Let’s start this post out by saying that we’ve got no personal beef with Maine Twp. High School District 207 Superintendent Ken Wallace.

But just how ridiculous is it that the D-207 School Board – save for member Mary Childers, the only “no” vote – recently voted to give Wallace a 5-year contract extension after only four years on the job?  Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville received only a 3-year contract extension, and that was after winning his second Stanley Cup in four years!

What leads to such bizarre decisions by our elected School Board members?

A rumor that Wallace was going to declare for free agency?  A report on TMZ that Wallace will be directing the next Batman movie?  A job offer from Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 that included a $20,000 raise and an Arby’s franchise?

Last week’s Park Ridge Journal story (“Dist. 207 Supt. Granted 5-Year Contract Extension,” Oct. 16) and this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate story (“District 207 superintendent gets five-year contract extension,” Oct. 21) provide little more than the following insight, compliments of Board president Margaret McGrath:

“Dr. Wallace has demonstrated exemplary leadership, not only in setting the tone for the professional development of teacher leadership and classroom innovations that are resulting in improved education and opportunities for students, but also in effectively managing and resolving budgetary, personnel and student issues.

“The extension of his contract ensures invaluable continuity as the district follows through on several initiatives, the continued success of which has been integrated into his contract in the form of performance goals.”

Can one fit more meaningless bureaucratic buzz-terms – “exemplary leadership,” “professional development,” “teacher leadership,” “classroom innovations,” “invaluable continuity,” “several initiatives,” “continued success” and “performance goals” – into a mere two paragraphs?

We doubt it.

When you read horse hockey like that, you can be pretty sure that there’s way more foam than beer in the glass.  But from what we’ve seen of the D-207 Board members over the past several years (with the exception of Childers and former member Ed Mueller), they are masters of foam over substance.

Where are the performance metrics – that objectively measurable, hard-number data that proves the achievement of Maine Twp. High School students actually has increased over the four years of Wallace’s tenure?  All we’ve seen over the last four years is a decline in performance and rankings, even for the flagship of the D-207 fleet: Maine South.  And the most notable headlines involving D-207 we can think of during his four-year tenure have been the ones related to the Maine West hazing scandal.

According to the Journal and H-A articles, in addition to the 5-year contract extension Wallace was also given:

• a $3,000 raise (1.5%, from $206,916 to $210,000) in his base pay, and locked-in 1.5% increases in each of the following four years;
• 22 vacation days and 12 sick days (almost 7 weeks) per year, the former of which he can accumulate at the rate of 5 per year up to a total of 69 (for cashing in and adding to his salary for purposes of pension calculation when it’s time to retire?);
• 82 sick days (or over 16 weeks worth) to start the contract;
• a boost in his car allowance from $450 to $600/month; and
• a reduction, from $30,000 to $25,000, in the amount of liquidated damages Wallace would have to pay D-207 if he bailed on the District mid-contract.

But perhaps the most significant benefits conferred on Wallace by the new contract are eligibility for two separate “merit pay” increases, one for up to $26,000 and the other for up to $25,000.  He picked up the $25,000 increase for the 2011-12 school year, which bumped his pay for that year up to $221,950 according to a TribLocal story from June 7, 2012 (“D207 superintendent gets pay raise, $25K job-performance bonus”).

Caesar’s sports book in Vegas isn’t even posting a betting line for Wallace getting at least one $25,000 bonus: it’s virtually a sure thing with this current Board, which means that his new salary effectively will be $235,000 during the coming school year, and could soar to $260,000 if that second bonus kicks in.

School superintendents, like presidents and governors, are often unfairly blamed for their predecessors’ mistakes, and unjustifiably credited for their predecessors’ accomplishments due to the delayed effects of governmental decision-making.  But presidents and governors only get re-upped for only four years at a time, if at all; and the voters are the ones who get to do the re-upping.

How likely is it that the voters would give Wallace a five-year deal, even without all the compensation and vacation/sick day increases?

Can you say “NFW”?

Is D-207 a 1.5% better school district than it was last year?  Will it be 1.5% better in each of the next 5 years?  Was student performance 1.5% better last year than the year before, and will it be 1.5% better this year versus last?  Is the property tax bite D-207 takes out of the taxpayer 1.5% less than last year, and will it be 1.5% less in each of the next 5 years?  Do these kinds of things even matter to the D-207 Board?

Can you say “NFW” again?

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Oops…they did it again.

A recent report in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“District 207 administrators bank raises for new year,” August 15) confirms what we’ve all known for far too long: that the folks we elect to keep an eye on the bureaucrats we don’t elect, and on how those unelected bureaucrats spend our tax dollars, are themselves compulsive spenders.

So if you’re Maine Twp. High School District 207 Superintendent Kenneth Wallace or any other D-207 administrators and non-teaching staffers, you’ll be finding extra money in your pay envelope this coming year.  For Wallace, that means an extra $6,000 in salary – from $200,990 last year to $207,020 this year.

As H-A reporter Natasha Wasinski notes, Wallace now has had three straight years of 1% salary bumps, starting with a 1% increase in 2011, a 2% bump last year, and now a 3% hike.  And back in June, the D-207 Board gave him a $25,000 “performance annuity payment” – while also giving a 2% boost to D-207 support staff and a 1.5% boost to other administrators’ base salaries.

Why?

Chief D-207 propagandist Dave Beery tried to justify these increases by pointing out that administrative pay is based, in part, on performance.  Not surprisingly, however, Beery doesn’t explain what specific “performance” justified Wallace’s recent 3% pop, or his 1-2-3% three-year run (Anybody want to hazard a guess what percent next year’s raise will be?)  Or the “performance” that justified the $25,000 windfall.  Or the “performance” of all the other administrative and staff people.

Having studiously observed bureaucrats in the wild for the past 20 or so years, we’re willing to bet that whatever those “performance” standards might be, they are more about individual performance than student or district-wide performance.  Otherwise, Beery would be proclaiming District 207 achievements from the rooftops: “D-207 student achievement up 5%!”  Or “ISATs up in all 3 D-207 schools!” Or, mirabile dictu: “Rankings up, costs down at Maine Twp. schools!”

We don’t recall reading any such headlines.  Do you?

Interestingly, the H-A story reports that D-207 salaries and benefits collectively increased less than the Consumer Price Index increase of 2.5%, as if the CPI is even a rational benchmark for compensation increases.  Why is any public-sector employee compensation ever tied to the CPI – not only is it bad employment policy, but it’s an inflationary and divisive economic policy that actually rewards those public employees with COLAs for increases in the inflation to which their salary increases contribute, via the increasing number of tax dollars paid by private-sector employees who don’t get COLAs.

Not that the D-207 Board (or the D-64 Board, for that matter) cares about such things.

It also makes us wonder whether the raises would have jumped to 5% or even 10% if the CPI made similar leaps – because it seems like both the D-207 Board and the D-64 Board believe the taxpayers should be required to protect school employees from the adverse effects of inflation by giving them raises, irrespective of whether or not they actually perform their jobs better and more cost-effectively, or the performance of the schools and their students measurably improve.

In other words, fellow taxpayers, we get to insure our School District employees’ buying power, even though darn few of us have any similar kind of insurance in our own jobs.  Or tenure that virtually guarantees lifetime employment.  Or constitutionally-guaranteed pensions running up to 75% of our last salary when we retire from public employment…as early as age 55 or so.

No wonder the State is going bankrupt.

Nevertheless, we have to confess to almost feeling bad about hammering Wallace for his raises, however, seeing as he’s making almost $20,000 LESS than the drunken sailors on the D-64 Board are paying Wallace’s counterpart, Superintendent Philip Bender – despite Wallace’s overseeing an Illinois Top 20 high school district with a budget of $147 million, while Bender oversees a Top 100 (?) elementary school district with a budget about half D-207’s.

According to the H-A story, only new Board member Mary Childers voiced any concern about these raises on behalf of the taxpayers, although she apparently couldn’t quite bring herself to break from the rest of the bobble-heads who rubber-stamped those raises.

We know it’s tough being the only adult in a room full of children, Mary, especially when you aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid.

But it’s time to start just saying “no” to dopes.

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About ten years ago, a battle-weary veteran female Dade County (Florida) state’s attorney offered a remarkable quote when questioned by a reporter about a particular sex crime she had successfully prosecuted: “Half of my cases would disappear if kids were taught that you don’t suck a penis for a cookie.”

Needless to say, that prosecutor wasn’t one to mince words.

But she raises a point that should not be lost on the Maine Township High School District 207 administration as it seeks to investigate and address the kind of “hazing” that allegedly went on at Maine West High School: At what point does a “boy” or a “girl” become charged with the responsibility of understanding that having one’s orifice(s) penetrated with anything, whether by a classmate, teammate, coach or teacher, is NEVER an appropriate or acceptable element of a school activity?

Had that lesson been adequately taught and learned, we suspect we wouldn’t be writing this post.  And a number of students would not be scarred by the reprehensible conduct of fellow students.  And District 207 wouldn’t still be running the meter on attorneys and consultants to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars investigating that conduct and the alleged blind eyes of the coaches cast toward that conduct.

According to newspaper accounts of the situation, the five month-plus investigation into the alleged hazing of players on the Maine West boys’ soccer team already has cost the District approximately $115,000 of attorneys’ fees paid to a prominent Chicago law firm.  The District also has paid an undisclosed amount to California-based consultant Community Matters “to survey the climate of bullying, hazing and harassment in the district” and produce a 24-page report, which was delivered to school administrators in May and can be accessed through the D-207 website under Community Matters Presents Report.

And the District and/or its insurer is also burning cash in defending against a civil lawsuit for money damages filed by the victims of this hazing.

All because it appears that male soccer players at Maine West somehow thought that conduct described in news accounts as “sodomy” – which covers more than one kind of sex act – was okay.  Or because those players didn’t necessarily think it was okay, but they didn’t have sufficient courage and resolve to resist the peer pressure that reportedly endorsed it and encouraged it.  And because some coaches allegedly knew about this conduct but did nothing about it, a la the Penn State football program.

We find it difficult to fathom how this sort of “hazing” could occur to the extent and for the length of time it is alleged to have occurred.  We find it equally difficult to fathom how sheltered even a 14 year-old boy would have to be so as not to understand and appreciate the wrongness of this kind of conduct – from the perspective of either the perpetrator or the victim.

We’re not suggesting that the accused coaches don’t bear the principal responsibility for this situation if it is determined that they knew about this conduct and did nothing to stop it.  That would be deserving of criminal prosecution as well as termination; and, to borrow a page from the Mennonite playbook, shunning.

But the finding by the law firm investigating these incidents that staff at the District’s three high schools reported having less time to be in places where hazing and bullying incidents are likely to occur highlights the age-old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Just as there are not nearly enough attorneys and investigators in the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s office to investigate and prosecute all the incidents of political corruption in Chicago and Crook County, it is unlikely that D-207 will ever have enough staff to provide complete and seamless policing and prevention of all hazing and bullying that might occur.  It is, therefore, incumbent upon the students themselves to buy into and self-police a “zero tolerance” attitude toward such behavior.

That means the “kids” themselves are going to have to accept some responsibility for refraining from, resisting and reporting these kinds of abuse.  And their parents are going to have to accept some responsibility for impressing on their “kids” that this conduct is criminal and intolerable.  Aberrant behavior of any and every type must be rejected clearly, convincingly and consistently by our community as a whole.

The message must be unequivocal that the kind of behavior engaged in by those Maine West athletes is nothing remotely close to “boys being boys” or acceptable team-building activity.

With or without a cookie.

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We’ve already addressed the landslide victory by Mayor Dave Schmidt and the mandate that a 62% – 38% margin of victory suggests.  But what conclusions or inferences, if any, can be drawn from the results of the other races?

Park District Board:  This was billed as the local race where Park Ridge’s senior citizens were going to flex their political muscle and punish incumbent commissioners Rick Biagi, senior Steven Hunst and senior Richard Brandt, the “Top 3” ticket (for their first three ballot positions), for their perceived “anti-senior” attitudes and actions.

All three of them were roundly criticized by their opponents – a ticket calling itself the “Bottom 3” comprised of incumbent senior Steven Vile and two other seniors, Joan Bende and James Phillips – for: (a) their support for the District’s seizing control of the Senior Center from private corporation Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. (“SSI”); and (b) the District’s litigating with SSI over a $330,000 bequest to the “Park Ridge Senior Center” that former Park District employee Teresa Grodsky unilaterally handed over to SSI before belatedly filing a lawsuit seeking a court declaration as to whom that money legally belonged.

“Seniors” – or at least SSI-sympathetic seniors – do not appear to have been the political force they claimed to be: two of the Top 3 (Brandt and Biagi, the latter of whom was virtually demonized by some SSI members) won, while the only incumbent on the “Bottom 3” ticket (Vile) lost with almost the same number of votes as the other losing incumbent and fellow senior, Hunst.

The only woman running, Joan Bende, got the most votes of any candidate, outpolling runner-up Biagi by 554 votes.  So if this election reveals any kind of political demographic, it’s probably that women are more likely to vote for women – a still controversial theory among political scientists and politicians generally because of the sexism such a theory implies.

If Ms. Bende is going to become anything more than merely the successful “token” woman candidate, we can’t wait to see what she (and Phillips) actually do about their four main campaign issues – especially the second and fourth items on their campaign flyer that address the new Centennial pool/aquatic center/water park boondoggle.

School District 207 Board: 

The good news for taxpayers is that Mary C. Childers led all vote-getters, garnering 515 votes more than runner-up incumbent Margaret McGrath; and that long-time teacher/administrator-advocate, taxpayer-unfriendly Eldon Burk lost.

A bit of unsettling news in this election, however, is the open and notorious intrusion of highly-partisan Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky via her endorsement of successful candidate Jin Lee, whom we opposed because of his embrace of deficit spending and of the Consumer Price Index (“CPI”) as a factor for determining teacher and administrator pay increases – which is ridiculous unless you believe it’s the taxpayers’ duty to ensure that the purchasing power of teacher and administrator salaries is fully hedged against inflation (i.e., increases in the CPI).

Given the way the rest of that Board – except for the departing Ed Mueller – has constantly rolled over when it comes to increases in teacher and administrator compensation despite the overall decline in D-207’s ranking vis-à-vis other Chicago-area public high schools, we don’t see any good coming out of either non-resident Schakowsky’s involvement in a local non-partisan election, or the election of one of her endorsees.

And if the rumor is true that both McGrath and successful quasi-incumbent Carla Owen boycotted the non-partisan candidates’ forum held on March 21 at South Park Fieldhouse because it was sponsored by the Park Ridge Republican Women, that adds further tarnish to the process

On the other hand, D-207 Board president (and former Maine Twp. Regular Republican Organization president) Sean Sullivan has been a dependable rubber-stamp for non merit-based pay increases, so disregard for the taxpayers appears to be truly bi-partisan at D-207.

School District 64 Board:  If you don’t think D-64 Board president John Heyde was extremely interested in the outcome of this election, think again.

Heyde made two e-mail appeals for the re-election of his right-hand man and potential heir apparent, incumbent Scott Zimmerman, and Zimmerman’s informal running mate, Terry Cameron, in the last 10 days of the campaign.

Not surprisingly, Heyde’s appeal on behalf of Zimmerman and Cameron also falsely labeled challengers Ben Seib and Dathan Paterno as “slated by the Park Ridge Republican Women’s Club” – even though that organization “slated” no candidates, and endorsed no candidates, in any non-partisan local election.  The fact that a couple/few members and/or officers of that organization, acting as individuals, supported Seib and Paterno wasn’t lost on Heyde, but just ignored in his efforts to make sure he and his pet superintendent, Phil Bender, wouldn’t have to deal with the only two candidates whose campaigns stressed accountability and fiscal prudence.

Fortunately, Paterno won.  That arguably gives the taxpayers two voices – Paterno’s and first-term Board member Anthony Borrelli’s – on a Board where they previously had only one, Borrelli’s.  Whether those two can develop any traction on a Board dominated by Heyde and Zimmerman will depend on how newbies Cameron and Vicki Lee, and first-term Board member Dan Collins, react to a slightly more balanced Board.

We endorsed Collins two years ago in the belief that he would bring some fresh and independent ideas to the Board.  Up until now, he has been little more than an empty suit and automatic vote for anything Bender, Heyde and Zimmerman want.  And while we hope we’re wrong about Lee, her ultra-lightweight campaign (mom, PTO president, works well in groups, wants positive change) gives every indication that she will be a reliable rubber-stamper in the tradition of the departing Sharon Lawson and the half-term removed Genie Taddeo.

Whether Cameron, now that he’s actually been elected, will be willing and able to climb out of Zimmerman’s shadow and start looking out for the District’s taxpayers – and its students – more than for the District’s teachers and administrators, will be a major point of interest over the next two years.

Park Ridge City Council:  We hope both Nick Milissis (2nd) and Roger Shubert (4th) will earn their Watchdog endorsements right out of the gate.

We also have high hopes that Ald. Marc Mazzuca (6th) will have learned a few lessons from his slender 20-point victory over Vinny LaVecchia – including that there’s more to City government than drilling down to the center of the earth on the issue of water rates, and that rubber-stamping every non merit-based pay increase that comes down the pike is horrible public policy.

And we hope LaVecchia maintains the level of interest and energy he displayed during the campaign, both in keeping an eye on Mazzuca’s performance and in promoting his ideas for improving Park Ridge’s retail base in ways that make sense and produce results.

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It didn’t take supporters of mayoral challenger Larry Ryles (or opponents of Park Ridge Mayor Dave Schmidt) even 24 hours to begin trying to diminish the mandate of Schmidt’s landslide victory as consisting of the votes of only 34.8% of the registered voters.

And they have a point…up to a point.  The fact that only 34.8% of all registered voters bothered to show up at the polls for a hotly-contested mayoral race and hotly-contested aldermanic, Park Board and School Board races, and a significant Park District referendum vote, is nothing short of pathetic and shameful.

So all you 65.2% of registered voters who didn’t bother to go to the polls, either on election day or during the two weeks of early voting: you suck at citizenship!  Fortunately, it’s likely that this community and all of its governmental units actually benefitted from being deprived of all your votes cast from ignorant apathy, thereby diluting the votes of people who actually care and who might even be informed about the candidates and the issues.

Notwithstanding that 65.2% of our registered voters were ignorant and apathetic last Tuesday, an article in yesterday’s Park Ridge Journal identifies Park Ridge as having the top turnout among a number of neighboring communities, ahead of Rosemont (24.5%), Niles (23.3%), Des Plaines (22.7%), Arlington Heights (20.9%), Wheeling (15.6%), Glenview (12.6%) and Mt. Prospect (11%).  For the sake of an apples-to-apples comparison, however, it should be noted that Rosemont, Glenview and Mt. Prospect did not have contested mayoral elections this year.

The Journal article also points out that Park Ridge led all those communities except Rosemont in turnout for the 2009 election, with our 2013 turnout even being 1.4 % higher than in 2009.

Generally speaking, the more contested elections any community has, the likelier the turnout will be bigger – especially if the competing candidates actually articulate significantly differing views on important issues.  That’s why throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, turnout was generally dismal as the post-Marty Butler Homeowner’s Party routinely ran unopposed slates of bland candidates for City offices, and similarly bland “shadow” candidates unopposed for the Park Board and the School District 64 Board.

Beginning in 1995, however, that began to change when a three-candidate slate successfully challenged three incumbents for Park Board seats.  That kind of change spread to City government in 2003 when four “independent” candidates successfully challenged the Homeowner’s Party candidates.  Two years ago change finally migrated to D-64 with the election of Tony Borrelli over insider Genie Taddeo, followed by the District’s finally joining those other two governmental bodies in televising/videotaping its meetings after a group of private citizens forced the Board’s hand.

As a result, each local unit of government is now far more transparent and accountable than a decade ago, although we realize that isn’t saying all that much when closed sessions still dominate certain discussions.  And it is still outrageous that labor negotiations – which make up such a large part of each governmental unit’s expenses, especially in connection with teachers contracts – are conducted in secret so that the ridiculous demands by the unions and the spineless responses by our elected and appointed officials remain hidden from scrutiny by the taxpayers who end up paying the freight.

Ironically, many registered Park Ridge voters seem to think that it’s more important to vote in national elections than in local ones, even though an individual voter’s impact on national elections is almost non-existent compared to local elections.  And let’s face it: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner and the rest of their playmates in Washington don’t give a rat’s derriere what individual Park Ridge residents think about national and international issues; or whether we live or die, for that matter.

That’s why it’s almost impossible to get serious face-time with any of those Washington players unless you can bundle a few hundred thousand bucks in campaign contributions, or deliver a guaranteed 20-30,000 votes for them or their surrogates.  In contrast, you stand a pretty good chance of being able to have a meaningful conversation about community issues with the mayor, your alderman, or your Park Board and School Board members – usually for the bargain price of a cup of coffee.  Your own.

And unlike all the political hoops you generally need to jump through to get an appointment to a federal or state committee or commission, you’ve got a pretty good chance of being appointed to one of the City’s committees or commissions if you really want to serve in a non-elected capacity and have some basic qualifications unrelated to how much you contributed to somebody’s political campaign.

The local level is where real grass-roots government gets done by real people with real jobs and real lives – not the hyper-partisan cynical career politicians and their high-priced political whores (paging David Axelrod, paging Karl Rove) who live in a political fantasyland and who can’t seem to tear themselves away from their costly partisan political games to actually “govern.”

But while over 60% of Park Ridge’s registered voters turned out in November to cast ballots in partisan elections for the Obamas and Romneys whom they don’t know and who don’t know them, apparently only 34.8% of Park Ridge’s registered voters care about grass-roots local government and the issues it deals with.

So the tallest midget in the civic circus remains just a midget.

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Mayor:                                Dave Schmidt

Alderman (2nd Ward):     Nicholas Milissis

Alderman (4th Ward):      Roger Shubert

School Dist. 64:                Dathan Paterno

                                           Benjamin Seib 

School Dist. 207:             Mary C. Childers

                                         Jeff Spero

Park District:                   Richard Biagi

                                         Richard Brandt

                                         Steven Hunst

“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
? Abraham Lincoln

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When it comes to school board candidates, we are admittedly and unapologetically biased against “educators” and incumbents.

Our anti-“educator” bias stems from our view that, just like war being “too important to be left to the generals,” education is too important to be left to the educators.  Our public schools are already dominated by teachers, former-teacher administrators, and teachers unions – all of whose economic interests are usually at odds with those of the taxpayers, despite their masterful public relations slogans: “It’s for the kids” and “Kids first.”

Consequently, putting current or former teachers and school administrators on school boards is like electing hens to guard the hen-designed, hen-oriented, hen-controlled and hen-managed henhouse – when what the taxpayers really need are “foxes” guarding that henhouse: people whose characters, backgrounds and experience are most likely to ensure hard-eyed, practical, taxpayer-oriented, rational cost/benefit attitudes toward our schools and the folks who operate them (the hens).

Our bias against incumbents, on the other hand, is tied to the need to hold elected officials accountable for what they’ve done and not done while in office.  So if we can’t find enough good things – or at least one or two great things – achieved by the school district during a particular incumbent’s term, we presume that the incumbent hasn’t been doing a good job, unless there’s clear evidence that he/she has tried his/her best but was frustrated by an obstructionist board majority.

With those two biases in mind, and after reviewing the candidates’ campaign material and their responses to the Daily Herald’s questionnaire, let’s look at the seven (7) candidates for the four (4) seats on the Maine Twp. High School District 207 board: incumbents Eldon Burk and Margaret McGrath; barely-incumbent Carla Owen; and newcomers Jeff Spero, Mary C. Childers, Jin Lee and Sean Story.  (For what it’s worth, Burk, McGrath, Owen and Spero are running as a slate.)

We’ve heard some folks suggest that the hazing scandal at Maine West, by itself, justifies a vote against all incumbents on this board.  Based on the evidence we’ve heard so far, we don’t see the kind of board-level negligence that would support such a view.  But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other reasons for sending these incumbents packing.

The first suitcase needs to be handed to incumbent Eldon Burk, a retired Maine West teacher/administrator who, at a candidates’ forum on March 21, insisted that D-207 was “one of the greatest school districts in the country.”  Apparently Burk overlooked: (1) the 691st-place national ranking (and 29th-place Illinois ranking) of Maine South, D-207’s only ranked school in U.S. News & World’s 2012 public high school rankings; and (2) D-207’s slow but continuing decline in the annual rankings of Chicagoland high schools – to 24th, according to the 2012 Chicago Sun-Times analysis of ISAT scores.

Sorry, Eldon, but our anti-educator bias is even greater aainst delusional ex-teachers/administrators.  And your attempt at the forum to blame the entire pension mess on “Springfield” shows that you’re either unwilling or unable to understand how the upwardly-spiraling teacher and administrator salaries regularly handed out by you and the other incumbents have done their part in making this state’s public pension obligations so back-breaking.  Here’s hoping the voters retire you from this position.

Four years ago we endorsed incumbent Margaret McGrath on the basis of “a whole lot of potential”; and we even gave her a “You Go, Girl!” kudo in our 05.07.10 post for being the only D-207 board member to articulate the obvious: that “there’s a negative impact to borrowing a lot of money to spend short-term.”  Unfortunately, in all other respects she has shown herself to be a go-along-to-get-along rubber-stamp for the administration, approving merit-less salary increases with barely a whimper of objection or analysis.  That’s a lot less than we had hoped for in 2009, and it’s a lot less than the taxpayers – and the students – deserve in 2013 and the next four years.

Jeff Spero is a CPA with Grant Thornton who earned an MBA and has a wife who is a Lutheran school principal.   Those credentials suggest he might be that rare combination of a hard-eyed, bottom-line analyst with the added insight into how private and parochial schools do more with less.  That’s why we endorse him, albeit with a twinge of concern that his sharing the same ticket with Burk might mean he will be checking his CPA and MBA at the door before every board meeting and grabbing a rubber stamp.

Although Mary C. Childers occasionally works as a substitute D-63 teacher, her extensive business background – most recently as a real estate broker, and before that as the owner/operator of two Brown’s Chicken franchises – ameliorates that stigma.  And her common-sense positions on school finances (“We are at a crossroads of individual taxpayers and government organizations needing to think the same way about financial limitations.”) and teacher compensation (“[S]alary increases should be based on merit” unrelated to the Consumer Price Index) suggest that she will bring some refreshing fiscal sanity to the D-207 board.  That’s why we endorse her.

Jin Lee, on the other hand, considers deficit spending to be “a sacrifice shared by the taxpayers and the state” – whatever the heck that means.  And while he suggests that teacher salary increases should be based in part on student and teacher performance, he also includes the CPI as a factor – thereby encouraging school districts to raise teacher salaries to preserve teachers’ buying power and to provide them with a hedge against inflation.  That’s fundamentally wrong on several levels, including its being economically foolish and unsustainable.

Carla Owen was appointed to the Board just a few months ago, so she does not deserve any anti-incumbent stigma.  And although we have vigorously disagreed with her anti-Park Ridge Park District battles on behalf of the “us first” crowd that used to control the Park Ridge Senior Center, we’ve always admired her intellect.  Unfortunately, she is another fan of teacher salary increases tied to the CPI, viewing them as “a reasonable way for the District to work within its revenue stream.” That’s a big red flag of fiscal irresponsibility, and more than enough to deny her an endorsement.

If academic credentials and business experience were the only qualifications needed for a school board seat, Sean Story would be a lock with his politics and economics degree from Princeton, an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, and his work experience that includes his current positions as CFO and COO of Chicagoland Beverage Co.  But a review of his website discloses an alarming lack of substance and an alarming plethora of hackneyed and vapid phrases like “create a positive culture,” “creating positive environments” and “[t]aking an open, collaborative approach.”

Worse yet, it appears he didn’t even attempt to answer the Daily Herald’s questions: “Would you ever support deficit spending in a District 207 budget?” and “How can the district keep its finances healthy going forward?”  That’s a shame, because in all other respects he would appear to have the makings of a good “fox” for the taxpayers.

It’s no April Fool’s joke that we have endorsed only two candidates for the four available seats.  We take these endorsements seriously will not endorse a candidate merely as the lesser of two or more evils.

C’est la vie.

Coming Next:  Park Ridge/Niles Elementary School District 64

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The motto on our banner is a Thomas Jefferson quote: “Information is the currency of democracy.” 

Like many people in the community, we rely for our “currency” in no small part on our two local newspapers.  And in some respects, they do an adequate-to-good job.  Unfortunately, local news reporting can also be uneven for a variety of reasons, some reasonable and others irresponsible.

Which may explain why, just the other day, we received an e-mail about the article in last week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate about Maine Twp. High School Dist. 207’s agreement with the Maine Teachers Association to a new 3-year contract (“District 207 teachers’ contract approved,” June 15).  The e-mailer asked what we knew about the “step” increases built into the teachers’ pay scale, whether D-207 has “ladder” increases like D-64 does, and how the new contract affected either the “step” or “ladder” structure.

Our answer: Not much at all, in large part because the boards and administrations of both our local school districts seem to subscribe to the code of “omerta” when it comes to transparency and accountability, especially about unpleasant things like test scores and compensation of employees. 

That H-A article did little to increase public knowledge of the new contract.  Sure, it reported that the teachers will receive a .66% raise in year one (beginning August 16th), 1% in year two, and a cost-of-living raise in year three with a range of .50% to 2.4%.  But the only mention of “steps” or “ladders” was to report that the new contract includes a new, 25-step pay scale, up from the 20-step scale of the past.

We understand those increases are non-merit based, but confirmation of that is another bit of important information that was missing from the article.

District 207’s “spokesman” – don’t you just love how every governmental body now has at least one public relations “professional” to spin and obfuscate – claims the new scale will cause a decrease in pay raises related to those “step” increases.  How exactly?  The article doesn’t say, presumably because the reporter and/or her editor didn’t think that kind of information is important enough to track down, even though “step” and “ladder” increases represent a significant component of teacher compensation that is effectively guaranteed year after year.

Or maybe they didn’t want to tick off the spokesman, who can make their jobs a lot tougher simply by reducing the tidbits of information he tosses out like Hartz Mountain Dog Yummies to those media types who happily wag their tails instead of snarl.

The article continues with the District’s self-serving statement that the new contract also has “some important cost-containment measures on insurance costs.”  What are those measures?  What actual savings will they produce?  Once again, questions like that seem to be above somebody’s pay grade.

Since even the H-A must feel guilty shilling for just one side, the article also gives the teachers union its own props, quoting the union’s president about his organization’s efforts “to maintain programs that attract and retain quality education professionals to District 207 while making concessions that allow the district to maintain financial strength and stability.” 

What “programs”?  What “concessions”?  Anybody?  Bueller?

We’re thinking that what really attracts and retains those unionized “education professionals” at D-207 is the top-shelf pay and benefits, especially at the relatively homogenous and affluent Maine South.  So a look at how D-207’s pay and benefits compare to other similar districts would have been an angle worth exploring.  But even though sites like championnews.net and Openthebooks.com  are making that information much more readily available than ever before, without the need for FOIAs, such comparisons don’t seem to be the H-A’s stock in trade when it might mean offending certain public officials or special interests. 

But where that article really slides to high school-newspaper quality is the lack of any explanation of why D-207 board member Ed Mueller voted against the contract.  After being exposed to the District’s and the union’s propaganda, doesn’t the public deserve to hear whatever reason(s) may have been behind Mueller’s lonely dissent? 

Or does he have to issue his own press release in order to give our local media its information in bite-sized, pre-chewed pieces?

Until that occurs, the rest of us remain stuck in the dark with more questions than answers.  And public officials who seem to like it that way.

UPDATE:  Today’s Park Ridge Journal article failed to add any information or understanding to this situation, apparently also just regurgitating whatever sound bites “spokesman” David Beery tossed out – and lamely stating that, as to the maximum pay grade for the district,” “[t]hose figures were unknown.”

Unknown?!?!  Gee, did the unidentified Journal reporter even think to ask?  Wouldn’t it be more useful information than the excerpt from what is described as a D-207  “media release” quoting Board president Sean Sullivan self-serving back-slapping: “The contract accomplishes the board’s main objective of putting students first” – the old reliable “It’s for the kids” justification/alibi that may still be the single most effective public relations device since at least WW II. 

But while the two local papers continue to operate at the level of mediocre high school newspapers, at least the TribLocal put a little meat on this story’s bones.  It describes the reason behind lone Board dissenter Ed Mueller’s “no” vote on the contract – “[H]e felt the agreement was too much, as he pointed to the sagging economy and data that shows District 207 teachers are some of the highest paid in the state” – a fact about which the H-A and Journal kept strangely silent, or else irresponsibly clueless.  The TribLocal story also reported on Mueller’s concern about “state lawmakers’ threats to shift the pension costs on school districts.” 

Gee, some actual journalism.  Way to go, TribLocal reporter Jennifer Delgado. 

Ms. Delgado also reported that Board president Sullivan, in what seems to us as being ostrich-like fashion, dismissed Mueller’s concerns by “contend[ing] the district can’t react to a hypothetical situation.”  That’s right, Sean, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain – even if the man is Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, the single most powerful Illinois lawmaker who recently proposed shifting a substantial portion of school pension obligations to the individual school districts.  Is that the management style you learned as CFO at Triton College?

Thanks to the TribLocal, at least we can offer Mr. Mueller, of whom we previously have been critical on occasion, some kudos for actually representing the students AND the taxpayers. 

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Center of Concern Could Learn A Lesson From Misericordia:  If you were out and about Park Ridge today you likely saw a number of people in red and white pull-over vests collecting donations in front of Starbucks and various other local establishments for Misericordia/Heart of Mercy.  Obviously, the supporters of that institution are willing to walk their fundraising talk – unlike, for example, our community’s Center of Concern, whose primary fundraising seems to consist of coming to the City of Park Ridge for its annual $49,500 handout.

In a letter to the editor in this week’s edition of the Park Ridge Journal, CofC Finance Chair (and former 4th Ward Park Ridge alderman) Jim Radermacher ripped into Mayor Dave Schmidt for vetoing CofC’s 2012-13 line item budget handout, and branded as “shameful” Schmidt’s call for CofC to “increase its efforts” at fundraising directly from the taxpayers rather than through the City.  

But a look at Schedule G to CofC’s latest IRS Form 990 tax return for the fiscal year ending 06/30/11 reveals a measly $59,873 in gross receipts from its “Fundraising Events” (a “Dinner/Auction,” a “Holiday Party” and an event identified only as “2”) that produced…a $9,186 loss!  Unless that’s the product of lackadaisical effort or incompetent execution, such a pathetic showing belies CofC’s claim to widespread community support.

Perhaps Mr. Radermacher and all the other current and former local politicians that fill CofC’s board of directors and advisory board might want to consider taking a page from Misericordia’s fundraising playbook and hit the streets of Park Ridge with their own vests and contribution cans.  Whether they could collect enough to make up for the loss of the City annual handout is hard to say, but at least they wouldn’t lose $9 grand.

Fallico Puts Sleeper Hold On Truth:  This week’s Journal also contains a letter from Maine South’s outstanding wrestling coach, Craig Fallico, bemoaning what he calls “teacher bashing” and its discouraging effect on “good teachers and, in turn, good teaching.”

Fallico notes as “fact” that Maine South’s average ACT score is 25 (which he rightfully applauds as “excellent!”) but then inexplicably follows it with the “fact” that a recent NY Times article pegs the average starting salary for a U.S. teacher at $39,000, going up to “a whopping $67,000” for a U.S. teacher after 25 years of service. 

Speaking about Maine South ACT scores in the context of national average teacher salaries, however, is kind of like comparing Dan Gable to Hulk Hogan.  On the other hand, maybe Fallico figured that the point he was trying to make would suffer if he used actual District 207 teacher salaries. 

That’s because, as reported on the “Illinois Interactive Report Card” published by Northern Illinois University, in 2011 the salary for the average Maine Twp. H.S. teacher with 15.1 years of experience was a whopping $108,336.  And according to the teacher salary database of the Family Taxpayers Foundation website, Fallico himself makes a $123,242 salary after 20 years of service – without even getting into the wonderful pension benefits of as much as 75% of salary that can kick in as early as age 55.

That’s enough to make Park Ridge taxpayers feel like they’ve been put in a Full Nelson.

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The New Year is a time of both goodbyes and hellos.  So without further ado, here are our thoughts on what things from 2011 we want to say goodbye to, and those things we hope to say hello to in 2012.

* Goodbye to Mayor Dave Schmidt’s vetoes of City Council actions that he viewed as fiscally irresponsible.  We applaud Schmidt for saying “no” even when he pretty much knew that the weak sisters on the City Council would over-ride his veto and say “yes, yes” to more irresponsible spending.

* Hello to more Schmidt vetoes in 2012 – if this Council continues to be as clueless as its predecessor and fails to realize that the U.S. Congress and the Illinois General Assembly aren’t models of fiscal responsibility.  The City already is increasing its share of the property tax at a rate that exceeds inflation, so it has to continue to work on figuring out how to wring more services out of what it’s taking in.

* Goodbye to giving Fire Chief Mike Zywanski authority to do anything more than manage Fire Dept. staff.  Because as a labor negotiator he was simply awful, starting with those ridiculous “Ground Rules” he proposed without even consulting the Mayor or the City Council, and which locked the City into a gag order preventing it from commenting on the firefighters union contract negotiations – and then didn’t even have the stones to admit to doing so when questioned by the Mayor. 

* Hello to what we hope will be a new era of openness in the labor negotiations for all branches of local government, starting with School District 64’s upcoming teachers union negotiations.  No negotiations should be commenced until the unit of local government decides, in meetings open to the public, how much it can afford to spend on those employees.  Whatever “negotiations” might still be needed after that exercise also should occur in meetings open to the public, so the taxpayers can see and hear for themselves whether their elected representatives or the employees – both unionized and non-unionized – are being unreasonable.

* Goodbye to closed session meetings generally?  We can only hope that the Ald. Dan Knight-led City Council’s recent rejection of a closed session discussion of City Mgr. Jim Hock’s goals and objectives helps all our other elected officials finally realize that there is nothing – NOTHING – that the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) requires be discussed in closed session, or anything discussed in closed session that IOMA requires be kept secret.  The question that should be asked and debated before any closed session is voted on is: “What harm to the taxpayers will occur if this matter is discussed in open session?”  And if the answer isn’t “a lot,” accompanied by a clear description of exactly what that harm consists of, the vote on closed session should be “no.” 

* Hello to the City starting to take some action to address the long-term power outages that seem to occur with virtually every storm that hits anywhere between the Wisconsin border and Kankakee.  Public Works Director Wayne Zingsheim was designated as the City’s liaison with Com Ed to hold the utilities’ feet to the fire on its promises – until now, purely hollow ones – to upgrade the City’s power grid.  Good luck, Zinger!

* Goodbye to a Senior Center run by a small group of seniors, for a small group of seniors, subsidized by all the District’s taxpayers.  Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. (“Seniors Inc.” or “SSI”), that private corporation accountable to nobody but its own operators, has built up a $240,000 treasury while feeding at the public trough.  After 30 years, it’s time to change that perverse paradigm.

* Hello to a Senior Center that either attracts a larger number of seniors and/or expands its role to serve other segments of the District’s population, while at the same time eliminating – or at least substantially reducing – those six-figure deficits the Senior Center has been posting for too many years.  And the District should look to do the same thing with all its other facilities and programs.

* Can we say “goodbye” to School District 207’s financial problems for the foreseeable future, compliments of the new Rivers Casino in Des Plaines?  As reported in the November 9, 2011, edition of the Park Ridge Journal (“Casino A $40M Value For Dist. 207”), the District’s assistant superintendant for business, Mary Kalou, is quoted as saying that the Crook County Assessor’s office “is estimating the casino’s 2011 valuation at about $12 million…[which] translates to $40 million additional assessed value for the district when the equalized multiplier is factored in.”

* Hello to a new and improved City Mgr. Jim Hock?  If he takes seriously the City Council’s direction to up his performance to a level that warrants his approx. $215,000 in annual compensation, Park Ridge will take another big step toward becoming one of the better-managed municipalities in the Chicagoland area, especially considering its lack of commercial property to bolster its tax base.  If not, then it should be “goodbye” to Mr. Hock.

* Goodbye to hundreds of thousands of dollars of uncollected City fines and fees, thanks to the diligent work of the City’s new finance director Allison Stutts, who was hired by the City in November 2010 and has been nothing short of outstanding in her short time on staff.  Not only did she blow the whistle on the uncollected funds, but she also is implementing a new budget process.  And her efforts, combined with Mayor Schmidt’s relentless pursuit of fiscal responsibility, helped the City post a $2 million surplus for FY 2010-11 – only the second surplus in more than a decade, and the first since former mayor Howard Frimark’s cut-the-council referendum chopped the Council from 14 to 7 aldermen.

* Hello to the likelihood that Park Ridge someday will have a showcase for its artistic tradition, thanks to the Kalo Foundation’s successful efforts to save the building at Elm and Northwest Highway that once housed the studio of artist Alfonso Iannelli.  The members of that organization deserve a big shout-out for their efforts, which raised the funds necessary to purchase that property from a broad range of residents…and from an anonymous donor who agreed to provide the matching fund which sealed the deal.    

* Goodbye to Oakton Pool, which had served this community well for 41 years but fell victim to cultural and economic changes that substantially reduced the demand for a traditional outdoor swimming pool in a climate that permits such swimming for only a few months a year.  We won’t miss the $80-100,000 annual deficit that Oakton had become accustomed to posting; and, hopefully, the Park District will find another, better use for that piece of Oakton Park the pool previously occupied.  

* Hello to a plan to begin remedying the chronic flooding that has plagued Park Ridge for decades but seems to have increased in recent years as more and more multi-family residential development took over from this community’s traditional base of single-family homes.  The City has approved a $150,000 contract for the design of several sewer improvement projects, the first phase of what is expected to a multi-project remediation program that is already being estimated as costing upwards of $25 million.

* Goodbye to the no-bid, no accountability monopoly enjoyed by private corporation Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”) over the City’s signature Taste of Park Ridge event (“TOPR”) after 7 years.  During that time Taste Inc. generated hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenues and undisclosed profits, four years of which occurred while Taste Inc. was lying to the public about being a not-for-profit enterprise.  And during all 7 years of its existence, Taste Inc. refused to reimburse the City for approximately $20,000+ a year in free City services. 

* Hello to the RFP (bidding) procedure that the new City Council, at Mayor Schmidt’s request, has implemented for the 2012 TOPR.  Three entities, including Taste Inc., have submitted proposals, all of which are supposed to include making the City whole for all of its direct and indirect TOPR costs.

* Goodbye to criminal complaints filed by one of Taste Inc.’s long-time head honchos, Albert Galus, against Mayor Dave Schmidt, Ald. Dan Knight (5th) and the editor of this blog, Robert Trizna.  Galus waited over 2 years to file a battery complaint against Mayor Dave Schmidt over an incident that Galus claims occurred at the Mary Seat of Wisdom polling place in April, 2009, although his “cyber-stalking” beefs against Knight and Trizna were of more recent vintage.  All of those bogus complaints were recognized as such by the State’s Attorney’s office, which declined to prosecute.

* Ironically, Galus closed out 2011 by saying “hello” to the FBI’s Child Exploitation Unit, which reportedly served a search warrant at his Park Ridge residence the week before Christmas and found a cache of guns which Galus had no valid FOID to possess.  According to Galus’ former employer at the Academic Tutoring Center, the search was initiated on suspicion of child pornography possession, although no such charges have been brought.

Although that’s not all of the hellos and good-byes of note, that’s more than enough to usher in 2012. 

Happy New Year…and here’s hoping the Mayan’s are wrong.

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