.tasteofparkridge.com or call (847) 297-2510, Ext. 237)?

Question 9: Who has provided the insurance for Taste (the event and the corporation) from 2005 to the present?

Question 10: Who are all the vendors and how much are each of them paid?

Now, we’re sure these questions and the comments that follow are going to upset some people.  That’s not our purpose, but it is an acceptable collateral benefit if it gets more of our resident “sheep” to start looking out for those who want to shear them.  

Because a “Culture of Corruption” can’t exist without a “Culture of Secrecy.”

Like many Park Ridge residents, we look forward to the “Taste of Park Ridge” each summer.  Since its inception several years ago, it has added a welcome festive air to our community every summer. 

But recently a reader expressed surprise to have learned that “the Taste” is being run by a private not-for-profit corporation: Taste of Park Ridge NFP, which (according to the Illinois Secretary of State) was incorporated June 22, 2005. 

Interestingly enough, we could find no mention of any corporate status on the Taste’s website (www.tasteofparkridge.com), although such a status is suggested by the website’s listing of officers and directors [pdf]: Dave Iglow, president; Bob Dudycz, vice-president; Jim Bruno, treasurer; Albert Galus, secretary; and directors Dean Patras, Sandy Svizzero and Barb Tyksisnki. 

Also identified on the Taste’s website is a Taste “committee” [pdf], of which Dudycz is “chairman” and which includes corporate officers/directors Iglow, Bruno, Galus, Patras, Svizzero and Tyksinski, along with Carol Brown of the Park Ridge Police Dept., Mayor Howard Frimark, M. David Johnson of BDS Software, Park Ridge Economic Development Director Kim Uhlig, and John Warnimont of Activision Electric. 

One question raised by these corporate and committee structures that isn’t answered on the Taste website is a fundamental one: “Why was a private corporation formed to run an event that began (to the best of our recollection and research) as a venture run by the Chamber of Commerce with the City’s assistance?” 

That a private corporation would be formed to run an event like this is even more curious given that – as reported in last week’s Park Ridge Journal – Taste vice-president and committee chairman Bob Dudycz noted that: “Virtually all of the labor to run this event is by volunteers and community organizations,” such as the Park Ridge Police Department, the Park Ridge Fire Department, the Park Ridge Public Works Department, the City of Park Ridge Administrative Staff, the Park Ridge Library, the Park Ridge Park District, the Park Ridge Youth Campus, the Rotary Club, Kiwanis, and the Knights of Columbus. 

Another Dudycz comment reported in the Journal that got our attention is: “In past years, the Taste of Park Ridge board has contributed funds for college scholarships, and donated to local events and other worthy causes.”  Despite scouring the Taste website and Googling the Taste and the Taste corporation in various ways, we could find nothing about the identity of those scholarship recipients, the amounts awarded, the application process, the qualifications required for consideration, or exactly who makes the award decisions.  The same goes for the “local events” and the “other worthy causes” who allegedly benefitted from the Taste corporation’s largess.

While we are aware of no evidence that anything untoward is going on with the Taste, we can’t help but wonder why the people who appear to be in charge of it have kept so much of what they are doing secret – especially when so much of what they are doing is admittedly being accomplished primarily through the “volunteerism” of employees of the taxpayer-financed City and Park District governments, as well as of the taxpayers themselves.  The Taste corporation has its own website, so there is no excuse for not making all of this information readily available to the people who make the Taste a success year after year. 

We’ve repeatedly criticized the City and the other local governmental bodies for fostering the “Culture of Secrecy” with their closed session meetings, confidential memos and their spin-meisters masquerading as “public information officers.”  We think the same criticism should apply to the “Culture of Secrecy” being practiced by the Taste corporation, which is effectively acting as a quasi-public entity that derives the vast majority of its revenues and goodwill from its monopoly of what may be our largest civic event.

If there’s nothing to hide, people, then why all the secrecy? Since you already toot your own horn (deservedly so) in connection with the Taste event itself, why not tell the community the details about all these other things that you claim to do?

How about starting with letting all those Park Ridge families who help enrich the Taste corporation’s coffers each summer know exactly how their students can go about getting one of those scholarships? 

Update 7/10/08:

We regret that we failed to discover what appears to be the single reference to “Taste of Park Ridge NFP” – the corporation that took over the Taste event in 2005 – as easily as some of the Taste’s (corporation’s) apologists who finally directed us there yesterday. 

We made the silly mistake of expecting to find the Taste (corporation) identified on the “Home” page of the Taste (event) website when, instead, we should have realized that we needed to go to the “Canopies on Courtland” tab, then select the “contract” link, then read through the 19 references to “Taste of Park Ridge” or “Taste of Park Ridge Committee” in the “Application and Sponsorship Contract” [pdf] until we finally got to that single reference to “Taste of Park Ridge NFP” in the very last paragraph, under the “Indemnification” heading.  We can’t imagine why we didn’t think of looking there first! 

Which actually illustrates our point about the “Culture of Secrecy.”  If the average citizen needs even that much luck and/or effort to find such basic information about exactly who/what runs our community’s most prominent annual event, then somebody’s trying to hide it – just as the Taste (corporation or event) chose not to advertise its $1,000 contribution to Taste (corporation) vice-president and Taste (event) chairman Bob Dudyzc’s campaign fund, either.  Wonder why?

But we sure hope that Joe Baldi and those other Taste (corporation) apologists help us out by providing the answers to our other questions posed in yesterday’s “Time For A Transparent Taste – Part 2” – or at least tell us in which other obscure places on the Taste website we might find them. 

Happy Fourth of July!

This week’s issue of Time magazine contains an essay titled “Patriot Games” by Peter Beinart, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, which articulates a view of patriotism that is worth our consideration:

Patriotism should be proud but not blind, critical yet loving.  And liberals and conservatives should agree that if patriotism entails no sacrifice, if it is all faith and no works, then something has gone wrong.  The American who volunteers to fight in Iraq and the American who protests the war both express a truer patriotism than the American who treats it as a distant spectacle with no claim on his talents or conscience.

Why not give some consideration this Independence Day to doing a bit more to live your patriotism?  Think about getting involved in our local government, where you don’t need to drop a hundred thousand dollar contribution to get somebody’s ear. 

Start by simply paying attention.  Read what our local governmental bodies – the City Council, the District 64 and District 207 school boards, and the Park District board – are doing, and start thinking critically about it.  Does it make sense?  Does it sound like the best practice or procedure?  Does it sound like a wise use of our tax dollars?  Is it good for our community?

Then get to know at least one or two of your elected representatives, starting with your alderman.  Call them up, send them an e-mail, let them know what you think about the issues confronting them. Give up the occasional Cubs or Sox game on TV and go to a meeting to see exactly how the process really works…or doesn’t.

Because if enough of us start doing this and doing it often enough, maybe…just maybe…we’ll start getting the government we want and deserve.

Tuesday night a minor miracle occurred at Park Ridge City Hall.  No, Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark didn’t turn some lead balloon idea into gold for one of his campaign contributors.  No, Taste of Park Ridge NFP (the corporation) didn’t book Bruce Springsteen to headline at Taste of Park Ridge (the event).  This was much more significant, perhaps even profound.

A number of St. Paul of the Cross parishioners mustered the courage to publicly challenge their pastor, Fr. Carl Morello, on a local government matter: his decision to put a PADS homeless shelter in St. Paul School. 

Approximately 60 of them showed up at the City Council’s Procedures and Regulation (“P&R”) Committee meeting for the discussion of whether St. Paul needed a special use permit under the city’s zoning code in order to host a PADS shelter there.  And to anybody who loves our form of government – the way our Founding Fathers intended it to work, not the crass and corrupt way it often operates here in Illinois – it was an inspiring sight.

The discussion opened with Fr. Morello reiterating the Park Ridge Ministerial Association (“PRMA”) party line that a PADS shelter is part of their religious ministry and, consequently, they aren’t bound by city zoning laws.  If Morello expected the kind of reception he gets when preaching from his pulpit, however, he must have been sorely disappointed. 

One after another, his parishioners – many wearing “Protect Our Children” buttons – repudiated the notion that “Father Knows Best” as they asked P&R committee members Ald. Jim Allegretti, Ald. Tom Carey and Ald. Dave Schmidt to do what Morello would not do: put the safety of their children ahead of whatever “right” the card-carrying PADS-certified homeless might have to a Sunday night flophouse in Park Ridge. 

Several spoke timidly, occasionally glancing back nervously at Morello as he sat in the audience for what most Council watchers believe was his first time since the PADS shelter became an active topic on the City Council’s agenda.  Some even choked back tears while questioning how Morello could put their children at risk from PADS “clients” who suffer from alcohol, drug and mental illness. 

Some were defiant, reminding Morello that it was the parishioners who raised the millions of dollars needed to build the very gym that he, without even consulting them, has decided to turn over to the homeless every Sunday night from October through April.  They pointed out that PADS is a business instead of a ministry, they questioned the motives of PADS and the PRMA in bringing non-Park Ridge homeless to Park Ridge, and they suggested alternatives such as putting the homeless up at nearby motels or in the Park Ridge Senior Center.

One of the most courageous appearances was by St. Paul school board member Jan Whitelaw, who reportedly has been pressured by St. Paul parishioners for her “disloyalty” in publicly expressing her disagreement with Morello.  She recited the health and safety risks presented by the homeless shelter and noted that many St. Paul parishioners are afraid to even question Morello about these and other matters. 

As best as we can tell, only one speaker offered a half-hearted defense of a PADS shelter in Park Ridge: Zoning Board of Appeals member Gary Zimmerman, who warned the Committee that the Archdiocese would fight the City in court if the City required a Special Use Permit for the shelter.  That brought a pointed response from Schmidt, who noted that this is a governmental rather than a religious issue and that the Archdiocese cannot be allowed to dictate whether and how the City will enforce its laws.

Unfortunately, Morello didn’t hear most of these comments.  Shortly after being admonished by Chairman Allegretti for trying to turn the hearing into a debate by speaking a second time before others had a chance to speak once, Morello walked out of the Council chambers with his Social Service Ministry Director, Adrienne Timm, in tow – followed moments later by his legal counsel, Jack “Mr. Insider” Owens.  They huddled outside City Hall for awhile before Morello reportedly adjourned to Hay Caramba.  The consensus among a number of the parishioners present?  Morello’s departure was nothing less than disrespect for their views and for the Council. 

Mayor Frimark, on the other hand, stayed until that discussion was over.  As he was leaving, he was politely confronted on the City Hall steps by several of the parishioners who asked for his commitment to support the special use permit requirement.  Frimark did his politician’s best to dodge those questions as long as he could, finally suggesting all the other people they should be lobbying before taking his leave.  Don’t expect to find a Harry Truman-style “The buck stops here” sign on his desk.

But the night belonged to the St. Paul parishioners and to Fr. Morello.  The former showed what paying attention and becoming politically active can do.  And the latter showed what happens when a clergyman gets confused about what gets rendered to God and what must be rendered to “Caesar.”  

Summer’s back, and with it the power outages that have vexed our community for years.  So far this month alone there have been several power interruptions, including at least two significant outages, the most recent one occurring yesterday afternoon that lasted several hours and that ComEd was reportedly blaming on some problem in Evanston.

What’s our Mayor, Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark, doing to alleviate this problem? 

After large portions of Park Ridge lost power for as much as four days last August, Frimark made a grand gesture of bringing in ComEd public relations people to explain why we continue to have regular outages and what it was doing to alleviate them.  The report from residents who attended those meetings: “Same stuff, different day.”

As part of those Frimark-orchestrated dog-and-pony shows, ComEd admitted to 268 power interruptions in 2007, most of which were “miscellaneous equipment malfunctions, fallen trees and branches, and weather — primarily lightning and wind.”  ComEd’s p.r. folks promised a variety of actions to remedy the problem.  Consequently, back in April we asked what Frimark and City staff were doing to make sure ComEd was making good on its promises. (“Still Powerless In Park Ridge,” April 23, 2008)  The silence from City Hall has been deafening.

We also suggested that maybe Frimark should consider following the lead of the Village of Deerfield, which in April sued ComEd for bad service as reflected in 223 service interruptions last year.  Again, not a sound from Frimark, who’s idea of acting “mayoral” runs more toward posing for ribbon-cutting photos, planning events like Taste of Park Ridge, and arranging sweetheart deals for his friends and campaign contributors.

Since we reported on the Deerfield suit, we have discovered that Hinsdale is considering such a suit; and that the City of Darien sued ComEd in 2005, also because of poor service.  The Darien suit prompted a settlement that caused ComEd to spend $3.4 million to repair more than 14,000 feet of cable and other aging technology.  As a result, outages are down almost 50% since 2005, to a rate of 1.38 outages per resident per year – compared to ComEd’s system-wide average of 1.57 outages.  

We’re not necessarily suggesting that a lawsuit is the only way to get ComEd to provide us with dependable power,  but we haven’t seen much in the way of results from anything else the City has done so far.  And if suing ComEd is what it will take to get a few million dollars in repairs and improvements to our power grid, we think that’s definitely worth a lot more consideration than our mayor and City Council have given it.

But that will require Mr. Frimark to start acting like a real mayor.  

It takes a lot to grab our attention twice in one week, but Park Ridge Alderpuppet Robert Ryan (5th Ward) has done it with his letter in yesterday’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate in which he offers his excuses for what last week’s H-A article and editorial called the worst attendance record on the City Council – and which prompted our Monday posting (“Saving Ald. Ryan?” June 23).

Ryan’s “defense” to the H-A’s critique is pretty much just more excuses, including his continuing insistence that he’s a really busy guy, albeit with a new twist: he argues that even if he misses his committee meetings, he still attends other (unofficial?) meetings related to City issues. 

Once again, we remind Mr. Ryan that Council rules don’t give him the right to pick and choose which of his job duties he wants to perform, or give him the right to engage in “make up” meetings of his choosing in lieu of attending the meetings of the committees to which he is assigned.  And once again, we say to Mr. Ryan: Do what the job requires, or step aside and let somebody else do it. 

While Ryan’s I’m-so-busy excuse is merely flimsy, his proposal that the City Council’s four main standing committees be effectively handed over to a cadre of appointed “subject matter experts” on whose “expert unbiased recommendations” the Council can rely for its decision-making, is substantially more troubling.  In short, Ryan envisions a City government run by un-elected appointees, legally accountable to no one, who get their positions of power because (at best) they may have technical “subject matter” expertise; and/or because (at worst) they enjoy the political, social and/or financial favor of the elected official(s) who will be appointing them.

Ryan’s proposal, while revolutionary for City government, isn’t really all that novel.  It’s the main argument raised in defense of special-interest lobbyists whose sponsors point proudly to all the specialized knowledge and expertise they provide to the poor ignorant legislators and their overworked and underpaid staffs.  It almost sounds patriotic – until you consider the lobbying scandals and the billions of tax dollars arguably wasted on “pork barrel” projects the lobbyists support.

Frankly, we haven’t seen a whole lot of value from all the “experts” (i.e., the hired-gun consultants) the City and the other local governmental bodies have utilized over the years.  As best as we can tell – because nobody in local government ever really tries to quantify such things – the benefit to the taxpayers of all the “expert” recommendations runs from modest to zero.

Why would we expect any better performance from volunteer “subject matter experts” from the community, especially in light of Mr. Ryan’s own observation that we can’t expect all that much from “volunteer” elected officials? 

More importantly, the American form of government was founded not on a lemming-like reliance upon the opinions of appointed “subject matter experts” but, instead, on the reasoned judgment of elected representatives (as James Madison writes in Federalist No. 10) “whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.”

If we really do need “subject matter experts” on any City committees or commissions doing the decision-making on significant issues, that’s probably a pretty good (or bad, if you prefer) sign that at least some members of the City’s paid staff are not providing an appropriate standard of competence and diligence.  And the same might also be said about our elected officials, especially the Frimark Aderpuppet majority which has dominated the Council for the past year.

But as to the latter, we won’t be able to tell until we first know for sure that they’re all actually showing up.