It’s no secret that we have been critical of Park Ridge-Niles District 64’s performance on standardized tests.  We continually question why students from an affluent community like ours seem to underperform comparable districts when it comes to the ISATs, which – like it or not – appear to be the standard by which school districts are judged.

So the article in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“District 64 students perform well on state exams,” November 3) gives us yet another reason to question what’s going on with ISAT scores, and why the District continues to blow smoke up the taxpayers’ collective skirts on this issue.

Can any of our readers confirm whether spin-meister Larry Sorenson giggled or smirked when he said how “exciting” it is that the majority of our District 64 students “continue to meet or exceed state standards on the ISAT”?  Shouldn’t exceeding state standards be expected from District 64 schools on a regular basis, not a cause of excitement?

If the article is an accurate presentation of Sorenson’s test score dog-and-pony show, we see a lot of cherry-picking of results, perhaps because only those excite the District’s administrators.  And he doesn’t disappoint when he reminds us, as the District administrators and teachers seem to do every year – that “it’s important to share with the [school] board that ISAT is just one assessment that we give to the students.”

Okay, Larry, can you tell us which specific assessment is considered more important than the ISATs…and why?

According to the H-A article, the District’s ISAT report claims the District doesn’t have the information to rank itself against other school districts in terms of ISAT scores.  May we suggest that the bureaucrats at the ESC check out the Chicago Tribune’s and the Chicago Sun-Times’ rankings, which have been out for over a week now and which provide two different methods of ranking?   

We’re not educators, but we are taxpayers and homeowners.  So when our kids aren’t regularly scoring among the top fifty schools and are being outperformed by kids from less affluent communities and/or districts that spend less per pupil, something needs to be done – starting with some honest explanations from the District’s educators, administrators, and its school board members. 

Let’s start with stopping this nonsense about “We don’t teach to the test.”  If the test is how the districts are measured and compared to each other, then it’s just plain foolish not to “teach to the test.” 

It might also help to get a little intergovernmental cooperation going between District 64, Maine South and Maine East.  Since those high schools end up educating the vast majority of District 64 grads, maybe their educators can identify if, where and how District 64 students are coming up short.  How about a detailed “white paper” on the subject, backed up with hard, irrefutable data rather than anecdotes?

Given that District 64 consumes approximately one-third of our annual property tax payments, and in view of the fact that every time the District wants more money it tells us how important good schools are to maintaining our property values, the taxpayers deserve some serious and specific answers now – not months from now when these scores are just a dim memory – that include a specific, nuts-and-bolts plan for how they will do better next year and the years thereafter.

School Rankings Time Again. Today’s Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times each have feature articles on the annual ISAT scores registered by our public school systems.

As usual, Maine South is on both lists of the top high schools, tied for 12th position (with Lake Forest H.S.) on the Tribune’s “Top 50” list, for which the rankings are a function purely of the percentage of test scores that met or exceeded state standards; and ranking 13th (several spots below Lake Forest) on the Sun-Times’ “Top 100” list, which uses a more complex formula that the S-T claims “allows for more definition among top schools.”

But for the first time in recent memory, a District 64 school makes an appearance, with Carpenter Elementary School ranking in a tie for 49th on the Tribune’s list, although no District 64 school shows up on the S-T list.  But it’s a start.  So a big wag of the Watchdog’s tail to the folks at Carpenter – maybe you can share some tips with the other schools in the District that were, once again, notably absent from the lists of ISAT achievement.

Walk On By.  They’re ba-ack.  “They” are those residents who want their own special deal at the Park Ridge Community Center: they want $2 per visit punch passes so that they can walk around the Community Center any time it is open because they don’t want to pay for one of the several kinds of Community Center memberships that were created after numerous other “limited-use” memberships wisely were eliminated several years ago in an effort to make that facility’s operations more efficient and cost-effective.

The problem with limited-use privileges at the Community Center is that the facility’s ridiculous “open” layout can’t reasonably accommodate anything but full-facility membership.  Too many residents found it too easy to buy some low-price, limited-use membership and then expand their use into areas where they weren’t supposed to be – causing migraine headaches for staff, irritating members who were paying full-fare, and ultimately cheating the taxpayers. 

Commissioner Mary Wynn Ryan claims to be offended that people might drive to Golf Mill to walk if they can’t have their $2-a-visit walking pass. 

We here at PublicWatchdog disagree.  If folks would rather drive to Golf Mill than buy a Community Center membership, let ‘em – just add them to the list of all the other people who go elsewhere because the Park District doesn’t offer something they want, like the golfers who drive to Tam in Niles or Chick Evans in Morton Grove to play a round of golf; or the sailors who drive to Lake Opeka to Hobie Cat; or the mini-golfers who drive to Des Plaines or Skokie; or the skiers who fly to Vail or Steamboat….

Not With A Bang But A Whimper.  We hear that City Attorney “Buzz” Hill and the Park Ridge City Council will be spared the agita and potential embarrassment of having to decide whether to prosecute former mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark for violating the City’s ethics ordinance by selling/brokering insurance for the Uptown parking garage in which the City has an interest. 

Word is that Mid-America and/or the Uptown Condominium Homeowners Association (“UCHA”) decided to pull the pin on Frimark’s insurance coverage.  We don’t know whether Frimark had any say in the matter, but that “Whew!” you heard emanating from the direction of City Hall was the collective sigh of relief from elected officials and bureaucrats alike.  And that means no tap dancing or sleight of hand at the City Council meeting this Monday night, when this matter was to have been taken up in earnest by the Council.

But we wonder whether the Council will also try to sweep under the carpet Frimark’s execution of the “First Amendment” to the easement and operating agreement for “Phase III” of the Uptown project – by which, as we understand it, the City ceded some of its voice and authority in the operations of that portion of the project to the developer and the UCHA?

Go, HAWKS!  Tomorrow afternoon the Maine South Hawks start their drive to the 2009 state championship when they host Oak Park-River Forest.  We wish them well in their effort to repeat as state champs, and we encourage all Park Ridge residents to show up and support another Hawks football juggernaut, led on both sides of the ball by University of Indiana-bound Player-of-the-Year candidate Matt Perez and quarterback Tyler Benz. 

We used to think that Maine Township High School District 207 was a financially well-run organization, providing a high-quality education for the student and fiscal responsibility for the taxpayer.  But that belief was shaken by last week’s Herald-Advocate, which reported that Dist. 207 is facing a $17 million “structural budget deficit” (“District 207: Meetings to address $17M budget”). 

That article pointed us to a Dist. 207 “news release” [pdf], which tells a tale of woe that sure sounds like bad news for the District’s taxpayers.  According to two five-year financial forecasts, one done in-house and the other from an outside consultant, the District’s fund balances will be “depleted within five years if the District does not take decisive action to reduce or eliminate the structural budget deficit.”

Not surprisingly, the District reports that it will be looking at “formulating ways to increase revenues.”  For those of you not used to bureaucrat-speak, that means “coming up with a plan to raise taxes.”   But in typical school administration/school board obfuscation, the “news release” does not even mention the dreaded words “tax increase” – presumably because the administrators and school board members assume the taxpayers either are too stupid or too distracted by other matters to do the translation on their own.

If we are to believe the District (which is always an iffy proposition any time you’re dealing with government bureaucrats and politicians), the school board just found out this summer that an expected $4 million deficit for last school year was closer to $10 million! 

How do you end up that far off – 150% – and find out about it only after the end of the school year?  Wasn’t anybody monitoring those numbers during the school year itself?

If you want to ask some of those questions, we understand there is a meeting on the topic tomorrow night (Oct. 13) from 6:30 to 7:30 at Maine South; and next Monday night (Oct. 19) from 6:30 to 7:30 at Maine East.  Hopefully those won’t just be the typical dog-and-pony shows that are the rule rather than the exception when problems like this arise.

Meanwhile, we’ll just have to be content with the District’s two main alibis for this mess: that a “historically bad economy” (which is being used, at least for the time being, as the budgetary equivalent of “the dog ate my homework”); and that the low increase in the Consumer Price Index has caused a “flattening revenue line.”  In other words, because the increase in prices has been low, the District hasn’t been able to increase taxes as much as it has been increasing spending.

You know something is really cockamamie with a system that considers small increases in the cost of living a bad thing!

Do any of those administrators – or any of our purported “representatives” on the school board who are supposed to be keeping an eye on the administrators – have even the vaguest understanding of what kind of major disconnect between revenues and expenses they seem to be operating under? 

It sure doesn’t look that way, maybe because (as best as we can tell) none of those administrators or school board members appear to have any experience or understanding about running a $100 million a year business – which basically is what Dist. 207 is.  From what we can tell, most of them probably never ran any business at all, unless we count the occasional card-table sidewalk lemonade stand when they were six. 

According to the Dist. 207 bios for the seven school board members, three of them (McGrath, Mueller and Sullivan) are attorneys; two of them (Burk and Pellar) are former teachers; one of them (Braam) is an adjunct professor of psychology at Oakton Community College; and we can’t even tell what the seventh (Eric Leys) does for a living, although we are told he was named a “Master School Board Member” by the Illinois Association of School Boards.

According to the IASB website, however, it looks like that’s one of those titles you get just by going to enough IASB-sponsored events – kind of like earning frequent flier miles – so that excites us about as much as if Leys reported that he could now fly to Kansas City for free.

Business cluelessness could explain why (as the “news release” states) the “overall cost of salaries for all District employees, most of which are governed by a collective bargaining agreement, rose by about 5 percent this year.”  Gee, did anybody negotiating the last teachers’ contract on behalf of the District stop and think how they were going to ensure an increase in the revenue stream sufficient to cover that 5% increase in the cost of labor they were guarantying?

We didn’t think so. 

But, then again, what should we expect from teachers pretending to be business managers, and politicians pretending to be accountable for all the tax dollars they spend?

Update 10/13/09
Attached, courtesy of a reader who obtained it from The Champion website, is a purported list [pdf] of District 207 teachers (and administrators?) and their salaries.

We quickly counted 658 teachers/administrators, almost 300 of whom each appear to earn more than the reported median income for all Park Ridge households.

On Monday the traditional Park Ridge Memorial Day Parade will step off from South Park (Cumberland and Talcott) and end after passing the reviewing stand at City Hall.

The Parade is always a festive occasion, with the typical blend of elected officials, political organizations, community groups and various and assorted other participants mixing in for an entertaining event that brings the community together in a Norman Rockwell-esque sort of way.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But Memorial Day is really not meant to be a celebration.  It is a national holiday intended to commemorate and honor our fallen heroes, the men and women who have died in service to our country.  Unfortunately, that purpose seems to be increasingly lost among both the parade marchers and the parade watchers.

So we have two suggestions for those of you marching in this year’s Memorial Day Parade:

First, every group marching in the parade should invite one or more veterans, or current servicemen/women, to lead the group.    

Second, every individual marcher, adult and child alike, should buy a poppy from the folks selling them on the street corners and shopping areas all over town, and wear that poppy proudly as you march on Monday.  The same goes for those of you watching the parade.  And when you do, think of the poppies that inspired Canadian Army Lt. Col. John McCrae to write the words to “In Flanders Fields”:

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Some bon mots, vignettes and quick hits from the just-completed election season:

·         Did Mayor Frimark really spend a good part of Election Day encouraging people to visit an anti-Schmidt website while in the same breath stating that he doesn’t condone that sort of thing? 

·         Didn’t anybody ever tell Frimark’s political propagandist, Linda “Linda Ski” Szczepanski, that sour grapes (i.e., claiming Schmidt ran “a negative race”) make for bad whine?  

·         Speaking of sour grapes, Wednesday’s Park Ridge Journal quotes a “shocked” Frimark thusly: “[Schmidt] put out four negative pieces portraying me as a crook.”  After looking at all four of those pieces, we think “ethically challenged” would be more accurate than “crook.”

·         Speaking of ethical challenges, how will newly-elected Park Board Commissioner Richard Brandt avoid a conflict of interest in connection with the District’s relationship with the Service Employees International Union that effectively sponsored Brandt’s candidacy?

·         Did Rosemary Mulligan really tell some Maine Twp. Republicans Tuesday night that newly-elected mayors Marty Moylan (Des Plaines) and Dave Schmidt (Park Ridge) are Daley plants who will try to turn their respective communities into “Chicago’s 51st Ward”?

·         Speaking of more sour grapes from Frimark (also as reported by The Journal): “The city of Park Ridge, you’ll have to deal with him.”  Wasn’t Frimark referring to all things Park Ridge using the term “we’ll” just a few days ago?

·         After losing his seat on the Park Board and his sponsor at City Hall (Frimark), whither goest Nick Milissis?  Maybe he should have spent less time trying to kick candidates off the ballot and more time actually campaigning.

·         How soon before newcomer and top Dist. 207 vote-getter Margaret McGrath becomes a real force on that board?  

·         We’re still having a hard time deciding which of Frimark’s answers to the questions posed at The Journal’s debate contained the most inaccurate information.  One thing that seems pretty clear from the videos of that debate, however, is that City Council meetings should be televised (or at least video-recorded).

·         Where will Frimark lap dog Jim Allegretti (4th Ward) curl up after May 4th?

·         Did Sam Spiros Markos’ $17,000 in contributions to Frimark come with a money-back guaranty?

·         We can’t wait to see how much of all that campaign dough Frimark actually spent, and where it went.

·         How will Alderpuppet Frank Wsol (7th Ward) spin the fact that his confusing, misleading, dishonest and unnecessary referendum question still lost by 53.20% to 46.80%?  We’re betting he’ll compare it favorably to the citizens’ referendum losing 83.39% to 16.61%, and then come up with a lame excuse for yet another new cop shop plan.

·         Now that Frimark is out of the way, when will the new “Citizens for Non-Partisan Local Elections” start flexing its political muscle – using the $15,000 “start-up cash” it got from the defunct “Homeowners Party” – to begin fielding its aldermanic candidates for 2011?

Our endorsements:

Mayor of Park Ridge:            Dave Schmidt

Park Ridge Park District:      Rick Biagi
                                          Scott Duerkop
                                          Pawel Matula

School District 64:               None of these

School District 207:              Marijo Bustos
                                          Eric Leys
                                          Margaret McGrath
                                          Edward Mueller

Police Station Ref. No. 1:      No

Police Station Ref. No. 2:      No

Irrespective of whether you accept or reject these endorsements, make sure you vote!

Polls close at 7:00 p.m. 

Park District Provides Real Choices

The Park District is providing a contested race, with six candidates – Rick Biagi, Richard Brandt, Scott Duerkop, Pawel Matula, incumbent Nick Milissis and Steven Vile – seeking four seats.

Brandt is the last man standing of what was originally a slate of candidates promoted by the Service Employees International Union that represents a number of Park District employees.  The other three SEIU candidates, however, weren’t able to figure out how to file their nominating petitions correctly, so they were bounced off the ballot.  Kind of makes you wonder about the competence of the SEIU, doesn’t it?

Even if we discounted his SEIU affiliation, Brandt has shown us nothing that qualifies him for a seat on the Park Board.  But it’s that SEIU affiliation that is troublesome, especially because the Park District has been in ongoing negotiations with the union.  Putting Brandt on the Park Board sure seems like letting the fox into the hen house.  That’s enough to get a “No” from us.

As for Vile, the only thing we know about him is that his signs often appear in tandem with Mayor Howard “The Liar” Frimark’s, proclaiming either “Vile” “Frimark” or “Frimark” “Vile.”  While we concur with both sentiments, that’s not a sufficient qualification for the election of Mr. Vile to the Park Board.

That leaves Biagi, Duerkop, Matula and Milissis, who are running as a “ticket” under the tutelage of Frimark cronies Dick Barton and Bob Dudycz.  That alone is a reason to be wary of what agenda(s) these fellows might be bringing to the Park District, especially given the lightweight nature of their “4 the Parks” campaign literature.

As for Milissis, we keep hearing rumors that he is being groomed by Frimark and Friends for a spot on the City Council, which would explain Frimark’s appointment of him to the City’s civil service and fair housing commissions within the past few years. That’s not enough to disqualify him from the Park Board.  

His Park Board meeting attendance record since his appointment to the Board a little over a year ago, however, has been nothing to write home about.  And, so far, his most notable accomplishment as a Park District commissioner seems to have been his leading the charge in kicking the SEIU candidates off the ballot. That suggests he’s a lot more of a politician than a public servant – which is reason enough for us to give him a “No.”

We don’t know a whole lot about Messrs. Biagi, Duerkop and Matula – as we said earlier, their campaign literature re-defines “vanilla” and doesn’t give us a lot to go on.  But when compared to their competition, they end up being the tallest midgets in this particular circus.  Let’s hope they grow into the job.  

District 207 Provides “Hobson’s Choice”

Unlike for the District 64 election, the General Caucus of District 64 and 207 occasionally doesn’t stand in the way of a contested race, and this is one of those years – with 6 candidates vying for 4 seats.

But unlike with District 64, which draws the vast majority of its students from the friendly confines of Park Ridge, District 207 draws from a much larger territory, the majority of which is outside our boundaries. That adds another dimension to this race: provincialism, primarily a Park Ridge v. Des Plaines celebrity death match.

Many people we have heard from insist that Park Ridge needs to maintain dominance of this 7-member board “or else.” Or else what?  Those barbarians from D.P. will gerrymander the district so as to require at least one-half the starters on the state champion Maine South football team to attend Maines East or West?  Or do the same with the Maine South Constitution team and the Hawkettes?

Puh-leeze!

On the other hand, after attending a few District 207 school board meetings, we can’t totally discount some level of bizarro behavior from people who seem to have a chip on their shoulders – and maybe deservedly so – about the emoluments of growing up in “Pleasantville.”

Carrying the Park Ridge banner this year are incumbent board member Ed Mueller and newcomer Margaret McGrath.  Both are attorneys, but we won’t hold that against them. At least not yet.  But, unfortunately, neither one has given us a whole lot to get excited about, at least not judging by their campaign materials.

Mueller has sent around a mailer [pdf] that, to put it gently, underwhelms – especially for a guy who has sat on this board since 2001.  Okay…frankly, it’s pretty damn pathetic!  After 8 years on this board, is this the best “case” this guy can make for re-election?  Eddie, you’re a high school board member, not the heir to the House of Windsor. Do you really think the voters are going to hand this to you just because you live in Park Ridge and bear the Mark of the Caucus? 

As for Ms. McGrath, we saw her at the Park Ridge train station the other morning, so we’re giving her some bonus points for that effort.  We also got one of her flyers [pdf].  100% better than Mueller’s, but also not overwhelming – platitudes instead of principles, and devoid of anything substantive on finances and academic performance. 

She believes “That the entire community benefits from providing the best education possible to all children” and “That a great education system helps define and strengthen a community.”  Sorry, Ms. M, but that’s the kind of stuff that comes out of a can, like artificial cheese.

Looking at the rest of the field, there are incumbents Eric Leys and Marijo Bustos, and newcomers Eldon Burk and Jerry Kellogg, all of (shudder!) Des Plaines. 

We think that District 207 has its flaws, but it appears to be much better run, and has higher achievement levels when adjusted for its varying demographics, than District 64.  That suggests keeping incumbents Leys, Mueller and Bustos in office.  And of the three newcomers, we give the nod to McGrath, despite the Cheez Whiz, because (a) we see a whole lot of potential there, and (b) she is, after all, one of “us.” 

So go ahead and call us “provincial.”  But leave our Hawkettes alone!

Cop Shop Referendums: “No” and “Hell, No!”

There are three advisory referendum issues on Tuesday’s ballot.  Two are limited to the City of Park Ridge, and relate to a new police station, while the third addresses Todd Stroger’s ludicrous Crook County sales tax.

The first question is the citizen-initiated police station referendum:

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

That’s really the only legitimate referendum on this issue, placed on the ballot by over 70 resident signature gatherers during the dead of winter after the City Council’s six Alderpuppets sat on their thumbs when Ald. Dave Schmidt proposed putting that question on the ballot by simple Council resolution.

The second question is the attempt by newly-stringed Alderpuppet Frank Wsol to confuse the voters with something that sounds less expensive and harmful than the first question – in the hope of getting a “Yes” vote that he can say negates the “No” vote that the first question is likely to draw:

“In adopting a capital project to improve the administrative/public and police facilities, shall the City of Park Ridge require as conditions of issuing any bonds for such improvements that the total spent, absent interest and operational costs be less than $16.5 million dollars and the facility be located at 505 Butler Place with land already owned by the City?”

Voters need to remember that Wsol has been a new cop shop “whore” since his campaign against former cop Bob Kristie back in 2007, when Wsol supported the 40,000 square foot “Taj Mahal” cop shop to match Kristie’s support of such a facility.  Since that time, and in response to public opposition to such a plan, faux fiscal conservative Wsol has tap-danced around the issue with various twists and tweaks designed to sneak the biggest cop shop he can get away with past the taxpayers – after not wanting to go to referendum with it at all.

The bottom line to both of these referendums: The City is in a financial crisis that nobody but Ald. Dave Schmidt is willing to admit.  Every dollar spent on a new police station is one less dollar that can be spent on more important things like sewers, flooding control, streets and other essential infrastructure items.

Consequently, we strongly encourage a “No/No” vote on both referendums.    

Don’t Waste Your Vote On Caucus’ Dist. 64 Charade

We here at PublicWatchdog have been unabashed critics of what is known as the “District 64 and 207 General Caucus,” that quasi-official “organization” that rises from its slumber every other year to hand-pick and endorse a collection of generally decent but malleable residents who can be counted on to rubber-stamp pretty much anything the administrations of High School District 207 and Elementary School District 64 want to do.

The Caucus so dominates the election process for District 64 that we rarely even have contested races for those school board seats because the Caucus effectively scares away anyone who might consider challenging its candidates.  And from what we understand, this year there weren’t even contests for the Caucus endorsement, as only four people sought the four Caucus slots. 

So it looks like the voters of Park Ridge, who have seen the District 64 portion of their property taxes soar while the District’s overall academic performance and achievement stagnate, once again have no choice for the District 64 Board. 

But maybe we have more of a choice than looks would suggest.

If you are fed up with this monopolistic Caucus system and the unimpressive results it has posted both as to candidates for the District 64 Board and in the classroom, we suggest a protest vote…or, actually, a protest non-vote: When you go to the polls, vote on all offices and referendum issues except the District 64 Board candidates.  That won’t stop them from winning, but it will effectively reduce the electoral “mandate” that these gofers can claim when they get into office.

Even to as smug and insulated a group as the Caucus, 4,000 votes out of 10,000 cast is a lot less convincing than 8,000 out of 10,000.  And a notably lower vote total might also serve to encourage non-Caucus candidates to step up and challenge the Caucus endorsees two years from now.

So give it a try.  All you’ve got to lose is academic mediocrity at a premium price.

As reported in both local newspapers this week, the annual July 3rd fireworks display at Maine East High School is safe for at least another year, thanks to a donation from local website design firm Americaneagle.com, Inc.  And Americaneagle’s Tony Svanascini says next summer’s show will be bigger and better than ever.

Chalk up one very visible example of how a successful local business can give back to the community above and beyond the taxes it pays.  And even above and beyond – in Americaneagle’s case – the 140 or so people it employs. 

When we wrote about the petty politics that was threatening our annual pyrotechnic tradition (“When Politicians Play With Fireworks”, August 13, 2008), we noted that certain Park Ridge Park District commissioners reportedly were miffed that the City of Park Ridge seemed to be getting all the credit for that event.  So those commissioners – who readily turn a blind eye toward the red ink pouring out of other Park District facilities or programs, like the $80,000 or so each summer from the dead pool leaking at Oakton – became born-again fiscal conservatives and targeted the rockets’ red glare for a trimming.

But if we have our information straight, even though the Park District actually wrote the check each year for the cost of the fireworks portion of the show, the Park District was being reimbursed for that cost by the City of Park Ridge.  One way or the other, adding Americaneagle.com, Inc.’s donation to the equation means that either the City or the Park District just found $18,000 more in next year’s budget. 

Meanwhile, Americaneagle’s private contribution to this event – along with the contributions of our tax dollars by the City, the Park District and School District 207 (through Maine East), and an $8,000 contribution (public/private?) from the Park Ridge Fine Arts Society – causes us to inquire once again about why the Park Ridge Kiwanis Clubs purportedly gets an “exclusive” food concession deal for the event, especially without any known contribution by them to the cost of the event?

We reiterate that we’ve got nothing against the Kiwanis, but if the taxpayers continue to fund a substantial part of the fireworks show that enables the Kiwanis to fundraise on an “exclusive” basis, we think that, at the very least, the Kiwanis owes those same taxpayers answers to the following questions: (1) How did they get an “exclusive” deal?  And (2) What kind of profit, if any, do they make off the show?  We also think it would be a fine gesture for them to produce a financial report documenting the revenue and expenses they generate from this event.

We suspect that these questions and request will provoke comments similar to those raised in response to our August 13 posting: that the Kiwanis does so much good for the community that it’s an insult to ask them such things.  

But before anyone talks about insults, maybe they should first explain why the Kiwanis Clubs appear to be the only net “takers” from among the array of net “givers,” both public and private, each Independence Day?

The annual July 3rd fireworks display at Maine East High School is a grand tradition which Park Ridgians young and old eagerly await each summer.  The shows are spectacular, and they entertain not only the crowd at Maine East but also the crowds that gather at nearby locations such as North, Northwest and Woodland Parks.

But from the sound of things we might soon be seeing a less spectacular kind of fireworks from some of our local officials.

As reported in the July 23, 2008 edition of the Herald-Advocate (“District 207 wants chance to raise funds at fireworks, too”), School Dist. 207 Board member Jeff Bergen wants the District to be able to fundraise at the event in return for its donating the Maine East facilities.  We hear worse ideas from politicians and government bureaucrats almost every day, so we aren’t about to beef about District 207 getting a little quid pro quo for providing a venue for the fireworks.

But Dist. 207 isn’t alone in its discontent.  The Park Ridge Park District reportedly will be discussing at its August 21st meeting whether to pull out as one of the main sponsors of the fireworks – allegedly because it doesn’t believe it’s getting enough credit for helping to sponsor the event.  Assuming the report is true, that could be an entertaining discussion next Thursday night.

These two items got us interested enough to look into the money side of the fireworks show, because when it comes right down to it money is usually at the heart of most of these intergovernmental dust-ups.  And frankly, when its our money, we don’t mind a little frugality.

What we found was not one but two financial reports on this year’s fireworks show: One by the City of Park Ridge Public Works Department and the other by the Park Ridge Park District. Oddly enough, they don’t seem to quite match up, but they may satisfy the cliche: “Close enough for government work.”

The City’s 11-page report [pdf] reports, at page 11, “Total Program Costs” of $37,813.10, and another $22,299 for the cost of City employees.  The Park District’s 1-page report [pdf], on the other hand, shows $26,683.30 in “Total – Expenses.”   

We may be missing something, but if those two governmental bodies can’t seem to come up with the exact same accounting for such a relatively small project and dollar amount, we wonder what might be happening with the multi-millions of dollars in revenues and expenses they handle each year.  But that’s an issue for another time.

We also wonder about the “exclusive” deal the Kiwanis Clubs appear to have for all the food concessions at the fireworks (City report, page 4) – without any evidence that they are contributing anything toward the cost of the show.  We’ve got nothing against the Kiwanis, but so long as the City, the Park District and District 207 are using thousands of our tax dollars to make this event happen – and even the Park Ridge Fine Arts Society is kicking in $8,000 for the musical program – we see no reason for anybody to get a monopoly on anything unless they’re willing to pay for that privilege.  

Meanwhile, it’s time for the City, the Park District and School Dist. 207 to sit down together and exercise a little intergovernmental cooperation to make sure the burdens, the benefits and the kudos for the fireworks show are fairly allocated among all three bodies – and among the taxpayers of their overlapping but not identical territories. If private sponsors can be found to underwrite all or part of the event, so much the better.  

Because when it comes to as traditional a community event as our July 3rd fireworks display, the show must go on!