We’ve often written about “freeloaders”: people and organizations looking for some kind of free or discount ride at the expense of Park Ridge taxpayers.  And we often describe them as “shameless” – and the complicit governmental bodies they put the arm on as “spineless” – because in a battle between the shameless and the spineless, the shameless almost always win.

Today’s featured freeloaders are the folks who run the Park Ridge Historical Society (the “PRHS”).

As reported last week in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Park Ridge Historical Society seeks Solomon Cottage agreement,” May 17), the PRHS wants the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District to let it “share” the Solomon Cottage on the Park Ridge Youth Campus property the Park District is in the process of purchasing.  The PRHS wants to turn that building into a Park Ridge “history center” that would be open one day a week, while allowing the Park District the “shared use” of the building at all other times.

So far, so good.  Or at least inoffensive.

As reported in the H-A story, however, the PRHS doesn’t want to pay any rent for its use of the building.  And if that’s not cheeky enough, it also wants the Park District (a/k/a, the taxpayers) to pay not only the cost of bringing that building into building code compliance (at an estimated cost of $120,000), but also the cost of the additional “build-out” work to make that structure more suited to the PRHS’s needs.

Oh, and did we mention the PRHS wants a full one-year’s notice should the Park District ever decide to end that sweetheart arrangement?

We must confess that when we hear stuff like this, our first reaction is to reach for a Louisville Slugger (the classic “Hank Aaron” model A99: wide-grained white ash, 35 inches long, 33 ounces, medium handle, medium barrel) and consider tapping a little sense into the heads of the particular freeloaders.  Fortunately for all involved, that urge usually passes before it is acted upon; and, instead, we choose to publicize that freeloading with the intent of shaming the bejeebus out of its perpetrators.

In this case, the lead “perp” is PRHS’s treasurer (and former 1/2-term First Ward alderman), Kirke Machon.  But unless Machon has gone rogue, the other officers and directors of the PRHS also need to “wear the jacket” for the kind of shamelessness articulated by Machon, to wit: “We don’t envision spending our money fixing that building up” unless the PRHS is going to own it.

Fair enough, Captain Kirke.  How about your organization proceeding at warp speed to purchase Solomon Cottage from the Park District?  Or why not agree to a long-term lease at a rental that would cover the amortized cost of both the compliance and build-out work – with all of the PRHS’s officers and directors personally guarantying that lease so the taxpayers don’t get stiffed?

One doesn’t need to be able to solve the Kobayashi Maru to recognize the PRHS proposal as a totally one-sided “heads the PRHS wins, tails the Park District/taxpayers lose” bet.  But apparently that one-sidedness is not enough to discourage the Park District from doing its Gumby impersonation and twisting itself into whatever shape might make the PRHS happy.

For example, the H-A article reports that Park District Executive Director Gayle Mountcastle, while noting that the Park District has never before provided “build-out” funding for any if its affiliated organizations (of which the PRHS is not one), didn’t rule out that possibility.  Meanwhile, Board president Rick Biagi talked about using tax dollars to make the Solomon Cottage “habitable,” but not customized for the PRHS.  And Board member Jim O’Brien, while questioning the Park District’s need for any more “shared space,” nevertheless suggested that the Parks Foundation might work with PRHS to fundraise for the building improvements.

Balderdash!

While we are grateful for the efforts the PRHS has made to preserve Park Ridge history, an historical society is to the Park District pretty much what an accordion is to deer hunting.  Consequently, there is no reason to make the PRHS a Park District “affiliate” – especially if that’s only being done so that the Park District can try to justify giving PRHS rent-free use of the Solomon Cottage or any other Park District facility.

If the PRHS wants to use Solomon Cottage, it needs to put some significant skin in the game, with “skin” meaning greenbacks.  And the folks at the Park District who are supposed to be the stewards of our Park District and our tax dollars need to stop encouraging and enabling freeloaders of every stripe.

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Last week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate reported that Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. (“SSI” or “Seniors Inc.”), the private corporation that the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District permitted to effectively run the Park Ridge Senior Center on Western Avenue for the past 30 years, may be setting up operations in the former Our Lady of Ranson School on Greenwood Avenue in Niles (“Park Ridge senior group eyes move to Niles,” May 6).

Bon voyage and good riddance, greedy geezers.

We won’t re-hash all the reasons why we think self-imposed exile in Niles constitutes addition by subtraction.  Those can be found in our posts of 01.27.11, 07.29.11, 08.02.11, 12.12.11, 04.16.12 and 07.16.12, among others.

From the sound of the H-A article, new Park Commissioner James Phillips – as he indicated he would do during his recent successful election campaign – did his best to get the Park Board to relent and try to make nice with SSI.  But we prefer the approach of re-elected Commissioner Richard Brandt: “If they want to go, let them go.”

How many Senior Center members join the approximately one dozen malcontents who make up the SSI leadership and/or the self-importantly named “Senior Senate” (assuming they aren’t one in the same) in the move to Niles remains to be seen.  It also remains to be seen how much of the personal property (e.g., folding chairs and tables, a piano, pool tables, several TVs, bocce ball sets, etc.) currently in the Senior Center they will take with them – although we hope they take all of it to further underscore their pettiness.

Given all the acrimony infecting this situation, however, we question why the Park District seems to be coddling SSI while it conducts its search for a new clubhouse.  Rather than giving SSI until June 1 to decide what property it will be taking with it, and giving SSI until August 1 to remove it, the District should have told SSI in no uncertain terms that such a decision needs to be made NOW…and the stuff moved out NOW.  No need to let that toxic situation continue to infect the Park District.

Irrespective of how many folding chairs and TVs the SSI malcontents take with them, however, they also will be taking with them a whopping $330,000 from the Betty Kemnitz Trust that probably belongs to the Park District and its taxpayers – the results of the settlement of Grodsky v. Park Ridge Recreation and Park District, Case No. 2012 CH 2032, the lawsuit that was filed by former Park District Senior Center supervisor Teresa Grodsky after she was challenged by the Park District for handing over the Kemnitz Trust money to SSI even as she was drawing a Park District paycheck.  Maybe SSI can use some of that ill-gotten Kemnitz cash to hire Grodsky to run their senior “clubhouse” in exile.

With SSI leaving, the burden now shifts to the Park District to make good on running the Senior Center in a more cost-effective way – and for the benefit of more than the 700 or so seniors, a good number of whom weren’t even District residents and taxpayers.  Having left all that in the hands of SSI and Grodsky for so many years, it will be interesting to see if the District is up to that task.

Meanwhile, it will also be interesting to see whether the Park Board and District administration learn anything from this Senior Center debacle.

In a sense, the community should be grateful to the greedy geezers of SSI for providing a clear object lesson in what happens when a governmental body that is supposed to be the steward of the taxpayers’ money abdicates responsibility for both that money and the related taxpayer-owned facility, effectively encouraging the inmates to run the asylum.  In this case, those inmates ran up $150,000 a year in operating deficits while charging their “members” a paltry $43 in annual membership “dues.”  And the Park Board and staff let them do it without objection.

Can the lesson of SSI and the Senior Center be applied to the District’s actual affiliates, several of which are also private corporations like SSI which traditionally received (and still receive?) the same kind of wink-and-nod oversight that SSI and the Senior Center used to receive.  Is anybody over at Park District HQ paying close attenti0n to how those affiliates are operating, as well as to their finances and how those finances are being managed?  Although we understand each affiliate is supposed to file with the District an annual financial statement and tax return (if it files such returns), we couldn’t find any such statements or returns on the District’s website.

Frankly, that’s not an encouraging sign.

The Park District was fooled once by SSI, so shame on SSI.  Hopefully, the District won’t get fooled again.

If it does, that shame will be all on the District, its staff and the Park Board.

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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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Anybody who reads this blog with any regularity knows how critical we have been of the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District’s recent handling of two significant issues: the Senior Center and the new Centennial Pool.

The whole Senior Center debacle (including the related Teresa Grodsky termination and Betty Kemnitz bequest litigation) was about as botched as a situation like that could be, with plenty of blame to go around – most of it well-earned by the handful or so of seniors running private corporation Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. (“Seniors Inc.”) – and plenty of expense to show for it.

The Centennial Pool fiasco, on the other hand, was basically about the arrogance of District director Gayle Mountcastle and the Park Board members who – in breaking with almost 18 years of Park District precedent – decided to commit $7.1 million (including $6.3 million financed by 15-year bonds) to build a third-rate, 3-months-per-year outdoor aquatic facility without the decency of at least consulting the taxpayers through a non-binding, advisory referendum, an affront made especially egregious in light of Mountcastle’s and the Board’s knowledge that the last three pool referenda had failed significantly.

Not asking the taxpayers a question because you think they’ll give you an answer you don’t want to hear is the height of cowardice; and claiming that you know what’s best for the community so much more than those taxpayers that you don’t even have to ask them, is the height of arrogance.

Given just those two events, it would be easy for us to say “Throw the bums out!” and endorse the two challengers to the four current Park Board members who are running for 4 seats on that 7-member Board.

But “easy” is often, if not usually, wrong.

Which is why, despite some trepidation, we endorse incumbent Board members Rick Biagi, Richard Brandt and Steven Hunst for re-election.  They are running as a ticket against incumbent Board member Steven Vile and challengers Joan Bende and James Phillips.

Biagi has been the leader of the Park Board for much of the past four years, irrespective of where around the Board table he has sat.  That means, however, that the “buck” stops at his chair when it comes to the two gaffes we discussed above; and we hold him accountable for them.  If those were even a majority of his body of work, he would not have earned this endorsement.

But while we vehemently disagree with him on the way he and the Board handled those situations, we respect the fact that he did not shrink from the slings and arrows directed his way by this blog, by Kenneth Butterly’s “Butterly On Senior Issues” blog, and by many members of the general public.  And unlike his fellow Board members, he seemed genuinely conflicted by the competing interests of voter empowerment and Board autonomy.  His leadership, combined with Mountcastle’s generally solid management, appears to have made the District a better and more cost-effective operation – which counts for a lot in our book.

One reason for some of that cost-effectiveness may well be Hunst.  Despite sporting more letters after his name than an unsolved Wheel of Fortune puzzle, Hunst provides a wealth of analytical skills that we believe have raised the Board’s understanding of various cost-benefit situations it has addressed, to the benefit of the taxpayers.  Every public body probably needs a person like Hunst, and he’s clearly the designated wonk on that Board.

Four years ago we refused to endorse Brandt, largely because of his support by the Service Employees International Union (“SEIU”) which represents some District workers.  We thought that created too great a prospect of a conflict of interest.  But in the intervening years we have seen no sign of union influence to concern us.  And except for his support of the no-referendum Centennial project, he’s been a pretty steady voice for fiscally conservative management.

That leaves one unfilled vacancy for which we cannot endorse a candidate from among the remaining three candidates, who are running as a ticket billing themselves as “The Last Three” due to their positions on the ballot.  The main theme of their candidacies, as noted on their website, is: “Our Park Ridge Seniors Deserve Better From Our Park District Board.”

That kind of special-interest entitlement mentality would be reason enough to refuse an endorsement of the entire ticket or any individual candidate on it, for all of the various factors identified in our posts of 01.27.11, 12.12.11, 01.19.12, 06.11.12 and 07.16.12.

But there are more reasons.

Incumbent Steven Vile has been an unswerving champion of tax, borrow and spend-style government.  Worse than that, however, was how he chose to work for the special interests of Seniors Inc. – of which he is a member and former board member – instead of looking out for the best interests of the Park District and the community as a whole in connection with the Senior Center/Grodsky/Kemnitz debacle.

Joan Bende is another advocate of special-interest tax, borrow and spend-style government.  She disingenuously argues for the District keeping legal fees down, knowing full well that a lot of those fees were generated by the District’s litigating over the $330,000 Kemnitz bequest that former employee (and Kemnitz trustee) Teresa Grodsky appears to have improperly diverted from the Park District to Seniors Inc. – and which the Seniors Inc. crowd refused to give back even after the District agreed to use that money solely and entirely for the Senior Center.

James Phillips is the third member of this triumvirate and he, too, is basically a Senior Center one-trick pony.  No matter where we look – his ticket’s website, their campaign literature, or his candidate profile in the March 20th edition of the Park Ridge Journal – can we find him offering any actual ideas about what exactly he would do about the issues he raises, which he does in a way that makes him sound like an old Jerry Seinfeld routine, but without the humor.

The Park District also has its Park Ridge Youth Campus acquisition referendum on the ballot.

That referendum asks District voters to approve the acquisition of 11.35 acres of land previously operated as a collection of group homes for troubled youths, at a cost of at least $13.2 million of  long-term bonded debt.

Persuasive arguments can be made for both sides of this issue.  A ‘yes” vote would mean that the Park District will have additional acreage for recreational activities it currently doesn’t offer, or for which it lacks optimal space, although the luxury of that additional space will continue to keep that property off the tax rolls indefinitely.  A “no” vote, on the other hand, will likely lead to residential development that will gain for the City all the property, water and sewer taxes that can be generated by putting that property back on the tax rolls through the construction of private homes – with a downside of more kids being added to the school population and greater demands on the City’s infrastructure.

Frankly, we see this as a coin flip question, a “Tastes great, less filling” kind of issue.  But while we endorse neither a “yes” nor a “no” vote, we are troubled by a few things done by the District that seem to be both deceptive and overtly political, the latter of which is improper under state law prohibiting use by the District of tax dollars to campaign for or against a referendum.

The first is the District’s failure to include the cost of the project or the amount of the bonds on the first page of its 2-page FAQ sheet.   Instead, the first page is brazenly devoted to selling the reader “good news” about the project before the reader gets the “bad news” of the cost.  And when the cost finally shows up on page two, there’s no mention of the total cost that figures in the debt service (i.e., bond principal and interest), which means the $13.2 million total is probably at least $1 million light.

The second is the comment on page two of that FAQ sheet that, should the referendum fail, the District “would not have the resources to purchase the property.”  Not surprisingly, the District fails to mention that, had it not committed $6.3 of its non-referendum bonding power and $800,000 of cash to build a new Centennial Pool just a few months ago, it would have more than enough money to pay the $6.4 million purchase price of the Youth Campus land.  Of course, that would require the Board and Staff to actually make value judgments and prioritize their wishes and dreams, rather than recklessly indulge all of them.

Finally, we have serious doubts about legitimacy and credibility of the “Operating Budget” for the Youth Campus the Park District has published on its website, which appears to be nothing more than meaningless fun with numbers – and missing so much necessary detail that it’s almost impossible to tell just how ridiculous those numbers might be.

For example, the budget predicts $23,770 of net income from Platform Tennis (Pages 5-6)  based in part on $15,000 of membership fees, $1,000 of daily fees and $5,000 of rental income – without any detail describing how many memberships, daily users and rentals would be needed to hit those revenue numbers.  So the ability of the average Park Ridge taxpayer to form an opinion of whether those revenues are legitimate or complete pie-in-the-sky bunkum is non-existent.  And the same goes for all the rest of the budget numbers.

So for all of you trusting souls who think you will be getting the Youth Campus park for a mere $72 a year of additional property taxes on your $458,000 home, don’t bet the ranch on it.  And don’t expect Mel Thlllens to write you a check.

Coming Next:  City of Park Ridge

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The April 9 local elections are only 1 month away, and last night provided the first event of what is the stretch drive to election day.

The Park Ridge Republican Women held their customary candidates forum Thursday (03.07.13) night at South Park Fieldhouse, and around 150 people showed up to hear the two candidates for mayor, the six competing candidates for alderman (in the 2nd, 4th and 6th wards), and five of the six Park Board candidates give short presentations and press the flesh.

Oh, yes…some of the Republican candidates for Maine Township offices also spoke, causing us to once again question why Illinois doesn’t just eliminate township government.  But that’s another story for another day.

[Because of the number of candidates running in contested elections – a GREAT THING! – the Park Ridge Republican Women will hold a second forum at the same site on March 21 at 7:00 p.m. for the candidates for the three school boards – D-64, D-207 and Oakton Community College.]

Notably, it was the first opportunity for voters to see and hear both Park Ridge Mayor Dave Schmidt and challenger Larry Ryles in the same room – although the forum format did not give them an opportunity to spar about the issues.

That opportunity should come next week, assuming Ryles shows up, with the Chamber of Commerce luncheon debate at the Park Ridge Country Club on Wednesday, March 13 (11:30 a.m.), and the League of Women Voter’s debate at City Hall on Thursday, March 14, (7:00 p.m.).

Ryles went first and did his best to spend his entire allotted 5 minutes talking about everything but substantive City issues: his childhood in Georgia, his military service, his terrorizing local cleaners with his fluency in Korean, his insurance career, etc.  And he might have made it, too, had not the timekeeper audibly informed Ryles that he was down to his last minute – at which time Ryles began mouthing a few hollow platitudes about making Park Ridge a place his children could call home and raise their own families.

Gee, Larry, isn’t Park Ridge already that kind of place – and hasn’t it been that way for the last several decades, except when property values and/or taxes go so high that grown children can’t afford to move back?  Wasn’t Park Ridge recently declared the 72nd safest city (among those with populations over 25,000) in the entire country?  Isn’t that why we live here?

Heck, even former mayors Ron Wietecha, Mike Marous and Howard Frimark – who, not surprisingly, have endorsed Ryles, presumably in response to Schmidt’s telling the painful truth about what an economic black hole their pet Uptown TIF project turned into – consistently talked up what a great place Park Ridge was to raise a family, albeit while they were chronically deficit spending and digging us into a debt hole so deep we aren’t likely to emerge until the mid-to-late 2020s, if then.

Besides Ryles’ fluency in Korean, we also learned that there are two competing factions of Park Board candidates: the “incumbent” faction of current Board president Rick Biagi and current commissioners Steve Hunst and Dick Brandt, and the “challenger” faction of current commissioner Steven Vile and newcomers John Philips and Joan Bende – the latter apparently critical of the current board’s handling of the three-year running battle between the Park District and private corporation Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. over how the Senior Center will be managed.

Whether the “challenger” faction is more than a one-trick pony special interest ticket remains to be seen.  And we think the “incumbents” ticket owes the taxpayers a much better explanation of why the Park Board is saddling our community with a second-rate replacement Centennial Pool, and exactly how reliable are the numbers in what appears to be a smoke-and-mirrors financial plan for the proposed Youth Campus project.

We only wish that the Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters provided debate time to both the Park Board candidates and competing aldermanic candidates: George Korovilas and Nick Milissis in the 2nd Ward, J.B. Johnson and Roger Shubert in the 4th Ward, and Vinny LaVecchia and Ald. Marc Mazzuca in the 6th Ward.

Because it’s at the local level, with these local races, that the democratic process does its best work – and where grass-roots government gets done.  And this year we’ve got real differences between the candidates, and real choices.

So pay attention, do your best to attend the remaining debates, think, and make sure to vote on April 9.

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Most of us have heard the old chestnut about how you know when a politician is lying because his lips are moving. 

Sadly, we’ve almost come to expect a certain lack of integrity from our state and federal officials – most of whom we never have met and with whom we are unlikely ever to have any meaningful discussions.  Nevertheless, folks generally still seem to believe their local government officials are different, perhaps if only because they are more visible and approachable.  

So when those officials play fast and loose with the truth, or speak disingenuously about public policy, it often feels like more of a betrayal than when state and federal officials do likewise.  And when that happens, we often try to blame it on a mistake by those local officials rather than on a lack of integrity.

Today we discuss two examples of this phenomenon.

The first relates to a story in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Park Ridge aldermen postpone purchase of emergency equipment,” 01.21.13) about our City Council’s postponing the purchase of 5 replacement cardiac monitors/defibrillators commonly known as AEDs.  That purchase was deferred until the new fiscal year (beginning in May) because an expected federal grant that was to provide most/all of the amount budgeted for the new AEDs ($153,000 per the H-A story, $137,814.05 per Fire Chief Mike Zywanski’s 01.14.13 Agenda Cover Memorandum) did not come through. 

As best as we can tell, that’s the right fiscal decision by the Council.  The Fire Department can budget for that amount from its regular FY2013-14 funding rather than from OPM (“Other People’s Money,” in this case federal funds) and make the purchase when the new FY begins a few months from now. 

So why, then, does Chief Z seem to be trying to create the impression that even a short delay poses an irresponsible threat to public safety, while giving nary a thought to the fiscal considerations? 

In both his cover memo and as reported by the H-A, he notes that AEDs were used on nearly three-fourths (73%, to be exact) of all emergency medical service calls last year.  That sounds like a lot.  But why didn’t Chief Z choose to include the total number of “emergency medical service calls” in his cover memo or in his H-A comments, so we can’t tell how many calls that three-fourths figure actually represents?

Chief Z’s cover memo also makes it look/sound like the current AEDs are failures waiting to happen, pointing out that they have been “out of warranty for three years and are beginning to experience increasing rates of downtime due to repairs.”  In the H-A story, he ominously states: “Obviously, I can’t predict a breakdown.”

That sounds like classic panic peddling, made more troubling by Chief Z’s failure, again, to explain or quantify in any meaningful way how much “downtime” and what kinds of “repairs” he is talking about, as well as whether the safety and operation of “out of warranty” AEDs is any more problematic than the safety and operation of out-of-warranty automobiles, appliances, etc.

But from just a little quick research it appears that, irrespective of the warranty, many/most AED manufacturers publish an “expected useful life” of their AEDs of 10 years.  And the actual useful life of an AED appears to be virtually indefinite so long as the AED passes its daily self-tests designed to ensure that all of its components are functioning properly; and so long as the battery and other components are replaced as needed.

Of course, those kinds of details – along with the other missing details we’ve pointed out above – might not be nearly as effective in stampeding the herd (i.e., a majority of aldermen and their constituents) into dipping into the City’s General Fund as are Chief Z’s generalizations about percentages and risks.  And holding the Fire Department accountable for its FY2012-13 budget (which included the federal grant money the City never received) rather than providing a General Fund-based bailout might be a “first” in City fiscal management.

All in all, that’s misleading by omission – the omission of the relevant information both Chief Z and the Council should have had in order to make a well-informed decision on this issue.  Whether that kind of misleading is the product of negligence/a dumb mistake, or intentional deception, remains an open question.  But, either way, it’s fundamentally bad government.

Our second example relates to a story in last week’s H-A, “Park Ridge voters to decide Youth Campus purchase,” about the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District’s issuing of $13.2 million of bonds to purchase the 11-acre site previously occupied by a non-profit provider of supervised residences to troubled youths, and to develop that site into a park and recreational campus.

The H-A story reads like a puff piece written by the Park District’s own public relations person – or by Park District commissioner Mel Thillens, who is the District’s point man and head cheerleader for that project.  And the foremost factor making it a puff piece is that there’s no mention (or even a hint) of the fact that the Park District is going to referendum on this project not because it wants to, but because it HAS to: the District doesn’t have sufficient non-referendum bonding power to do this project without a popular vote.  

That’s a significant missing detail that becomes even more problematic when (as reported in the H-A) Thillens figuratively wraps himself in the American Flag by grandly proclaiming: “I think empowering the citizenry to make that decision is important.”  This, from the same Park Board member who didn’t give one whit about “empowering” that same citizenry to provide advice, via an advisory referendum, on whether or not the District should borrow $6.3 million over 15 years to build a third-rate water park that will dominate a good chunk of Centennial Park for the next 30-40-50 years.

Not to be outdone, Commissioner Mary Wynn Ryan echoed Thillens: “I don’t think we can say we should keep this [Youth Campus referendum] from the public because a handful of people said they don’t like the idea.”  This, from the same Park Board member who voted to proceed on the new Centennial aquatic project without an advisory referendum because a handful of people said they like that idea.

Rest assured that if Thillens, Ryan, and their fellow travelers on the Park Board could legally have gotten away with doing the Youth Campus project without a referendum, that deal already would be signed, sealed and delivered – the voters/taxpayers be damned by a lack of governmental and political integrity.

Two different local governmental bodies, two different lessons about local governmental and political integrity, and two more reasons to be skeptical and suspicious.

Next stop: pessimistic, misanthropic, or cynical?

UPDATED (01.25.13):  A commentator correctly pointed out that what we termed “AED”s are, instead, cardiac monitors/defibrillators.  The former are the heart jump-starters readily available in most public buildings, while the latter are more elaborate, multi-functional and expensive devices.  All information about useful life, maintenance and repairs related to the AEDs should be disregarded for now; and we apologize for our error. 

Subject to that correction, however, we stand by the rest of our post. 

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What kind of disease infects seemingly normal people after they get elected to public office, causing them to say and do really ridiculous things?

We don’t know, but we suspect it involves the novelty of being able to tax, borrow and spend millions of dollars of other peoples’ money (“OPM”) with virtually no consequences – along with the novelty of being told by bureaucrats claiming to be “professionals” that such taxing, borrowing and spending OPM is what the officials “were elected to do.”  And maybe also the pats on the head from certain special interests who tell these officials how smart and wonderful they are for…wait for it…taxing, borrowing and spending.

We’ll call it “politician-itis” until we hear a better explanation.  But it is frustrating.

Take the Park Ridge Recreation & Park District, for example.

We have endorsed the work of Board President Rick Biagi on various occasions, most recently for his sole dissenting vote against the PRRPD’s whopping 5.97% increase in its tax levy for 2012.  On a board made up of sheep who contentedly rubber-stamp whatever Executive Director Gayle Mountcastle tosses their way, Biagi has stood out as the only critically thinking voice for the average taxpayer.

So it was disappointing to read his comments about last Thursday (12.20.12) night’s Park Board vote on the new aquatic facility at Centennial Park, where he threw in his lot with the rubber-stampers for a 6-0 (Commissioner Jim O’Brien MIA) vote to approve spending $7.1 million ($6.3 million to be borrowed over 15 years, adding another $1 million-plus of interest to the tab) on a third-rate outdoor aquatic facility that won’t even include the lazy river feature most desired by the District’s 682 survey respondents in its “Phase I” (assuming there’s ever a “Phase II”).  And all without the decency of giving the voters a voice in the decision via an April referendum.

That will make this Centennial pool project the first new aquatic facility proposed for the District in the past 18 years that has not been the subject of a referendum.  Chalk that up to a Board and an executive director who can barely conceal their fear of, and contempt for, the taxpayers – which is the primary reason they pushed through this decision just five days before Christmas, with the attention of the vast majority of taxpayers focused elsewhere.

According to the article in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“$7.1 million pool plan is a splash with Park Ridge Park Board”), Biagi compared the Board’s pool decision to replacing the roof on the Community Center: “If you want to redo the roof on the Community Center, that’s not a question to go before the voters. That’s what this board was elected to do.”

Seriously, Mr. Biagi?  The new Centennial aquatic facility is little more than a roof redo?  Seriously?

The H-A story also attributes to Biagi the view that, if the District were to place any advisory referendum on the ballot, it shouldn’t ask the voters about a specific project like the new $7.1 million Centennial aquatic facility but, instead, should ask them whether the voters want outdoor pools in Park Ridge at all.

We sure hope he was misquoted by the H-A, because that’s an intellectually dishonest question if we’ve ever heard one – especially given that the District already has existing pools at Hinkley and South Park that, to our knowledge, nobody ever has asked to have shut down or removed.  There’s such a quantum leap of logic from spending millions of dollars on one new expanded pool facility to the question of whether there should be any outdoor pools in Park Ridge, that the mere juxtaposing of those two issues sounds positively daft.

But assuming Biagi was quoted accurately, we question how he can justify his vote locking the taxpayers of Park Ridge into the new Centennial pool facility that can be expected to last 30-40-50 years before getting an answer to his “no pools for you” question.  And if that was such an important question, why didn’t he think of putting it on the November ballot – before his and his Board’s vote on the new Centennial pool project effectively rendered that question moot?

C’mon, Rick, aren’t you better than those mindless rubber stamps that surround you?  Aren’t you too smart to be manipulated by bureaucrats whose only goal is to tax, borrow and spend more of the taxpayers’ money for their own personal aggrandizement, resume-building, and bragging rights at their conferences and conventions?

Or was what we saw as your principled vote on the tax levy a few weeks ago just blind squirrel theory or, worse yet, an outright sham?

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“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories.” Thomas Jefferson.

For those of you who like your “rulers” feeding you amenities funded by the rest of us taxpayers, without us taxpayers having a real voice in the decision-making process, tomorrow night’s meeting of the Park Ridge Recreation & Park District Board of Commissioners meeting (7:30 p.m., Maine Leisure Center, 4801 Sibley) should warm your holiday hearts.

The Park Board is expected to pass its 2013 budget that will be financed with a 5.97% property tax levy increase, the highest increase of any of our local governmental bodies this year.  Although the Park Board and Staff will deny it, we’d bet a crisp new $1 bill that the District is trying to stockpile extra cash (in this case, an extra $354,100 next year alone) to cover the debt service for its new Centennial Pool project, thereby providing those officials with plausible deniability for their claim that the project will not increase taxes.

The Board also will be discussing its resolution to put its $14 million Youth Campus acquisition/development project referendum on the April 2013 ballot – but only because the District doesn’t have the non-referendum bonding power to do that project without bonding authority from the taxpayers via referendum.  Otherwise, you can be sure this bunch of Park Board members would be telling us no referendum was needed because: (a) they were elected to make these decisions; and (b) everybody wants the Youth Campus property turned into a park. 

Just like they’re doing with the Centennial Pool project.

Which is why there’s a resolution approving that project on tomorrow night’s agenda.  The Board and Staff desperately want to get that project locked up and under contract while most taxpayers are still distracted by the holidays and not paying attention to something that will cost over $7.1 million, require $6.3 million of 15-year bonded debt, and will only be usable 3 months of the year – and that won’t be on April’s ballot because the Board members are insisting that: (a) they were elected to make these decisions; and (b) everybody wants the new Centennial Pool plan. 

Most of these Board members insist they are so sure of popular support for the project that they don’t need a referendum to prove it.  Besides, they’ve already spent thousands of our tax dollars on a survey of 682 residents which confirms that the most desired new Park District capital project is…wait for it…restrooms in our parks.

That’s right: By a margin of 9% – 34% to 24.9% – real restrooms are more desired than the Centennial aquatic facility by those 682 survey respondents.

But this isn’t about what the residents want, otherwise the District would stop wasting time and money on surveys they disregard and go directly to The People via referendum. 

What this is about is giving a small special interest that has the ear of most Board members what it wants: a new outdoor aquatics facility at Centennial.  And it’s about giving those Board members a bronze plaque with their names on it.  And it’s about giving this executive director something to brag about at future parks and recreation conferences.  And it’s about the lack of integrity and outright cowardice of those Board and Staff members.

Lack of integrity?

Yep.  If those Board members (and the District’s executive director) truly believed that a majority of residents wanted this project, they would welcome an advisory referendum to prove it.  But they don’t believe that for a minute, which is why continuing to tell this particular big lie demonstrates their lack of integrity.

Outright cowardice?

Yep.  An advisory referendum isn’t binding, so the Board could go to referendum on this project, assess the results, and still do exactly what they want – while incurring whatever resident criticism and political backlash might come with such a decision.  But these cowards don’t have the courage to make that kind of decision.  So saying “no” to any referendum avoids that awkward situation.

No matter how many times they repeat their mantra that they were elected to make these kinds of decisions, they really weren’t.  They were elected to perform basic oversight of the bureaucrats and the ordinary operations of the District, including the preliminary work that brings us to the point where these kinds of decisions can be made – by the taxpayers, through a referendum vote. 

Nobody elected them to make a decision that will leave a substantial, indelible mark on this community for the next 30-40-50 years, as the new Centennial Pool will do; or that will burden the taxpayers of this community with multi-million dollar debt for the next 15 years.

That’s why the Board majority believes it needs to immediately authorize the Executive Director to sign a contract that locks the District into some major initial expenses for design and construction preparation.  That way, they can use such a contract and its costs to effectively foreclose the possibility that tomorrow night’s decision can be meaningfully reconsidered or reversed after the holidays, when the taxpayers start paying attention again.

When public officials lack integrity and courage, and don’t trust the people they were elected to represent, that kind of rush-to-judgment is an effective political strategy.

And a despicable abuse of government power.

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