In addition to our previous endorsement of Park Board candidates Jim O’Brien, Mary Wynn Ryan and Mel Thillens (see “Voters Should Reject ‘Union’ Park Board Slate,” Mar. 30), we offer the following endorsements for your consideration:

Park Ridge-Niles School District 64

For the Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 board, we endorse Anthony Borrelli, Dan Collins and Marshall Warren over incumbents John Heyde and Eugenia Taddeo for the three 4-year seats; and Kristi Bavaro over incumbent Scott Zimmerman for the 2-year seat.

In their 4 and 6 years on the board, respectively, Heyde and Taddeo have distinguished themselves by spending the taxpayers’ money and by things that we find antithetical to good government, like secrecy and lack of accountability – as we discussed at greater length in posts like “More Of The ‘Culture Of Secrecy’ At District 64” (Sept. 16, 2010) and “Concealing The Details Of A ‘Fair’ Contract Raises Questions” (Sept. 14, 2009) – while at the same time doing little to raise the academic achievement of D-64 students, as we noted in posts like “District 64 Schools Missing (Again) From ‘Top 100’ Lists” (Oct. 29, 2010) and “Time For Taxpayers To Start Paying Attention To School Dist. 64” (Oct. 31, 2008).

While Zimmerman has served for less than two years, he was appointed by Heyde and Taddeo, among others.  Enough said.

We believe Borrelli, Collins, Warren and Bavaro will bring a fresh approach to D-64.  In the absence of any over-riding reasons to retain Heyde, Taddeo and Zimmerman, a fresh approach is preferable to a stale one.

Park Ridge City Council

In the 1st Ward, incumbent Ald. Joe Sweeney, whom Mayor Dave Schmidt appointed two years ago to fill Schmidt’s aldermanic seat when he became mayor, has been frustratingly inconsistent and unpredictable.  For every policy-based decision he seems to get right (e.g., rejection of giveaway funding of private community groups, voting against deficit budgets) he gets an equally-or-more significant one totally wrong (e.g., City Mgr. Jim Hock’s new sweetheart contract).  And we get the sense that he is an automatic, knee-jerk vote for anything police or police-related, irrespective of the cost-benefit output.    

On the other hand, his challenger, Alana Warren, appears to have been un-engaged in City business until her decision to run for alderman a few months ago, as evidenced by her admission that she had not attended any City Council meetings prior to her candidacy, and had watched only a couple/few meeting videos.  Well, at least she was honest about her disinterest. 

We are disappointed that neither candidate has done or even said enough good things about how the City should be governed to merit an endorsement.  All we can do is hope that whoever wins will step up to the plate and build a record that will merit an endorsement four years from now.

In the 7th Ward, the only other contested aldermanic race, the voters once again have multiple choices.  That’s a good thing, especially compared to the positively pathetic 3rd Ward, which could only field one eleventh-hour write in candidate after nobody filed any regular nominating petitions by the deadline.  Of the three candidates running in the 7th, we strongly endorse Marty Maloney for the seat being vacated by 6-year veteran Frank Wsol.

For the past 8 years Maloney has distinguished himself as the No. 1 fiscal hawk on the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District Board, where he has also served as president of that body. As a new commissioner back in 2004-05, he was instrumental in the successful intergovernmental effort to build the new City water reservoir at Hinkley Park, thereby saving City taxpayers over $3 million in additional costs and preserving the old City Garage property at Greenwood and Elm for other City uses or for sale to private developers.  In other words, he has walked the walk and not just talked the talk.

The two other candidates for this office, Lottie Janus and Franklin Ramirez, are decent folks but appear simply outclassed by Maloney.  And, unfortunately, Ramirez seems to be trying to turn this into a “partisan” battle by lining up the endorsements of non-resident Republican officials like Cook County Commissioner (and Village of Elmwood Park president) Peter Silvestri and State Rep. (and Des Plaines resident) Rosemary Mulligan, even as he has failed to identify even one City issue that has an inherently “Republican” or “Democrat” position to it.

Memo to Mr. Ramirez: by law, City elections are non-partisan.

And memo to Park Ridge voters:  Act like citizens and get to the polls tomorrow.

To read or post comments, click on title.

“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.” Luke 16:10 (King James Version).

This is a secular blog, but this Scriptural passage seems particularly apropos the page-one story in yesterday’s Park Ridge Journal about the Park Ridge-Niles School District 64’s lunchtime supervision program controversy (“Dist. 64 Wants More Of Students’ Lunch Money,” Mar. 16). Simply put, if D-64’s board and administration can’t effectively manage such a small thing as a lunchtime supervision program, how in the heck can they be trusted to manage all of the other, more important, functions of a school district?

The ostensible tip of this iceberg is a $25 per year increase – from $140 to $165 – in the per-student charge for the supervision provided to those students who don’t go home for lunch.  This is the first such increase in 10 years, according to a somewhat obtuse (or is it abstruse?) March 14 Memo from the D-64 Business Manager, Rebecca Allard, to the Superintendent and School Board.  That caused Ms. Allard’s insightful conclusion that “revenues are not keeping up with expenses.”

Brilliant!

As a result, the taxpayers are subsidizing this lunchtime supervision to the tune of $75,000 this school year.  And, without the increase, it looks like that subsidy would grow to $90,000 next year.  That’s admittedly small potatoes when we’re talking about an annual budget of over $60 million, but that’s also why it so aptly illustrates how small matters often reveal larger truths.

Until 2007 this lunchtime supervision program had been run by something called Parent’s Paid Lunch and Before School Care of District 64 (“PPLP”), a not-for-profit private corporation formed in 1973, reputedly by double-income parents who weren’t at home to provide lunch (and lunchtime supervision) for their own kids.

According to PPLP’s IRS 2005 Form 990 cover page, as recently as the 2005-06 school/fiscal year PPLP was turning a $36,000 “surplus”/profit on gross revenues of $564,906 and expenses of $528,847.  PPLPs IRS 2006 Form 990 cover page, however, shows an increase in expenses to $573,987 while gross revenues decreased to $524,163. 

In August 2006, however, Kathleen Goodman and some other Field School parents began questioning the privately-run program.  According to an August 24, 2006 article in the Niles Herald-Spectator (“Field parents question Dist. 64 lunch program”), those parents wondered why the program’s costs weren’t a District expense rather than a user expense; and they challenged the integrity of the program’s management by then-executive director, Natalie Blachut, who was being paid $12,694 and allegedly paying a group of parent supervisors $18/hour plus a waiver of the lunch supervision fee.    

By the next school year, PPLP had dissolved, turning over its $151,256 in surplus funds to the District and individual school PTOs; and the District took over the program.  After less than four years of District “management,” however, all those PPLP surplus funds are gone and the taxpayers are shouldering deficits.    

According to the Journal article, the big concern for the D-64 Board wasn’t the deficits that the taxpayers were being forced to swallow because the District has been asleep at the wheel on pricing this glorified baby-sitting service so as to cover its costs.  No, the Board was concerned about the size of that $25 increase!  And Board members Eric Uhlig and Pat Fioretto voted against it.

The fact of the matter is that this service is effectively a convenience to those working parents who need/want to leave their kids in the care of school staffs rather than make other arrangements for those kids to eat lunch at home, or at a friend’s/family member’s home.  According to that 2006 Niles Herald-Spectator article, then-Supt. Sally Pryor claimed the cost of that program was $1/day/child “for an hour supervision.”

If true, that’s an outstanding bargain for the parents of those kids in the program.  In fact, it’s too good a bargain – which is why we have questions.    

What’s the per-student or per-hour cost today?  Does the fee cover the costs?  How many students are in the program?  How much revenue does it generate? How many supervisors are there and what are they being paid?  We sure can’t tell any of that from Ms. Allard’s Memo, which as far as we know is the only information the School Board members had about the program when voting on the fee increase Monday night.  

But vote they did – however under-informed, uninformed, or misinformed they may have been. 

And those are the folks we’re trusting to run our $60 million-plus a year educational system.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Last week we criticized Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 for its latest display of hide-and-seek, as reported by the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate: concealing the amount of money it intends to spend on a “master plan consultant” until after the consultant is chosen.

Reading between the lines, this “master plan consultant” very well may also become the District’s referendum consultant if it can identify enough maintenance, repair and renovation projects  that have been neglected (since the District blew its wad on the construction and bonded-debt financing of the new Emerson back in 1997?) as to justify a major new building initiative that will require a binding referendum.  

So today we’re taking another shot at District 64 based on another H-A article (“Tax hike on table for all District 64 board hopefuls”) about the upcoming school board election, which appears to be the first election in memory that doesn’t feature a slate of candidates selected and endorsed by the General Caucus of School Districts 64 & 207.  That might explain why we’ve got more contested races than we’ve seen in 20+ years, with 5 candidates vying for the 3 four-year terms and 2 candidates vying for the 1 two-year term. 

The H-A article focused on referendums, specifically if and when District 64 could/should hold another one to suck more money out of the beleaguered taxpayers.  

Only one school board candidate,  Anthony Borrelli, sounds dead set against any new tax increase referendum.  He stated that he “would attempt to place the district in a sound financial footing to be able to operate without [a referendum].”  That sounds like a concept we can get behind, at least insofar as Borrelli has fleshed it out in his “Candidate Statement” posted on the County Clerk’s elections website – the only such statement posted by any District 64 candidate. 

We also like what little we’ve heard so far from newcomers Dan Collins, who claims to have a plan “to ensure we stay within our budget without an additional referendum”; Kristie Bavaro, who wants board members to “maintain accountability and scrutiny”; and Marshall Warren, who says he will support a referendum only for “a precisely-defined set of needed physical plant projects.” We hope all three of them will soon start putting some meat on those rhetorical bones, a la Borrelli. 

Unfortunately, their incumbent opponents can’t even manage comparable rhetoric. 

The best incumbents Scott Zimmerman and John Heyde can do is avoid the substance of the issue altogether by claiming they will honor a “promise” allegedly made during the 2007 referendum campaign that the District would not seek another taxing referendum until 2017.  And incumbent Genie Taddeo simply blames Illinois law for being “structured to cause school boards to go to the public periodically for needed funding.”  We assume she’s referring to the tax caps, which is the standard target for every tax-and-spend bureaucrat and politician in this state.

Like most District 64 taxpayers, we’re still in the dark about just how many millions of additional tax dollars the District already has received (and spent) compliments of that 2007 referendum, just as we are in the dark about just what measurable educational benefits all those extra tax dollars have produced. 

On the latter point, we note that the District is trumpeting the fact that it’s again among the 29 Cook County elementary school districts that received the 2010 “Bright Red Apple” award  based on five criteria, only one of which is “academic performance.”  Not surprisingly, the District remains deafeningly silent about why it isn’t among the 14 Cook County elementary school districts that also won a “Bright A+” award, which is based entirely on “academic performance.”

For some time we’ve been questioning the District’s inability to break through to the upper echelon of Chicagoland school districts in ISAT scores, noting how District 64 underperforms several other districts that spend less per pupil,  have larger class sizes, and/or have lower salaried teachers and administrators.   When talking about school quality, student achievement is pretty much Job One – followed by the ability to produce that achievement in the most cost-effective way. 

While we’re not ready to brand any of the newcomer candidates as a budding Michelle Rhee, they all at least seem to be attuned to the fact that District 64 has to be managed better and do better on student performance measures like the ISATs.  Meanwhile, the incumbents appear content with the “same ol’, same ol'” – as measured by things like the Bright Red Apple award, pupil/teacher ratios, teacher compensation and advanced degrees.

That difference might well turn this upcoming election into a referendum...on the incumbents.  

To read or post comments, click on title.

Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 has been not only the most costly of our three entirely-local governmental bodies but also the least transparent: it remains the only one among the City of Park Ridge and the Park Ridge Recreation & Park District that does not videotape its meetings, and its board minutes often read like the redacted version of a federal indictment. 

So it comes as no surprise that – according to the District’s business manager, Rebecca Allard, as reported in yesterday’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate article (“District 64: Field narrows to 2 in search for master plan firm,” March 8) – our secrecy-loving school board members and administration are concealing the price of the contract the District will be offering the lucky winner of District 64’s facilities “master plan consultant” contest until the District actually makes its selection.

After all, why give the taxpayers any reason to be riled up about yet another expensive consultant boondoggle until after it becomes a “done deal”? 

According to the H-A article, this “master plan” is “intended to prioritize the maintenance needs of all nine District 64 schools.”  Apparently the District doesn’t have anybody on Staff who has the ability to determine, plan and budget for “a range of current building maintenance needs” like: 

• “heating and ventilation” (Carpenter is cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Hmmm, what might solve those two problems?);  
• “carpeting” (Can’t we get a free carpeting “expert” by dialing 588-2300?);  
• “painting” (Benjamin Moore or Dutch Boy?);  
• “utilities” (Electric Company or Water Works?); 
• “lighting” (We’re all for it!); and  
• “asphalt and landscaping” (Not interchangeable). 

The two finalists are allegedly “architectural” firms: Oakbrook-based FGM, and Ohio-based Fanning Howey, which conveniently just happens to have a Park Ridge office.  That’s why we’re putting our standard PublicWatchdog $1 wager on Fanning Howey – that, and the fact that its website advertises its expertise in such traditional architectural and engineering disciplines as “community engagement” and “referendum/bond issue assistance.”

As the H-A reports, Fanning Howey brazenly admits to a strategy for getting community support for what likely will be boxcar-number tax increases and/or bond issues that includes thumping the tub for schools hosting “church groups, community-centered assemblies, sports leagues, concerts and adult education classes…during non-school hours.”

The better to justify expensive additions, major renovations, and designs that are “flexible” – a term as essential to describing modern public buildings as “vibrant” is to describing municipal redevelopment projects.

Can you feel you wallet getting lighter already?

If not, check out the District’s recent “Ten Year Financial Projections” from yet another consultant: StratPlan Consulting & Modeling.

Start with its Page 1 description of the District’s “Recent History.”  It describes the District’s 1999-2007 financial problems as if they were produced by forces of nature (and that perennial villain, the “tax cap”) rather than by the acts and/or omissions of the School Board or administration – such as the District’s mismanagement/mis-budgeting of the “New Emerson” project that left it on the brink of having its finances taken over by the Illinois State Board of Education in 2005, a situation it averted only by issuing $5 million of non-referendum “working cash” bonds to restore its depleted fund balances.

Head over to Page 6 and read StratPlan’s (i.e., the School Board’s) description of timing a “strategic referendum” so that it can ask the voters “to simply replace the expiring debt levy with a comparable operating levy – at no net tax rate increase.”  In other words, just keep replacing debt with more debt so that it (and the expensive debt service) becomes permanent.

But what strikes us as outright deceitful is that, despite the pages upon pages of graphs and tables, we can’t find any record of exactly how much in total property tax dollars District 64 was collecting before the 2007 tax increase referendum, compared to what it has been collecting since that referendum.  Is it just coincidence that this report starts with the 2007-08 school year?

We also can’t seem to find that tax information in anything else available on the District’s website.

But that’s the kind of obfuscation and misdirection we’ve come to expect from District 64, its board and its administration…and from the consultants it hires.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Last week both local newspapers published articles about flooding problems with District 64 schools (“District 64: Bond issue, tax hike mulled to fund $2.8M flooding fix,” Herald-Advocate, Jan. 26; “Call For School Drainage Repairs,” Journal, Jan. 26). 

According to those articles, Carpenter and Franklin Schools need approximately $2.8 million to remedy flooding.  The H-A reported that the auditorium at Carpenter “is unusable due to the flooding issues” and needs “drastic attention,” while Franklin needs an underground water detention vault and a new storm sewer.

And in case flooding isn’t problem enough, we recently (in November 2010) learned that Carpenter is unsafe because of inadequate heat and no air conditioning.

Are all these pressing needs that must be attended to immediately?  Frankly, we don’t know, although it sure sounds that way.

But what’s suspicious to us is that these problems are the kinds of things that just don’t spring up overnight.  Yet in this case these seem to have…just sprung up overnight.

Back in November we started hearing (in the local newspapers) about the problems with the Carpenter heating system, as well as the complaints about Carpenter having no air conditioning.  But back then there was no mention of flooding – and especially not the kind of flooding that makes an auditorium “unusable.”

But a review of the minutes of the November 15, 2010, District 64 school board meeting discloses comments by Carpenter 1st Grade teacher Lisa Gray and Carpenter parents Brett Parker, Jennifer Gallery and Colleen Straka raised complaints about some of these conditions, although those minutes reflect that only Ms. Gray reported any water issue, which she described not in terms of “flooding” but as “water and mold in the basement.”

In the past we’ve been critical of local government management that downplays or ignores problems until they reach crisis proportions, at which point they become “emergencies.” We question whether that has been allowed to happen here.

But we also wonder why, given all of the additional tax revenues District 64 has taken in since the 2007 tax increase referendum, the District 64 board is talking about a bond issue and a tax increase to cover that $2.8 million cost. 

Where has all that money gone?

For more than 50 years the General Caucus of School Districts 64 & 207 (the “Caucus”) has handpicked almost every person who has sat on the Board of District 64, and every “Park Ridge” member of the District 207 Board.  That’s because the Caucus has acted as a de facto political party that became commonly viewed as insuperable.   

Every two years the Caucus would emerge from the figurative mist, Brigadoon-like, to recruit, interview, approve and promote a slate of candidates, primarily for the Dist. 64 Board.  And as soon as that mission was accomplished, it vanished back into the mist for the next two years, unaccountable to the voters for all that occurred in the District. 

But as best as we can tell, “Brigadoon” has not emerged this year: No Gene Kelly, Van Johnson or Cyd Charisse; no Phil Eichman, Michael Callahan or Marianne Griebler. 

As of today, the Caucus’ website still has posted the “Process” for the April 17, 2009, School Board election; and it looks like the 2009 list of officers is also still up.  So unless the Caucus has been meeting in Star Chamber-like secrecy to do its handpicking and anointing, all signs point to a Caucus-less School Board election in April.  We think that’s a good thing.

What happened?  We don’t have a clue – and the silence is deafening. 

But we do know that this year there are more contested races – 7, for 4 seats – for the Dist. 64 Board  than at any time since 1997, when a 3-person slate challenged the Caucus’ slate.  Unsuccessfully.  

Since then, we can think of only two non-Caucus candidates who displayed the temerity even to have run against the Caucus slate in the past 6 elections, only one of whom was successful: Ted Smart, who withdrew from the 2007 race too late to have his name removed from the ballot, but went on to defeat Caucus candidate Shlomo Crandus in what some viewed as an anti-Semitic vote.

Five candidates are running for three 4-year terms, while 3 candidates are running for the 2-years remaining on the term of Russ Gentile, who resigned last year and was replaced by appointee Scott Zimmerman, who is seeking election to that seat.  Dan Collins has filed petitions for both a 4-year seat and the 2-year one, but was required to drop out of one by December 28; and we have yet to hear which one that is.

In previous posts (e.g., on 01/02/09, 01/16/09 and 04/02/09) we criticized the whole Caucus process for, among other things, discouraging contested races for the Dist. 64 Board.

If the Caucus truly is sitting this election out, it would appear that its sabbatical already has paid dividends by giving the voters more choices than they have had in more than a decade.

Now let’s hope both the candidates and the voters take this opportunity seriously. 

To read or post comments, click on title.

As we leave behind the difficulties and tumult in local government during 2010 for the hope and opportunities of a new year, we offer the following quotes from among our favorites for your delectation, indifference, or revulsion…depending on your point of view: 

“That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.”  Thomas Jefferson

 “The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.”  John Kenneth Galbraith

 “A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.”  Theodore Roosevelt

 “Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits.”  Edmund Burke

 “The [big] lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.”  Joseph Goebbels

This coming year also brings with it the election for all seven members of the Park Ridge City Council and for various members of the boards of Elementary School District 64, High School District 207, and the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District are only 95 days away.  Which means you have 95 days to get to know the candidates so that you can exercise a meaningful choice at the polls on April 5th.

Remember:

“It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.”  Justice Robert H. Jackson

Happy New Year!

To read or post comments, click on title.

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.

“Know it!” said Scrooge. “Was I apprenticed here!”

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welch wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:

“Why, it’s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again!”

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shows to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

“Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!”

Scrooge’s former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-‘prentice.

“Dick Wilkins, to be sure!” said Scrooge to the Ghost. “Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!”

“Yo ho, my boys!” said Fezziwig. “No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let’s have the shutters up,” cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, “before a man can say, Jack Robinson!”

You wouldn’t believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into the street with the shutters — one, two, three — had ’em up in their places — four, five, six — barred ’em and pinned ’em — seven, eight, nine — and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

“Hilli-ho!” cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. “Clear away, my lads, and let’s have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!”

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter’s night.

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her Mistress. In they all came, one after nother; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, “Well done!” and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up “Sir Roger de Coverley.” Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.

But if they had been twice as many: ah, four times: old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that’s not high praise, tell me higher, and I’ll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig’s calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn’t have predicted, at any given time, what would become of ’em next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, hold hands with your partner, bow and curtsey; corkscrew; thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig cut — cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr and Mrs Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two ‘prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.

“A small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.”

“Small!” echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,

“Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?”

“It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. “It isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ’em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

He felt the Spirit’s glance, and stopped.

“What is the matter?” asked the Ghost.

“Nothing particular,” said Scrooge.

“Something, I think?” the Ghost insisted.

“No,” said Scrooge, “No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now! That’s all.”

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.

May Fezziwig’s spirit inspire your Christmas.

Last week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate reported that Park Ridge-Niles Elementary School District 64 might need to resort to raising our property taxes now that federal funds aren’t being made available to pay for air conditioning and a new boiler for the heating system at Carpenter School (“Heating, AC issues at Carpenter have parents hot under the collar,” Dec. 2).

If that report is accurate, we have to wonder what’s up with District 64’s management.

Don’t get us wrong: we’re big fans of AC.  We rank it right up there with fire and the wheel when talking about mankind’s greatest inventions.  And heated schools are pretty useful, too.

But as we understand it, Carpenter never has had AC.  So if kids really have been going home from school vomiting because of the heat – as Carpenter parent and former PTO president Brett Parker claims – why wasn’t the need for AC and a plan to fund it put in place years ago?  And the same goes for the replacement of Carpenter’s 50-year old boiler?

Why is it that only now are we hearing D-64 Board president John Heyde warning of “big decisions” with “big costs” for ensuring that the District’s schools are “safe and healthy” places?  Is Carpenter currently unsafe and unhealthy, Mr. Heyde?

Meanwhile, D-64 Supt. Philip Bender is claiming the decision to install AC and a new boiler at Carpenter is “going to require thought and input from the general public.”

We expect the initial “thought and input” on things like A/C and a new boiler for Carpenter to be coming from Bender and the D-64 Board, because he’s the one sitting in the big chair making the big bucks to provide that thought and input; and the seven School Board members were put in their seats to do something more than just rubber-stamp regular raises for the teachers’ union and their flavor-of-the-month educational programs which don’t seem to be raising the educational performance of the District’s students measurably. 

Let those folks come up with two or three alternative plans for Carpenter, and then the taxpayers can provide their input – preferably first at public hearings, then at the voting booth in the form of a binding or advisory referendum.

And just in case the point hasn’t been sufficiently made by now: Crossing one’s fingers and hoping for a windfall of federal grant money is not a “plan.”

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For Park Ridge residents who are unemployed, underemployed, or fully employed but still just hoping to make ends meet from week to week, the idea of borrowing money to buy or build stuff that they don’t desperately need just because interest rates are extremely low is not at the forefront of their thinking. 

Even successful businesses that appear to have weathered the current economic storm are cautious about borrowing “cheap money,” because cheap money still has to be paid back; and if there isn’t the likelihood of such borrowing producing a significant return, there’s little reason to do it. 

The reasoning employed by private individuals and private businesses, however, doesn’t seem to translate all that well to the public sector. 

Take, for instance, the Community Finance Committee (“CFC”) of the District 64 Board of Education.  This Committee is supposed to be the District’s financial brain trust – it was created several years ago when the District’s finances, even after cutting more than $12 million from the budget over a six-year period, remained so botched that the State Board of Education was considering taking over their management.  

The District avoided that embarrassment by passing a $5 million “backdoor” non-referendum working cash bond issue, and then bailed out those working cash bonds by passing the big 2007 tax increase referendum.  

At its October 14, 2010, meeting, CFC members discussed capital improvements to the District and how to fund them.  Needless to say, short and long-term bond funding was the topic of choice because “money has never been cheaper to borrow” – according to Page 2 of the minutes of that meeting. 

And who was leading the cheers for more borrowing?  

The District’s contact at its investment banker, William Blair & Co., who advised the CFC that “the District could sell up to $27 million of short-term debt without referendum” for projects to be completed within 3 years.  

That must have been the signal for School Board member Sharon Lawson to report that the Board’s Facilities Committee “is going to come back to life” to look at longer-than-3-year “needs” for capital improvements. 

In other words: Now’s the time to borrow, so let’s put the band back together and come up with some projects. 

Ms. Lawson wasn’t on the School Board back in 1996-97 when it decided to borrow and spend approximately $20 million (not including interest) to tear down what was then the newest school building in the District, Emerson Jr. High (then being leased from the District and successfully operated as the Futabakai Japanese School) and build a brand new Emerson Middle School. 

We haven’t seen any data that establishes the economic or academic ROI of that project, although we assume somebody can justify it by the academic version of the old reliable “quality of life” argument – perhaps Ald. Robert Ryan, for whom the new Emerson effectively was the valedictory of his one term as a District 64 Board member from 1993 through 1997, seeing as he headed up the District’s Long-Term Needs Advisory Committee that was instrumental in pushing for the new Emerson over the other proposed space solutions.    

If new brick and mortar really had that much inherent value, we’d expect Emerson Middle School to be consistently outperforming Lincoln Middle School, and Franklin Elementary doing the same to Roosevelt.  But we haven’t seen any data to support that kind of analysis, either here in Park Ridge or in other districts.  

And because public buildings tend to be specialized structures unsuitable for any other uses, they tend to be depreciating, rather than appreciating, assets whose value is usually only the land on which they sit. 

Which gets us back to the original point: Why is District 64’s financial brain trust thinking about a capital spending spree just because “money has never been cheaper to borrow”?

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