Eight years ago mayoral candidate Dave Schmidt sparked the flame of good government when he promised to bring H.I.T.A. – Honesty, Integrity, Transparency and Accountability – to a City administration that was bereft of those principles. He also pledged to put taxpayers first because there would be no City government without the taxes they provide.

Since then that flame has grown stronger and burned brighter, finally becoming a torch that illuminated the workings of City government through initiatives like televised meetings, the online posting of meeting materials in advance of meetings, and reducing closed sessions to the barest minimum.

Yesterday that torch was officially passed to a new generation of leaders with the election of Marty Maloney, a staunch Mayor Dave ally and an even stauncher proponent of H.I.T.A., as mayor of Park Ridge.

His election alone, by a margin of roughly 70% to 30%, would have been enough to keep Park Ridge on the H.I.T.A. path and moving forward in all other respects, especially because it was accompanied by the re-election of pro-H.I.T.A. aldermen Nick Milissis, Marc Mazzuca and Roger Shubert.

But that wasn’t the half of it.

The voters of Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 made their voices heard with the election of vocal H.I.T.A. proponents Rick Biagi and Fred Sanchez to that Star Chamber Board which, by our unofficial tally, leads all units of Park Ridge local government in the number of closed sessions it holds, and in the obfuscation that comes with them. At the same time those voters just said “No!” to three candidates whose most notable – and controversial – qualification for office was that they all were married to D-64 teachers and shamelessly wanted to put themselves in the untenable position of voting on their wives’ raises and working conditions. Or recusing themselves, thereby effectively reducing the Board to the bare mininum of four members required to do business.

That was about as anti-H.I.T.A. as you could get, and the voters wisely rejected such shamelessness.

Over at the Park Ridge Park District, Harmony Harrington, Jim Janak, Rob Leach and Jim O’Donnell – although not espousing H.I.T.A. by name – advanced many of its principles in their successful campaigns to oust two decidedly non-H.I.T.A. incumbents and their two unofficial running mates.

The same can be said for successful Maine Twp. High School District 207 candidate Linda Coyle, who we understand was, ironically enough, a law school classmate of Mayor Dave’s.

All told, yesterday may have been the single greatest across-the-board good government day Park Ridge has had in decades – in no small measure because it was a victory, first and foremost, of principles instead of just personalities.

But make no mistake about it: Yesterday’s victories didn’t make everybody happy.

There are still residents, some of them very brazen and vocal, with special-interest axes to grind and a related lust for spending OPM (“Other People’s Money). These residents will continue to denigrate H.I.T.A. as a kind of code word for “conservative” (shudder) or “Republican” (double shudder) guys and gals.

That’s just sour grapes from folks who can’t accept the voters’ repudiation of the dishonest and failed tax, borrow and spend policies of local governments past and present.

So don’t be surprised if those naysayers try to demean yesterday’s results by decrying the “low turnout” – which was 28.29% for the mayoral race, down from the 34.87% of 2013. A similar decline in voters was also the case for the other races as well.

But it was the late Rev. Theodore Hesburgh who stated: “Voting is a civic sacrament.” So those who refused that sacrament deserve whatever damnation they may subsequently complain about as being visited on them by yesterday’s winners.

The H.I.T.A. revolution, while started by Schmidt and advanced by the aforementioned winners, hasn’t been the work of any one person, or even several people. Instead it has been the work of hundreds of Park Ridge citizens who initially believed that local government could be made better than it was, more cost-effective than it was, and more respectful of the taxpayers than it was. But where H.I.T.A. really gained traction was when those same people came to realize that making local government better in those aforementioned ways actually was an achievable goal.

Schmidt’s election in 2009 and his re-election by an even larger margin in 2013 proved that. So did the elections and re-elections of Alds. Maloney and Dan Knight in 2011 and 2015, respectively, as well as the election and/or re-election of Alds. Mazzuca, Moran, Milissis, Shubert and the other aldermen who served on the Council these past several years.

Now it’s time for Maloney and the rest of yesterday’s victors to emerge from the long H.I.T.A. shadow Schmidt created and start creating shadows of their own by walking their campaign talk.

And doing so in bright sunlight.

That will be most challenging for Biagi and Sanchez at D-64, where there is a longstanding anti-H.I.T.A. bias and culture, and where they likely will have to confront Board president (and closed-session aficionado) Tony “Who’s the Boss?” Borrelli and his puppetmaster, Supt. Laurie “I’m the Boss!” Heinz, right out of the gate. Whether Biagi and Sanchez can get any support from Board members Mark Eggemann and Tom Sotos – heretofore regular rubber-stampers of Borrelli’s closed-session motions and uber-secrecy about the PREA contract and Heinz’s contract extension – remains to be seen. So do the proclivities of newbies Larry Ryles and Eastman Tiu.

Over at D-207, Coyle will find herself surrounded by Board members afraid of their own shadows – and, therefore, possessed by a vampire-like fear of sunlight likely engendered by the desire to avoid any accountability for Maine South’s continuing and heretofore ignored decline in the rankings of Illinois high schools.

These local races, however, need to be viewed in the context of our state government which, over the past 40 years, seems to have grown as ethically bankrupt as it has grown financially bankrupt. That state of corruption won’t be reversed overnight.

But maybe, just maybe, the torch of good government passed last evening to these new Park Ridge leaders can also light the way for the officials of other communities to raise their games and adopt H.I.T.A. as the overarching principle of good government in their own communities – which can, in turn, start a grassroots turnaround statewide.

If so, it’s you voters who showed up yesterday to put your own imprints on local government – by means of the candidates you elected – who will deserve the credit.

Well done, voters!

To read or post comments, click on title.

Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 and Maine Twp. High School District 207, cumulatively, consume in the neighborhood of $200 million of our tax dollars…each year – or around 70% of our entire property tax bills.

And growing.

Yet over the past several years many/most ratings and rankings show a decline by the schools of both districts – with D-207 flagship Maine South now ranked as low as 45th in Illinois, according to the 2016 U.S. News & World Reports rankings. As we noted in our 04.22.16 post, that’s down 16 slots from 2012.

Worse yet, the “College Readiness” of Maine South’s students is a meager 40.8%, trailing not only the likes of New Trier, Stevenson, the Glenbrooks (North and South), Deerfield, Highland Park, the Hinsdales (Central and South) but, also the likes of Wheeling and Elk Grove – despite comparable-or-higher teacher and administrator salaries, and comparable-or-lower student to teacher ratios.

And off-the-record conversations with a few long-time Maine South teachers suggest that a key reason why Maine South’s performance is declining is because the kids coming into South – the majority of whom are D-64 grads – aren’t high school ready.

But to listen to the D-207 Board and administration, and the Maine South administration, everything’s just ducky. Or peachy, if you prefer. And that’s the same bag of heifer dust being scattered about by the D-64 Board and administration – even though both D-207 and D-64 have some of the highest-paid teachers and administrators in the state, and have among the highest costs per pupil.

Those high costs and salaries might be justified if the performance demonstrated real value to the taxpayers who are footing the bills. But higher taxes and lower performance is an unsustainable model for the long-term attractiveness of Park Ridge.

D-207:   Four (4) seats are being contested by 5 candidates: Incumbents Carla Owen and Jin Lee; and challengers Aurora Austriaco, Linda Coyle and Dan Gott.

We didn’t endorse Owen or Lee when they ran in 2013, and you can read why in our 04.01.13 post. Since then, all that has changed is that Maine South has slid further in the rankings, so we can come up with no conceivable reason why they deserve re-election.

Unfortunately, because the current lineup of candidates will leave on odd-man/woman out, we would encourage the voters to leave Jin Lee without a chair when the music stops – if only because (a) he has expressed an almost total disregard for the taxpayers; and (b) he’s trying to institute a “global educational” initiative, including matching up one or more D-207 schools with schools in Korea and elsewhere, without any suggestion that such globalism will stop the ranking slide or increase the levels of student college-readiness.

Of the 3 challengers, Linda Coyle is the star by far. An attorney who has served on both the Park Ridge Planning & Zoning Commission and the D-207 Community Advisory Council, she consistently has demonstrated sound thinking and a firm grasp of taxes-to-value analysis that is currently MIA on the D-207 Board. And her belief that the D-207 board “must spend the taxpayers’ money carefully…[while] ensuring that each dollar is directed at providing the strongest learning environment possible for our children” is a refreshing change from Jin Lee’s spend-without-results compulsion.

D-64:     Seven (7) non-incumbents are vying for four (4) seats created by the departures of Bob Johnson, Vicki Lee, Dathan Paterno and Scott Zimmerman.

Given their D+ performances (and a grade of F when it comes to transparency), It’s hard to conceive of their replacements being anything but an improvement. Amazingly (and sadly) enough, however, three of those challengers – Greg Bublitz, Norman Dziedzic and Michael Schaab – are almost guaranteed to be as bad or even worse, by virtue of the fact that they are all married to D-64 teachers. So if they are elected, they will get to vote not only on the 2020 teachers’ contract but, also, on various other conditions of employment and even teacher disciplinary issues that arise in the interim.

Whether that’s just the appearance of impropriety or an outright conflict of interest might require a lawsuit to actually establish. But for the reasons we discussed in greater depth in our 03.07.17 post and our 03.15.17 post, we see no sane reason why D-64’s already-H.I.T.A. (Honesty. Integrity. Transparency. Accountability)-challenged School Board should be burdened with either of those potential integrity breaches.

The other 4 candidates are Rick Biagi, Larry Ryles, Fred Sanchez and Eastman Tiu, all of whom are preferable to the “3 Hubbies.”

Of those 4, however, the stars clearly are Rick Biagi and Alfred “Fred” Sanchez, both of whom are attorneys, strong proponents of H.I.T.A. and strong proponents of maximizing educational value for our tax dollars. They also are staunch opponents of the D-64 Board’s regular abuse of secretive “closed session” meetings.

Biagi is completing his second 4-year term on the Park Ridge Park District Board, where he twice led the Board as president. Both he and Sanchez are founding members of the Park Ridge Holiday Lights Fund committee. Both of them have children currently attending D-64 schools, as well as children who have graduated from D-64 schools, with Sanchez himself being a D-64 grad.

Only by electing candidates like Biagi and Sanchez can we hope to improve the quality of education for D-64 students while also improving the value of D-64 to its taxpayers.

DISCLAIMER: The editor of this blog serves with Biagi and Sanchez on the Park Ridge Holiday Lights Fund committee.

To read or post comments, click on title.

For many years the Park Ridge Park District has had the highest number of contested races, and this year is no exception.

First-term incumbents Joan Bende and Jim Phillips appear to be running on an unofficial “slate” with newcomers Carol Becker and Laurie Pegler Mallin for four seats on the 7-member Park Board. Phillips, in a March 24 letter to the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate, claims that those four are the true “Friends of the Parks” – running against alleged “Republican candidates” while identifying only Jim O’Donnell, former Republican candidate for State Senator, by name.

For us, Phillips’ – and his running mates’ – philosophy of government is captured in Phillips’ minimizing the District’s recent tax increase as “the amount added to the typical property tax bill this year is $3.42, the price of a cup of coffee at Starbucks!” Politicians who demean tax increases in that fashion rarely have any respect for the taxpayers or the money taken from those taxpayers.

That was demonstrated four years ago when Bende and Phillips also ran on an unofficial “slate” with then-incumbent Steven Vile – billed as “The Last Three” because of their ballot positions. Their major issue then was support of private corporation Senior Services Inc. and its efforts to walk away with hundreds of thousands of dollars bequeathed to what was then known as the Senior Center, which they used to form their own short-lived senior club in Niles.

Vile lost his bid, but Bende and Phillips did not. And, not surprisingly, during the past four years they have consistently voted for annual property tax increases, voted against competitive bidding, and voted against repeal of the District’s policy of freebie uses and memberships of District facilities by Board members, and have regularly blanched at the mere thought that the Park District can be operated somewhat like a business.

Yet the Park District is the unit of local government best suited to operating on a business model.

It is both the smallest, budget-wise, and least essential of our four units of local government: Its 2017 budget of $22 million is less than 1/3 that of either the City or Park Ridge-Niles School District 64, and less than 1/6 that of Maine Twp. High School District 207. And most, if not all, of its facilities and services are amenities – albeit desirable ones – rather than necessities like police, sewer, water, or education.

Unfortunately, there were no debates (or “forums,” for those gentle souls like the League of Women Voters who view debates as too harsh and adversarial, if not downright traumatic) for the Park Board candidates. That prevented the Bende/Phllips/Becker/Mallin “slate” from having to answer hard questions about the costs and cost-effectiveness of their cause celebre this time around: The GoGreen “natural” method of grass, tree and plant management.

But from information about the candidates – available primarily from the March 9 Park Ridge Herald-Advocate article (“Q&A with eight candidates running for the Park Ridge Park District Board”) and Facebook– we believe the best choices for filling the four Park Board vacancies are first-time Park Board candidates who (in alphabetical order) favor a more business-oriented approach to District operations: Harmony Harrington, Jim Janek, Bob Leach and Jim O’Donnell.

Harrington is an attorney and lobbyist, which makes her the candidate best-suited to pursue the private partnerships and grants she believes can supplement the property taxes and user fees now funding the Park District. She believes that “a healthy park district needs to operate like a business, use market-based principles yet maintain affordable access. While we all pay our share of taxes – 5% of our City of Park Ridge tax bill goes to the Park District – those taxes cannot cover all Park District amenities. Hence, the reliance on market-based user fees is essential.”

She also believes that “for major capital projects outside our current means, public referendum is a very important component.” Exactly right!

Janak is running with O’Donnell. Both of them favor voter input, via referendum, as a condition of any tax levy increase. That novel idea means that the Park Board would need to anticipate its revenue requirements and levy on a two-year basis to correspond to the odd-year local election calendar, unless the District wished to also utilize the even-year primary and general election calendar. That might mean more work for the Board and staff, but it would also ensure more thought than currently goes into the moronic “Use It Or Lose It” reflexive increases favored by Bende and Phillips, which would also mean greater taxpayer scrutiny and accountability.

They also realize that the competition from other recreation and fitness vendors like the new Fitness Formula Club (“FFC”) only a few blocks from the District’s Centennial Fitness Center (f/k/a the “Community Center”) requires that the District be more circumspect about the strengths and weaknesses of its facilities and programs.

Interestingly enough, Leach favors a two-year strategic plan – of a more readily understandable 20 pages instead of the current 331 pages – which would fit neatly into Janek’s and O’Donnell’s levy referendum process the he also supports. He wants the District to focus on improving the quality and value of those programs our residents actually want or need instead of trying to be all things to all people.

Harrington, Janak, Leach and O’Donnell deserve a shot at making the District a better value for all of our residents.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Only 2 of the 4 aldermanic seats whose terms are expiring this year have contested races: Nobody even attempted to challenge Ald. Nick Milissis in the 2d Ward, and the only challenger to Ald. Marc Mazzuca in the 6th Ward was tossed off the ballot because of insufficient valid nominating petition signatures.

3d Ward. When we first heard that there were four candidates for alderman of Park Ridge’s 3d Ward, we figured that was a misprint. After all, for the past 25 years or so the 3d Ward rarely even had a contested race. And the nadir was reached in 2011 when NOBODY filed candidate petitions, leaving Jim Smith to run uncontested as a write-in candidate.

None of the four technically is an “incumbent” because current 3d Ward Ald. Rick Van Roeyen was appointed by the Council after the death of Bob Wilkening only a few months into the term we won over Van Roeyen in April 2015. It is the final two years of Wilkening’s four-year term that are at stake this election.

Flooding is basically the 3d Ward’s political one-trick pony, which is why that was the No. 1 answer by all four candidates to the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate’s question: “What are the top issues facing Park Ridge today?”

Pasquale Laudando’s campaign, well-intended as it might be, has displayed the shortcomings of a candidate who has not been engaged very long in City issues. He has a few interesting ideas but they lack both depth and comprehensiveness. On the other hand, for the past four years that Vicki Lee has been a member of the Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 Board, her most significant contribution appears to have been helping provide a quorum – although we will miss her open-mouthed gum chewing when perusing D-64 meeting videos after May 1.

That leaves the race to Van Roeyen and Wilkening’s widow, Gail, who has never run for a City office but who was twice elected to 4-year terms on the Park Ridge Park District board (1997-2005).

Their answers to the H-A’s questionnaire and their performances at the March 2 candidates’ forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters (Laundando and Lee were MIA) were surprisingly similar: They both profess to be environmentally conscious; they both seem to support the creation of the proposed storm water utility; they both speak zealously about infrastructure maintenance, repair and replacement; and they both support Marty Maloney for mayor.

Although Wilkening has 8 years of government board experience to Van Roeyen’s 2, hers is over 10 years old and was for a much smaller unit of government. Van Roeyen’s experience is current and it’s been on the Council dealing with more varied and significant issues, and a much larger budget.

For that reason we give the edge to Van Roeyen.

4th Ward. This race is an inter-generational battle between incumbent Ald. Roger Shubert and challenger Jack Barnette, who was an alderman back in the 1980s when dinosaurs roamed Park Ridge, the Homeowners Party dominated City government, the Council was comprised of 14 aldermen, and none of them could even spell “transparency” or “accountability.”

Shubert ran four years ago as a supporter of then-mayor Dave Schmidt and as an adherent of Schmidt’s H.I.T.A. (“Honesty, Integrity, Transparency and Accountability”) platform. For the most part he has lived up to those principles, seeming to stray only on those occasions when he puts “politics” ahead of “government.” He also has a tendency to spread himself a bit thin because of his wide variety of extracurricular activities, although that also can serve to expand his perspectives on City issues.

Another difference between them is that Barnette seems to favor City activism in attracting business and controlling residential development, while Shubert has adopted the more laissez faire approach we favor – especially when government activism involves bureaucrats trying to outsmart the marketplace using taxpayer funds.

Barnette also recently attempted to distinguish his qualifications from Shubert’s by arguing, on Facebook, that he has “owned and lived in three different homes in Park Ridge” – paying the property taxes that the City Council is charged with levying and spending – while Shubert “has no real commitment to Park Ridge” because he “is renting a place here in the Fourth Ward…[and] pays no property tax.”

Sorry, Mr. Barnette, but Ald. Shubert has demonstrated his “real commitment to Park Ridge” by his Council service over the past four year. And at the risk of shaking your concept of real estate economics, property tax tends to be factored into the rent of both residential and commercial leases. If you can’t grasp that basic concept, perhaps the rest of the Council’s business might also be a bit too much of a challenge.

Shubert is the better choice.

DISCLAIMER: The editor of this blog serves with Ald. Shubert on the Park Ridge Holiday Lights Fund committee.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Six years ago we “strongly endorse[d]” Marty Maloney in his contested race for 7th Ward alderman. Today we endorse him even more strongly in his contested race for mayor of Park Ridge.

Back in 2011 we pointed to Maloney’s 8 years (2003-2011) as “the No. 1 fiscal hawk” on the Park Ridge Park District Board, as well as his key role in helping save the City more than $3 million in construction costs by his support of the intergovernmental agreement to relocate the City’s Uptown reservoir to Hinkley Park – instead of to the intended relocation site of the old City garage property at Greenwood and Elm. Doing so kept that site available for its ultimate sale to Lexington Homes in October 2015 for $1.4 million.

Maloney won the aldermanic seat handily over two other candidates.

During his first four-year term, Maloney – along with his Class of 2011 colleague Ald. Dan Knight (5th) – was so instrumental in helping then-Mayor Dave Schmidt turn around a City government left financially staggering and virtually-rudderless by former mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and his Alderpuppets, that both he and Knight were re-elected in 2015 without a single challenger between them.

Maloney’s support of Schmidt’s dedication to transparency resulted in the City’s receiving two consecutive “Sunshine” awards in each of the two years the City applied for it – 2014 and 2015 – while increasing its transparency scores from 86% to 94.8%. And by our unofficial count, the City leads the other three units of local government in fewest number of closed sessions.

When Maloney was selected by his Council peers in March 2015 to serve as Acting Mayor following Schmidt’s sudden death, he made it clear that the next two years were “the rest of Mayor Dave’s term.” And for the past two years Maloney has advanced Schmidt’s legacy of H.I.T.A.: Honesty, Integrity, Transparency and Accountability, the four pillars of good government regularly ignored by previous City administrations and effectively mocked by the boards of both of our school districts.

For that reason alone we could endorse Maloney for mayor.

But there’s more.

As alderman he supported Schmidt’s austerity measures and the tax hikes needed to rebuild the City’s fund balances, especially the General (operating) Fund’s, so that the City could stop tapping the Water Fund just to make payroll. He also supported refinancing the onerous Uptown TIF debt and various other financial measures to return the City’s finances to credibility.

That kind of fiscal management paid off in last June’s Moody’s Investors Service “Credit Opinion,” which removed the “negative outlook” that accompanied Moody’s downgrade of the City’s bond rating from Aa1 to Aa2 in late 2011, in large part because of the low General Fund balance and the TIF albatross. Maloney responded to that news by proclaiming his next goal “to raise the rating itself.” Doing so could save City taxpayers millions of dollars of interest if/when the City decides to issue the boatloads of bonds needed to finance infrastructure repair, replacement and/or improvement, including flood remediation.

Chalk up another reason for a Maloney endorsement.

As Acting Mayor, Maloney has continued Schmidt’s initiative of making Park Ridge friendlier to business while refusing to become a sucker for business. During his six years on the Council the storefronts in Uptown south of Touhy have begun to fill, with Holt’s taking over the long-empty former Pine’s space, Harp & Fiddle filling the long-empty Scharringhausen Pharmacy space, and Shakou converting the old Pioneer Press offices.

Maloney also appears to have learned well the lesson of the Uptown TIF: Being stupid and profligate with the public purse usually has harsh, unforeseen and/or unintended – and almost always long-lasting – consequences. That’s why he and the Council have not let themselves be stampeded into stupid and/or profligate decisions by the various special interests whose unenlightened self-interest would leave the City hemorrhaging cash and hog-tied by debt.

That’s yet another reason for our endorsement.

Four years ago we urged the re-election of Mayor Dave “based on his record, one that has been the most public and transparent of any mayor in Park Ridge’s history.” The same can be said about Maloney’s.

Don’t be confused by the differences in style between Schmidt and Maloney. Schmidt’s was your typical Germanic no-nonsense approach that was aptly described as a “Schmidtzkrieg,” while Maloney’s has the smoother edges of those folks with Emerald Isle origins. While Maloney tends to hide his iron fist inside a velvet glove, Schmidt was the iron fist inside the iron glove. But when it comes to City government we believe their values to be consonant.

Acting Mayor Maloney was true to his pledge that the past two years would be the remainder of Mayor Dave’s term. Now it’s time for him to build on Schmidt’s legacy and define himself while continuing to move Park Ridge forward.

We’re confident he can do so. You should be, too.

Marty Maloney for mayor.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Early voting for the April 4, 2017 local election starts today.

Once upon a time Election Day was what the name described: The single day when elections were held and voters voted.

Election Day was intended to be the day when Americans could come together as a community for the purpose of casting ballots for those who will govern us. It served in many respects as a secular “holy” day, a kind of mini 4th of July for the celebration of our right to vote.

Back then you could vote early, but only if you requested an absentee ballot after stating under oath that you reasonably expected to be out of your voting district on Election Day. And only a small percentage of voters availed themselves of that option.

But not anymore.

Early voting is the strategy of political parties, the partisan politicians, and the political class professionals who make their livings by manipulating the electorate. Those folks pushed it through the Illinois General Assembly about a decade or so ago because they found it much easier to herd sympathetic or malleable voters to the polls over a period of weeks rather over a dozen hours on Election Day. Their goal became bringing in more early voters than the competition, and the earlier the better – before late-breaking events or candidate gaffes might stampede the herd in the “wrong” direction.

Because early voting protects the two party system and incumbents above all else, that should be reason enough to oppose it. But in recent years early voting has become more of a factor in our local non-partisan races as well.

So today we make one simple request: Don’t vote early.

And for good measure, don’t respond to pollsters or campaign workers asking you which candidate(s) you might be favoring. Keep ‘em guessing, keep ‘em honest (or as honest as possible), and make the candidates continue to earn your vote until the polls close at 7:00 p.m. on Election Day.

Sure, it might be easier or more convenient to vote on a Saturday morning between now and Election Day, April 4. But seriously, folks, how tough can it be to get to the polling place between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. on Election Day?

How many of us line up in the dead of night to be the first to see a new film, or buy event tickets, or get the latest model iPhone? So why is it such an unacceptable burden to get up a half-hour early, or get home a half-hour later, in order to cast a vote on Election Day? Do we really want our kids to grow up believing we value Cubs or Jimmy Buffett tickets, or an iPhone, more than we value self-government?

Our vote is sacred. But unless you’re a big-dollar contributor, a big-dollar bundler, or active in local government, our vote is the only chip we have in the Big Game.

So why bet it earlier than we have to?

By voting early you effectively are saying that you don’t care about hearing and weighing all the information about the candidates – including whatever information might come out in the last days of the race. That would be like a juror at a trial saying he’s ready to render his verdict while the parties are still putting on their evidence.

Free and fair elections rely on voters being fully informed about the issues and the candidates. And, like it or not, that information often keeps flowing right up to Election Day.

So don’t vote early.

To read or post comments, click on title.

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.

As we sail into 2017 with some people predicting Armageddon and others hoping for Greatness, we’ll assume – as history has tended to prove – that both will be equally wrong.

Meanwhile, back here is sleepy ol’ Park Ridge (or “Pleasantville” if you prefer) 2017 is shaping up to be an interesting year, primarily because of local elections that are already producing enough sparks to suggest that some real fireworks aren’t far behind.

The main event is the mayoral race, where Acting Mayor and 7th Ward Ald. Marty Maloney is seeking to retain the seat his fellow alderman voted him upon the death of Mayor Dave Schmidt in March 2015. His challenger is political rookie Lucas Fuksa, grabbing for the brass ring on his very first carousel ride.

Although only three aldermanic seats were scheduled for races in 2017, a fourth became so with the death of 3d Ward Ald. Bob Wilkening in August 2015, just four months into his first term of office. Of those four races, only 2d Ward Ald. Nick Milissis lacks an opponent. Milissis has indicated, however, that he will be an active participant on the campaign trail, something to which we look forward.

Amazingly enough, the 3d Ward – Park Ridge’s political land that time forgot which, in 2011, elected the first aldermanic write-in candidate in decades when no other ballot-worthy candidate stepped forward – has FOUR candidates trying to finish the last two years of Wilkening’s term: current Ald. Rick Van Roeyen, who lost to Wilkening in 2015 but was appointed by the Council to fill his seat; Wilkening’s widow, Gail, who served two terms (1997-2005) on the Park Ridge Park District Board; Vicki Lee, who spent the past four years on the Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 Board; and Pasquale Laudando, rumored to be running as part of an unofficial Fuksa “ticket.”

Incumbent 4th Ward Ald. Roger Shubert faces Jack Barnette, seeking to return to the Council after a 30-year absence.

And in the 6th Ward, Incumbent Ald. Marc Mazzuca is being challenged – at least for the time being – by Patrick DeStefano, another rumored member of the Fuksa “ticket.” Mazzuca is challenging 22 of DeStefano’s bare-minimum 67 nominating petition signatures, however, so the disqualification of just one signature will sack DeStefano’s candidacy.

The signatures need to be verified by the Cook County Clerk’s office as belonging to duly qualified, registered and legal voters of the 6th ward, with the results of that verification scheduled to be heard by the City’s electoral board – comprised of Acting Mayor Maloney, City Clerk Betty Henneman and 4th Ward Ald. Roger Shubert – on January 9.

Meanwhile, the race for the four available Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 board seats has received the most attention to date, if only because three of the eight candidates – Gregory Bublitz, Norman Dziedzic and Michael Schaab – are married to D-64 teachers and, therefore, have potential conflicts of interest on a number of issues that could greatly limit the votes they can lawfully and/or ethically cast if elected. Other candidates include current two-term Park Ridge Park District Board member Rick Biagi; Biagi’s fellow Park Ridge Holiday Lights Committee member Alfred Sanchez; 2013 mayoral candidate Larry Ryles; Willowbrook H.S. teacher Eastman Tiu; and Monica Wojnicki.

This race has long-term importance because the successful candidates this year will be members of the Board when the next teachers contract is up for negotiation in 2020 – a fact apparently not lost on the Park Ridge Education Association, a/k/a the teachers union, who reportedly are backing (quietly, of course) the three teacher spouses and at least one other candidate (we’re betting on Tiu, or maybe Ryles) in the hope of locking-down the necessary four-seat majority of accommodating ankle-grabbers for those 2020 negotiations.

At Maine Township School District 207, incumbents Carla Owen and Jin Lee are vying with former Park Ridge Planning & Zoning Board member Aurora Austriaco, current P&Z member Linda Coyle, and recent state representative candidate Dan Gott, for the four available board seats.

And at the Park Ridge Park District, there’s a virtual jail break with incumbents Joan Bende and Jim Philips being challenged by Jennifer Barcal, Carol E. Becker, Harmony Harrington, Jim Janak, H. Robert Leach, Laurie (Pegler) Mallin and 2012 state senate candidate Jim O’Donnell for the four available seats on that seven-member board.

Meanwhile, another task confronting the City Council within the next several weeks is filling the seat of 5th Ward Ald. Dan Knight until the 2019 election. Acting Mayor Maloney has indicated that he will follow the recent practice for filling aldermanic vacancies by forming a committee of 5th Ward residents to interview prospective appointees and then recommend Knight’s successor to Maloney and the Council.

While there’s a lot more going on in local government, expect these races to (as the pundits on “Morning Joe” are fond of saying) “suck up all the oxygen in the room” for the next three months. And if that ends up being the case, it’s up to all of us taxpaying voters to pay attention and make darn sure the winners truly EARN their seats.

So here’s hoping for three months of spirited, issue-oriented campaigning.

UPDATE (01.09.17):  This morning the City of Park Ridge Electoral Board – Acting Mayor Marty Maloney, City Clerk Betty Henneman and 4th Ward Ald. Roger Shubert – ruled in favor of the challenge by 6th Ward Ald. Marc Mazzuca to candidate petition signatures of challenger Patrick DeStefano, who filed the bare minimum 67 signatures.

Mazzuca challenged a number of the petition signatures as being inconsistent with those on file with the County Clerk’s office, or of people not registered at the addresses placed on the petitions.

With this successful challenge, it appears that the only alternative for DeStefano is a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County. But because DeStefano would have to pitch a perfect game in any court case in order to stay on the ballot, it’s hard to imagine him or his backer(s) spending the money on that kind of windmill tilt.

The lesson, campers, is: If you want to run for something higher than homeroom rep to the student council, get a whole lot more nominating petition signatures than the bare minimum.

Because if you don’t, your petitions likely will be challenged and you will be thrown off the ballot.

And you’ll also end up looking like someone who wasn’t really a serious candidate. Or a mope.

To read or post comments, click on title.

As readers of this blog know, one of our favorite quotes is that of legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden: “Don’t mistake activity for achievement.”

Tonight that lesson was demonstrated, in spades, by the Maine South Hawks football team, which capped a most unusual season – for Maine South, at least – with the ultimate achievement: The state Class 8A championship.

The Hawks’ hard-fought, uber-exciting 27-17 victory over the Loyola Academy Ramblers avenged their early-season 44-43 loss to the Ramblers with what was a “team” victory in the truest sense of the word.

To paraphrase a line from the Wes Mantooth character in the movie “Anchorman”: “Today we spell ‘redemption’… H-A-W-K-S.”

To the players, coaches and everyone associated with the team: Bravo!

You’ve done Park Ridge proud. Again.

To read or post comments, click on title.

As another Labor Day signals the unofficial end to the summer and, this year, the unofficial beginning to the November election season, we want to remind our readers of all the wonderful things that private-sector labor unions have brought about for ALL workers in this country, including:

• The minimum wage;
• The 8-hour work day;
• Overtime pay;
• Holiday pay;
• The 40-hour work week/work-free weekends;
• Social Security;
• Paid (and unpaid) sick leave;
• Paid vacations;
• Paid work breaks, including lunch;
• Child labor laws;
• Pensions, including 401(k)s;
• Unemployment insurance;
• Workplace safety;
• Employee and family health insurance;
• Collective bargaining rights;
• Anti-discrimination laws; and
• Whistleblower protection laws.

Not surprisingly, NONE of the foregoing was brought about by public-sector unions – those late-blooming organizations that have colluded and conspired with crooked Illinois politicians (redundancy intended) to give us:

• Automatic, non-merit based raises unrelated to performance;
• Underfunded constitutionally-guaranteed defined-benefit pensions;
• Every holiday off;
• 185-day work years (for, e.g., D-64 teachers);
• No accountability for under-performance or outright failure; and
• Virtual impossibility of being significantly disciplined or fired.

When it comes to the private sector, labor and capital have been able to strike an uneasy – albeit not always equal – balance of supply and demand, increasingly distorted by the unfair competitive effects of globalization.

In the public sector here in Illinois, however, unionized labor has come to dominate capital (i.e., tax dollars) specifically because of public-sector labor’s unique immunity to both the laws of supply and demand and the unfair competition of globalization.

So as we have done in the past, we praise the private-sector trade unionism that created a middle class and gave us the highest standard of living in the world. And we caution against public-sector faux-unionism that, in approximately 30 years of collusion with our corrupt Democratic politicians and their RINO co-conspirators, has driven Illinois to the economic and social bottom of the 50 states of the Union.

And we encourage our fellow citizens to not go gently into that dark night our corrupt politicians and their co-conspirators have created; and from which they have prospered.

To read or post comments, click on title.