“A republic, if you can keep it.” 

That’s the way Benjamin Franklin announced our new form of government upon emerging from Independence Hall in 1787.  The brevity of that statement belies its importance: democratic republics such as ours are founded upon the consent of the governed, which consent provides both the source and the legitimacy of the power our public officials exercise.

But Franklin, like the other Founders, believed that such a government would last only until “the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government.”  The corruption Franklin warned about, however, was not the criminal and quasi-criminal “politics” practiced here in Illinois, although that would surely qualify.  The corruption that concerned Franklin and the other Founders was a loss of the values on which the country was founded – such as hard work, truth, humility, trustworthiness, self-reliance, thrift, self-restraint, and sacrifice. 

Unfortunately, too many of our current public officials, both elected and appointed, treat “government” itself – not The People – as the source and repository of power.  Consequently, they see themselves as the instruments of that power, free to wield it however they choose without concern for the consent of the governed…until it’s time for their re-election, of course. 

In other words, arrogant despots practicing “despotic government.” 

The members of the Board of the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District have recently been demonstrating their own despotic streak.

After blithely passing a whopping 5.97% property tax levy increase (the largest levy increase, by far, of any of our local governmental bodies – with only Board Pres. Rick Biagi dissenting), they now are winding up their “public hearings” – the final one is tonight (7:30 p.m., South Park Fieldhouse, Cumberland and Talcott) – cynically-orchestrated to create political cover for their insistence that they know with absolute certainty that what’s best for this community is a new $7.1 million outdoor aquatic center at Centennial Park that will only be usable 3 months of each year but will burden the taxpayers with $6.3 million of new bonded debt for the next 15 years. 

And because they know it, there’s no reason to ask those taxpayers for their consent by taking the plan to an advisory referendum this April.

Ironically, a successful advisory referendum would add legitimacy to a project clearly lacking it.  And the beauty of such a referendum is that it provides a no-lose proposition for those pro-project Park Board members: if the project were to be defeated by referendum vote, they would still have that “authority” they keep bragging about to tell the voters how wrong they were in voting “no,” and to do the deal anyway.

Admittedly, that would take some courage.  And except for Biagi, we’ve seen very little of that from this Park District crowd.  Hence, the steam-rolling of this project without regard for the taxpayers, and with no referendum.

Also seemingly lost on these Board members is the fact that no Park Board in at least the past 18 years has demonstrated the arrogance or the disrespect of the taxpayers by attempting to build a new or significantly-expanded aquatics facility – or any new facility, for that matter – without a referendum, either binding or advisory.  That even includes projects that could have been built using non-referendum debt, like the 1996 Hinkley Pool house renovation costing $460,000.

But you can tell just by watching and listening to these Board members and Staff smugly dissemble about the wonders of this new plan and their “authority” to do it without any referendum, that they have no grasp of Daniel Webster’s concerns about those who govern us:

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

By denying Park Ridge taxpayers a real voice in this project via an advisory referendum, these Park Board members clearly are letting us know who are the masters…and, by implication, who are the serfs.

Just because they can.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Tomorrow night (Dec. 6) at 7:30 p.m., the Park Ridge Park & Recreation District Board and Staff will hold  another hearing on its proposed $7.1 million Centennial Pool outdoor aquatic facility.

Whether the Board and Staff listens and, more importantly, actually hears what the taxpayers of the whole community – not just those who can show up tomorrow night or at the next scheduled hearing – have to say about this issue remains to be seen.  So far, the comments by individual Board members suggest an adamant insistence on moving forward with this project without an advisory referendum because, according to them, they already know what the residents want.

And besides, they were elected to make decisions like this…without consulting the taxpayers who elected them. 

Anyone who has read previous posts on this blog about this issue knows that we think building a multi-million dollar, entirely-outdoor aquatic facility that can be used only 3-months a year is that special kind of stupid and wasteful idea only a public official spending other people’s money could love. 

But that’s just our opinion.  There are plenty of other opinions out there, all of which deserve to be considered before the Park District commits $7.1 million (including $6.3 million of 15-year bonded debt) on a facility that will substantially encumber and affect Centennial Park and impact this community for the next 20-30-40 years.

Which is why we believe this project should go to referendum, even if it’s only a non-binding advisory one.  That way, the Park Board and Staff – who claim to be so very interested in finding out what The People want in the way of Centennial aquatics – can get an unequivocal “yeah” or “nay” on this project from the 8,000+ voters expected to go to the polls in April.   And if they don’t like what the voters have to say, they can turn around and do the project anyway, and take whatever political fallout may ensue. 

Unfortunately, that Board and Staff don’t seem to want to hear from 8,000+ voters.  Instead, they want to take their marching orders from a whopping 682 respondents to an expensive “survey” they commissioned, with questions seemingly designed to elicit the answers the Board and Staff wanted while avoiding any questions about costs.  Which must have been part of the plan, because the consultant they hired to provide this rigged survey just happens to be none other than…wait for it…Stantec Consulting, the District’s new aquatic facility’s designer.

Isn’t that special – a pool designer that also produces the justifications for its project! 

Over the past 20 years, each time the taxpayers were given a chance to vote on replacing Centennial Pools with a new aquatic complex, they voted “no.”  Whether they would do the same on the Park District’s proposed project is unclear.  Maybe they don’t like this design, or don’t like spending that kind of money, or don’t like spending that kind of money on this design.  Or maybe they think it’s a winner.

But whatever they thin, they deserve a chance to vote on this project for any of those three reasons, or dozens of others.

This Park Board and Staff, however, are dealing with that problematic pool history by adopting the cowardly and disingenuous strategy of “we’d rather ask for forgiveness than for permission” – effectively telling the taxpayers they don’t deserve a vote on this issue, while at the same time arrogantly assuming they can put this issue to bed quickly enough so that they can then embrace those same taxpayers and schmooze a “yes” vote out of them in the April referendum for the Youth Campus project.

That’s how little respect this Board and Staff have for the concerns, the attention span and the intelligence of the Park Ridge taxpayers: “If we can screw them quickly enough, they’ll have forgotten about it come April.” 

That’s pure arrogance talking.  And when the arrogance of public officials talks, there’s little chance the taxpayers can be heard.

To read or post comments, click on title.

We’ve reiterated over the years that NIMBYs provide a valuable service because they often point out problems that non-NIMBYs overlook.  Unfortunately, they also tend to be so focused on their own back yards that they fail to see the forest for the trees – and in so doing, invite their own marginalization. 

That appears to be what happened last Thursday night when the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District convened to once again sing the praises of its new Centennial Pools project, the one costing $7.1 million just for Phase I, of which $6.3 million will be financed with 15-year bonds – the non-referendum kind, because this Park Board doesn’t want to ask the taxpaying voters what they think of the idea by means of a binding referendum…or even a simple advisory one, which the Board would be free to disregard if it truly had the courage of its convictions.

About 25 NIMBYs sat together in solidarity during that meeting.  When they had their chance to speak, they talked about looking out their windows at tall water slides, or worrying about water run-off into their yards, or warning of more severe parking problems.  They sounded and acted as if they believed the Park Board and Staff really cared about their concerns.

But most of the Board members and Staff were just humoring the NIMBYs, because the decision to go ahead with the Centennial Pools project has already been made in their minds, if not officially for the record.  And a few handfuls of NIMBYs aren’t going to matter when those tightly-closed Park District minds don’t care what even a majority of all the taxpayers in the community think about this latest boondoggle.

That’s because the current executive director and the current superintendent of recreation want something to brag about when they network (and look for their next jobs?) at those parks and recreation conferences and conventions.  A big new multi-million dollar facility fits that bill to a “T.”  Many of our Park Board members, on the other hand, just want to be liked (and/or re-elected) by the people who want a new pool complex but don’t care what it costs.

The Staff and most Board members are very mindful of the fact that the last four times the District went to referendum on multi-million dollar outdoor aquatic facilities it claimed were “needed” – in November 1995, April 2005, March 2006 and November 2006 – it was told “no” by the voting taxpayers in no uncertain terms.  So this time the District is turning the tables and telling those voting taxpayers “no,” as in: “No, we’re not going to let you vote on this new Centennial pool project, because we know what you want better than you know what you want.”  So why bother wasting the time to ask us, via a referendum in April?

That sounds like the kind of arrogance you find in Chicago’s City Hall from little men with giant egos, like Richie Daley and Rahm Emanuel; and from other little men with giant egos by the name of Madigan and Cullerton down in Springfield.  That kind of arrogance from public officials is a dis-service to every Park Ridge resident.  

At last Thursday night’s meeting you could hear that arrogance in the voices of these District officials who spoke of the “power” they had to do this kind of project without putting it to referendum, and the ones who unblinkingly proclaimed how “the residents of this town have asked for this” –apparently based on how a mere 682 of them answered 31 warm-and-fuzzy questions in a “Community-Wide Survey” sent to 3,500 residents.

Not surprisingly, that survey didn’t mention the cost of any of the things about which it inquired.  That’s because the Park District honchos know that nothing’s more of a buzz-kill than mentioning the cost of all the things they’re trying to sell to a skeptical and already well-taxed public.  That’s also why the Park District prefers 682 responses to 31 questions rather than several thousand votes cast on a single referendum question like: “Should the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District issue $6.3 million of bonds to build a new $7.1 million outdoor aquatic facility at Centennial Park?”

And oh, by the way – did we mention that the survey was prepared by…wait for it…the same company that is designing the new Centennial pool facility: Stantec Consulting of Minneapolis, MN?  If you don’t believe us, check out the very first name under “Prepared by” on the survey report’s cover page.  

How convenient!

The irony of this whole rigged kabuki, however, is that even the District’s cooked survey results don’t actually support the Park District’s Centennial plan.  Both page 24 and page 32 of the report show that of those 682 survey respondents, a full 9% prefer restrooms in the parks instead of a new aquatic center (34% to 24.9%).  And only a meager 0.6% prefer a new outdoor aquatic center to expanding the Community Center fitness area (24.9% to 24.3%).  When you add in the 17.2% who want the Community Center’s indoor pool expanded, that’s a 41.5% to 24.9% margin for expanding/improving the Community Center over rebuilding Centennial Pool. 

And the Community Center provides year-round usage, not the meager 3 month season that the new Centennial aquatic facility would provide.

But as we all know, to a hammer everything looks like a nail.  And to an arrogant – or is it actually a cowardly – Park Board and Staff that claims it already knows what the rest of us want for our community, everything looks like their new $7.1 million Centennial outdoor aquatic project.

So who needs even an advisory referendum?

UPDATE (11.23.12):   One of the things that the Park District Staff and Board stressed last Thursday night (11.15.12) was that the $6.3 million of non-referendum bonds for the proposed Centennial Pools wouldn’t cause an increase in the District’s share of our property taxes.  Could that be because the Park District is already trying to jack up its taxes so as to build in a sufficient cushion?

After most of the NIMBYs and other persons interested in Centennial Pool left the meeting, the District approved a 5.97% increase in its property tax levy for 2012 – which increase amounts to approximately $350,000.  Board president Rick Biagi, who seems to be the only fiscally responsible Park Board member, provided the only “no” vote against the levy increase, arguing that Staff had not provided adequate justification for the increase.

C’mon, Rick…you weren’t really expecting Staff to admit to padding the levy in anticipation of the Centennial Pool bonded debt increase, were you?

To read or post comments, click on title.

We’ll make this as simple and straightforward as possible:

The Park Ridge Recreation and Park District’s plan to commit almost all of its non-referendum bonding authority to a new $7.1 million outdoor pool complex at Centennial Park that can be used only 3 months of the year is fiscally irresponsible without first asking the taxpayers/voters through an advisory referendum.  

Entiendes?  Verstehst du?  Ne comprenez-vous?  Czy rozumiesz?  ?? ?????????? Capito?  Got that?

That’s why we hope a lot of residents turn up at TONIGHT’s Park Board meeting, where this project is arguably the main event on the agenda.  Kick off is at 7:30 at the Maine Leisure Center, 2701 Sibley.

Our branding of this project as “fiscally irresponsible,” however, should not be taken as our saying that the current Centennial Pools aren’t finally at the end of their useful lives, 20 years after having been prematurely pronounced dead the last time the Park District wanted to use millions of dollars of its non-referendum bonding power to build a new aquatic facility at Centennial.  And we’re not suggesting that a pool complex different from the two main pools now on that site wouldn’t be a suitable replacement – although we do think the proposed design leaves a lot to be desired. 

But what kind of stewards of the public purse would exhaust all of the District’s non-referendum bonded debt, and another $800,000 of “earmarked” funds, for a facility that will be operated no more than 90 days each year, weather permitting – especially without having a detailed business plan locked and loaded that demonstrates how the operations costs of that new facility, along with the debt service, will be covered? 

Frankly, bad ones. 

Because this kind of “investment” and this kind of debt are – to quote Vice President Joe Biden, albeit in a very different context – “a big f-ing deal.”  And both its short and long-term effects on the Park District and its taxpayers will be so significant and substantial that an advisory referendum should be automatic for any Park District official who actually gives a rat’s derriere about what The People think. 

Not surprisingly, the District has already produced a nifty marketing handout, and it has begun the “fun with numbers” exercise to support its claim that this project – requiring $6.3 million of bonded debt at an assumed 2.93% interest rate for a 15-year term that will end up costing taxpayers approximately $8.2 million when the debt service/interest costs are figured in – “won’t raise taxes.”  To this latter point, the District has put out a kind of spread sheet filled with a bunch of numbers in columns under headings that don’t mean jack to most taxpayers.  

As best as we can tell from that jumble, the main economic theory behind the “no new taxes” claim is that, because there already are existing bonds that will be retired by 2017, the cost to the taxpayers of servicing the debt on those existing bonds (for which the taxpayers already are being taxed) will simply be extended for the last 11 years of the new bonds’ term.  In the bizarre world of government economics, that means no tax “INCREASE.”

In the real world, it means the taxpayers won’t be getting the tax DECREASE to which they should be entitled when the current bonds are retired – or at least some better maintenance and additional amenities from the the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year that is currently being paid on those existing bonds.

Noted philosopher George Santayana is known for his quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  And this latest Centennial Pool project takes us back to 1994, when the District last intended to use its non-referendum bonding power to build a “water park” to replace the “failing” Centennial Pools. 

Sound familiar?

Back then, the Park District executive director and the Park Board members – along with a number of resident aquatics advocates – insisted that “most people” wanted the water park.  But a group of NIMBYs and some community activists from other parts of town strenuously objected, blowing holes in the District’s “facts” and arguments, and demanding an advisory referendum. 

They got one, and the project was resoundingly defeated.

That little bit of history alone should be enough to wake up the current Board and Staff to the woeful wrongheadedness of exhausting the District’s non-referendum debt for this project without the legitimacy that a successful advisory referendum this April would provide.  And if the referendum should be unsuccessful but the Park Board members still believe the project is the right thing to do, they can display their individual profiles in courage by ignoring those referendum results and doing the project anyway.

One more blast-from-the-past is instructive.

In 1990 the Park District rushed to judgment on a plan to build the Community Center to replace the YMCA that was closing on that site.  The Park Board didn’t want to go to referendum on that project because, although it claimed it knew what “the people” wanted, it didn’t want to run the risk of being told “no” in the definitive manner elections tend to provide.  So it used up most of its non-referendum bonding power to do the project without a referendum, slapping together a variety of features, camel-like, to make sure it came in under the non-referendum debt ceiling. 

And what we got is the current structure: undersized from the moment it opened, with an indoor pool too short and too narrow to hold even kids’ swim meets, with a grossly insufficient work out area, and with such a dysfunctional design (e.g., the only way into the swimming area is by walking, literally, through the locker room showers) that a Bally’s manager who inspected the facility in 2004 stated that Bally’s wouldn’t agree to manage that facility even if it were given it for free.

But heedless of this history, the Park District wants to push this project through, hamstringing its finances for the next 15 years, without a referendum.  That’s wrong on basically every level. 

And tonight is an opportunity for the taxpayers of Park Ridge to let them know just how wrong, and how unacceptable, it is.

To read or post comments, click on title.

This week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate contains a story (“Planning for Park Ridge Parks’ property-tax referendum has costs, too.”) about how the Park Ridge Recreation & Park District will be spending approximately $76,000 in connection with what should be a free referendum process.

As most sentient Park Ridge residents already know, the Park District is planning an April 2013 referendum seeking voter approval of the District’s issuing of as much as $13 million in bonds for the acquisition and conversion of the Park Ridge Youth Campus property into a parks and recreation complex.  That referendum process is essentially free: the Park Board simply has to pass a resolution prior to January 18, 2013, and the referendum issue will be part of the regularly-scheduled local election ballot on April 9.

But the Park District apparently isn’t waiting for voter approval to start spending money on this project.  According to the H-A article, the District already is buying a variety of project development services, such as architectural services “to develop conceptual design plans” for that 11.35 acre property.  Count on those plans being used as a sales/marketing tool to help convince voters that this is a wonderful project deserving of their votes…and their tax dollars.

We think that’s just plain wrong.

Merely by putting this project and its funding to a popular vote via referendum, the Park District is expressing its endorsement of the project.  That’s all it should do, both legally and ethically.  Spending money on the project before the referendum passes isn’t good government, although it most definitely is political – something public bodies often try to legitimize by tying the expenditures to the underlying project rather than to the political referendum campaign.

In this case, the District claims those expenditures are for “necessary steps we have to go through,” according to a quote by Executive Director Gayle Mountcastle, as reported in the H-A article.  The H-A article also listed structural studies of the existing Youth Campus buildings, the District’s review of environmental studies, and informational materials.

We don’t see how any of those expenses are “necessary” prior to the referendum’s passage.  So long as the referendum language simply authorizes the District to issue bonds but doesn’t commit it to do so, all of these “necessary” steps should be able to be done after the referendum passes – if it does, indeed, pass.

The politics and the marketing should be left to those private supporters of the project, like the “Our Parks Legacy” organization – which has been organized solely for the purpose of selling this referendum to the voters using private funds, not public tax dollars. That organization already is raising funds and has started both a website and a Facebook page .    

But if “conceptual design plans” are needed to sell the project to the voters, Our Parks Legacy is the organization to provide them, using…wait for it…private funds.

Frankly, if the Park Board and District Staff already haven’t been able to come up with a reasonable conceptual design plan for this property on their own, we have to question the “ready, fire, aim” process on which the District seems to have embarked.  Spending money on architects and other development costs when the voters have yet to approve the project’s bonded-debt financing is inviting the waste of that money – unless, of course, those costs are really intended to “sell” the project to the voters.

Back in the early 1990s, a previous Park Board and and the District’s then-executive director Steve Meyer spent over $100,000 on professional services for the design of a water park to replace Centennial Pool.  Those plans, assuming they ever ended up being delivered, presumably are still collecting dust on some shelf after the voters overwhelmingly rejected the project’s bond-financing via referendum.

We’re not saying that will happen here.  But why take the chance, unless $76,000 doesn’t matter all that much to the Park District?

Actually, that sounds like the District’s attitude, judging by a quote from Park Board member Jim O’Brien reported in the H-A article: “This isn’t board worthy” – apparently in reference to the $20,000-per-individual-expenditure discretionary authority Mountcastle has been given by the Board.   By comparison, the Park Ridge City Manager only has discretionary authority for $10,000 per individual expenditure.  Such limitations, however, can still be circumvented by breaking down aggregate “project” expenditures into smaller components.

Interestingly enough, this process has enabled individual Park Board members to escape direct accountability for these expenditures.  According to Mountcastle: “[The Board] gave consensus for me to expend these dollars.”

Consensus, noun: the cowardly politicians’ way of avoiding individual accountability by avoiding a roll-call vote.

With the Park District already committed to the $7.1 million first phase of a two-phase replacement of the Centennial pools with an aquatics complex that will consume almost all of the District’s non-referendum bonding power, the District doesn’t have any margin of error for the Youth Campus project: either the referendum passes, or the project dies.

And the Park District is betting $76,000 of our money on that outcome.

To read or post comments, click on title.

The “Big Game” in town tonight doesn’t involve the Maine South Hawks football team.  Or even another bizarre episode at City Hall involving Ald. Joe Sweeney (1st).

Tonight’s Big Game takes place at Franklin School’s gym (2401 Manor Lane), where the Park Ridge-Niles Elementary School District 64 will be voting on the new teachers contract and approving its new budget.  Kick-off is 7:30 p.m.

For those who don’t pay attention to these things, the D-64 budget represents about 1/3 of our property tax bills.  It also is a significant factor for our property values – because the quality and cost of schools is a significant element in assessing the desirability of a community.

We discussed the new teachers contract in our post “Will D-64 Taxpayers Get Sold Out Again?” (09.12.12), so we won’t repeat the points made there.

The central issue, as we see it, is what objectively measurable benefits will both the D-64 students and the taxpayers of this community receive from this new teachers contract and this new budget. 

So far, we haven’t heard any D-64 Board members or administrators promising anything concrete for the extra money that will be extracted from the taxpayers, such as better ISAT scores – one of the primary criteria many people use in determining the quality of education offered by a particular school or an entire school system.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of the D-64 Board members seem to be little more than rubber stamps for both the teachers and the administrators, so objective performance standards are rarely, if ever, demanded.

Which brings us to the 6:30 p.m. Committee of the Whole (“COW”) meeting to discuss a “transition” of the District’s before-and-after-school child care programs (a/k/a taxpayer-funded babysitting services) to the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District, which the Board is expected to vote on at the 7:30 Board meeting.

That sounds like a questionable fast-shuffle by the D-64 Board, as it gives the Board and the public basically no time to understand and think about the wisdom of such a move.  That’s been a hallmark of D-64 decision-making for years; and it seems to have become even more pronounced since Supt. Phil Bender arrived from Indiana.  This move is even more troubling base on our understanding that the Park District administration pushed this “transition” past the Park Board with basically no information and discussion.

When bureaucrats try to push something through with little or no study and debate by our elected representatives and the public, the usual outcome is usually less than optimal.

And District 64 has become far too accomplished at burning money with less than optimal results.

To read or post comments, click on title.

We’re not exactly sure how to take the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District’s announcement that it won’t be going to referendum this November for the bond financing it needs to acquire and develop the Park Ridge Youth Campus property for Park District purposes.

Our suspicious nature would cause us question whether this is a conscious attempt by the Park District to avoid the traditionally heavier presidential election turnout – and the anti-tax voters who just might come out in droves to barbecue that pack of losers commonly known as the Illinois General Assembly who are all up for re-election in November – by pushing the referendum to the April local election, where turnouts are always lighter.

But from what we’re reading and hearing, while avoiding the bigger November turnout certainly may have been a factor in the decision, the more significant factor(s) may well be some changes in how the project might get done.

For example, it sounds like residential developer Mark Elliott may be walking away from his “partnership” with the District and may actually be preparing to compete with it for the Youth Campus property.  Rumor has it that Elliott was trying to push more costs onto the District and the District, for a change, pushed back.

But unless the owners of the Youth Campus are willing to sell it in pieces – which we doubt is the case – that means the Park District will need to spend $6.4 million to acquire the whole parcel instead of the $4 million-plus it was planning to spend on roughly 60% of it.  And as the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate recently reported, the high-end costs might be moving into the $15 million range.

Hello!

It’s too early to tell whether this Youth Campus plan will turn out to be  a sound “investment” or another publicly-funded goat rodeo.  We can see it both ways, although we’ll try to reserve judgment until the District figures out what it intends to do and then comes up with its business plan for how it intends to manage the new “campus” in an economically sustainable way.

But so long as the plan is to keep the Youth Campus property pretty much “as is” without any expensive new construction of immediately-depreciating public buildings, it will retain most of its raw-land value.  That will enhance its salability should it not be able to generate a reasonable rate of return from its operations.

Some additional good news is coming from the Park Ridge Historical Society, which announced that it intends to retain its current Solomon Cottage headquarters.  If Elliott walks away from the project, the Society may not even need to move the building from its current southwest-corner of the property location to the northern portion, as it had been discussing.  But either way, the Society claims it won’t need funding from the Park District or the taxpayers.

Well done, you zany local historians!

While we prefer referenda to be held during elections that promise the highest possible turnouts, the deferral of this one from November to April may have one positive effect: it may increase turnout in April, when the mayo r is expected to be running for re-election against at least one declared challenger, while 3 aldermanic seats (Wards 2, 4 and 6) and various School Board (both D-64 and D-207) and Park Board seats will be contested.

So that might be making lemons into lemonade.

To read or post comments, click on title.  

We respect Carla Owen.  She is a smart person who seems to care deeply about this community. 

So when the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate recently published one of her guest essays, and when she sent us a copy of her and Barbara Hemeder’s letter to the editor of the Park Ridge Journal, we promptly read and analyzed their contents – even though we already had given plenty of thought and devoted plenty of pixels to the ongoing dispute over the Park Ridge Senior Center and the $330,000 Betty Kemnitz trust bequest to the “Park Ridge Senior Center,” including our posts of 12.01.10, 01.27.11, 07.29.11 and 04.16.12.

But after reading that essay and that letter, we are more convinced than ever that Ms. Owen and that not-so-merry band of seniors who run that private corporation known as Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. (“Seniors Inc.” or “SSI”) are totally and unequivocally wrong about who should be running that facility at 100 S. Western, how it should be run, and who should get the Kemnitz trust money.

Let’s start with Ms. Owen’s essay, which is an endorsement of the seniors’ illegitimate power and control over the Senior Center. 

It begins with the totally false premise that the “Senior Center” is not the building on Western but, instead, is some sort of “organization” of its members.  That’s like saying the Park District’s Community Center on Touhy isn’t the building but, instead, is some organization of all the people who work out or otherwise recreate there.

That’s just plain goofy.  But without such a goofy premise, Ms. Owen’s and Seniors Inc.’s arguments for control of the Senior Center collapse because any “Senior Center” organization is not a legal corporation like Seniors Inc., or a limited liability company, or a similar form of corporate entity.  At most, it’s an unincorporated association; and Ms. Owen, a licensed attorney, knows that this particular unincorporated association has no legitimate claim on the use of that Senior Center building.

That is borne out by the several contracts between the Park District and Seniors Inc. (not the “Senior Center” organization) going back to 1980, the last of which is dated December 31, 2005, and expired on December 31, 2010, over 18 months ago.  Not surprisingly, there is no mention in that Agreement of anything called the “Senior Center” organization, or of any “Senior Senate” that Ms. Owen claims is “the elected governing body of the Senior Center.”   

Simply put, Ms. Owen is insisting that the Senior Center building owned and operated by the Park District (on behalf of all the Park District’s taxpayers) should be run by some “elected governing body” of some “organization” with no contractual or other recognized legal right in that Senior Center building.  And then she has the audacity to condemn the Park District for not going along with such an absurdity!

While Ms. Owen’s essay is about power and control, her letter is about plain old unvarnished greed – the greed displayed by this suspect “Senior Center” organization and Seniors Inc. in their venal attempt to hijack the $330,000 Kemnitz trust bequest to the “Park Ridge Senior Center,” a/k/a, the Park District’s building at 100 S. Western.

Ms. Owen, on behalf of Seniors Inc., writes that “we believe we are the rightful recipients of the Kemnitz bequest.”  Why?  Because, as she modestly explains it: “we are better able to judge how Betty [Kemnitz] would like to spend her money.”  

Says who?  Why, Teresa Grodsky, of course!

Grodsky, the long-time Park District employee and Senior Center supervisor who left the District under a cloud several months ago, is the trustee of the Kemnitz trust.  As best as we can tell from the available information, while still employed by the Park District, Grodsky went rogue and didn’t even notify her then-employer of the bequest before distributing more than 2/3 of it to Seniors Inc.   Once the Park District discovered the bequest, it raised its objections; and Grodsky responded with the pending lawsuit.  

If Ms. Kemnitz wanted Seniors Inc. and its leadership – and not the Park District – to decide how her $330,000 bequest should be spent, she easily could have had her attorney draft that bequest to “Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc.”  But she didn’t: It was drafted to “Park Ridge Senior Center.”  And the only “Park Ridge Senior Center” we know of is at 100 S. Western, owned and operated by the Park District – whose board already has said it would use that money solely for that building and its senior citizen operations.

That sure sounds to us like exactly what Kemnitz wanted. 

In light of that offer, the demands of Ms. Owen and Seniors Inc. that the Park District “drop this lawsuit immediately” and let Seniors Inc. have the money to use as it wishes are not only wrongheaded and shameless, but border on despicably greedy.

PublicWatchdog initially addressed this Senior Center situation solely because we objected to the Park District’s spending approximately $160,000/year in taxpayer money to subsidize the operation of the semi-private Senior Center clubhouse so that its 800-1,000 “members” could continue to enjoy their measly $45 annual “dues” when a fee structure comparable to the District’s other facilities should have put those dues at around $225 – still a bargain, especially in light of such a large taxpayer subsidy they’ve been receiving for such a small number of users.

That’s one reason why we think the Park Board was being far too conciliatory in offering to walk away from Kemnitz’s $330,000 in return for a mutual general release from Seniors Inc. and the questionable “Senior Center” organization.  Nevertheless, we considered it an acceptable settlement of a lawsuit that could cost a lot more in attorneys’ fees and costs to litigate.   And if the relationship between Seniors Inc. and the Park District is as dead as Seniors Inc. and its spokespeople like Ms. Owen say it is, then mutual releases serve as appropriate eulogies. 

But it seems that the Seniors Inc. crowd’s greed, combined with their desire for power and control over the Senior Center, motivated their rejection of that overly-generous settlement offer.  Which means that these issues will likely need to be litigated in the courts, although we understand that Judge Peter Flynn earlier today ordered the parties to mediate their disputes before going into full-blown litigation.

Whether mediation is of any value to the taxpayers depends on whether Seniors Inc. finally gets real, gets a conscience, and displays some good faith – which will be demonstrated by nothing less than acceptance of the mutual releases previously offered by the Park District.  That still won’t be fair to the taxpayers, but it will be a big step in that direction on a going-forward basis.  And it will stop the legal fee meter from running. 

Thanks in large part to Ms. Owen’s essay and letter, the taxpayers now have an even better insight into the entitlement mentality that has prompted the greedy Seniors Inc. leaders and their equally greedy senior constituency to try to beat the Park District out of money rightfully belonging to the District and its taxpayers.

Hopefully, this misbegotten goat rodeo also will serve as a lesson to the Park District (and to other local governing bodies) about how an otherwise worthwhile public-private arrangement – if instituted in a half-baked manner and allowed to spiral out of control due to lack of effective government oversight – can, and will, go bad, usually to the detriment of the public rather than the private entity.

Meanwhile, the honest, decent taxpayer gets ripped off a little bit more by a cadre of the greedy masquerading as the needy.

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We have been critical of both the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District and a small group of greedy and petty senior citizens regarding a dispute over a $330,000 bequest to the “Park Ridge Senior Center” by former Senior Center member Betty Kemnitz.

Frankly, the way that situation has been mishandled raises concerns about the District’s overall stewardship ability, on a number of levels.  And the District’s continued bungling of the situation and the related litigation in the Circuit Court of Cook County is troubling and discouraging.

That’s why we are cautious in reacting to the Park District’s recently-announced intention to acquire a portion of the Park Ridge Youth Campus, which has shut down its operations and is deciding whether or not to sell its approximately 11 acres of prime “country club” real estate between Prospect and Washington, just south of Oakton.

We’re not saying the District’s acquisition of around 60% of the Youth Campus’ acreage, or partnering with developer Marc Elliott, is a bad idea.  It’s just that there are far too many unanswered questions for us to sign onto, or oppose, the project at this early stage.  

But we like the idea of this kind of public/private venture – where neither the Park District nor Elliott seem to have the financial wherewithal to take on the whole project all alone – especially if such a venture is done with the hard-eyed analysis and hard-nosed bargaining that was so sorely lacking in the City’s public/private Uptown Redevelopment boondoggle, which allowed private developer PRC Partners to walk off with a reportedly tidy profit while the City is approximately $6 million in the hole and still digging.

As the Youth Campus plan is presently being described, the District will go to referendum to authorize the issuance of bonds for the multi-millions of dollars the acquisition and re-purposing of the land for District purposes is expected to cost.  Elliott, who already owns 3 lots at the northeast end of the Youth Campus that created quite a stir when he tried to turn them into group homes, plans to take the remaining 40% at the southernmost half of the property for the construction of single family homes.

Clearly, the price of the land will be a big issue for the District, as it will affect how much in bonds the District will have to issue, and the amount of the corresponding annual debt service that will siphon already scarce funds away from the District’s established facilities and programs. 

Another big issue will be the viability of the District’s plan, which currently includes using some of the existing buildings for the District’s central offices and various programming.  Until the District produces a sound and detailed business plan, every taxpayer should have a serious concern for whether this is an economically realistic and sustainable venture, or just an opportunistic scheme emerging solely because this land has suddenly become available.

For the District to have even a snowball’s chance of passing this kind of referendum, it will need to make a convincing case not only for the bonded debt but also for keeping the Park District’s 60% of that property off the property tax rolls in perpetuity. 

We also question the wisdom of the District’s “jumping into bed” with one specific developer – Elliott – rather than inviting offers from the entire development community, especially given that the District is in the catbird seat due to its eminent domain power: i.e., its legal right to take the property for a legitimate public purpose – in this case, a public park and recreational facility – at its fair market value. 

To our knowledge, the Park District has done nothing since 1994 to acquire any significant acreage for park and recreation purposes, so clearly it doesn’t need that Youth Campus property. 

The real question will be whether the Park District can convince the voters that their want of that property is reason enough to pass the referendum.

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As regular readers of this blog know, we are no fans of individuals or special interest groups who look to gain personal advantage at the expense of the taxpayers. 

That’s why, for example, we oppose giveaways like the City’s facade improvement program and donations to private charitable organizations.  And that’s also why we are big fans of user fees for uses of government facilities or services that are extraordinary, measurable and specifically allocable – especially when those facilities or services are amenities instead of necessities.  

That’s also why, over the past couple of years, we have devoted several posts – including those dated 12.01.10, 07.29.11 and 04.16.12 – to the greed and intransigence of a small group of Park Ridge senior citizens who talk and act like they, and not the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District (and all of its taxpayers), own and control the Senior Center building at 100 S. Western.

Which provides a context for the Park District’s recent press release declaring its willingness to surrender in the recently-filed lawsuit over a $330,000 bequest to the “Park Ridge Senior Center” by deceased Senior Center member Betty Kemnitz: Grodsky v. Park Ridge Recreation and Park District, Case No. 2012 CH 2032, currently pending in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

That seems like a good thing in our book, because this litigation has the makings of an expensive goat rodeo.  

Let’s start with the fact that the plaintiff is Teresa Grodsky, whose 30-year employment as manager of the Senior Center terminated last year amid reports of insubordination and of secret dealings with Park Board member Steven Vile detrimental to the Park District, but beneficial to a private corporation with no legal affiliation to the Park District: Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. (“Seniors Inc.” or “SSI”), also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. 

Grodsky apparently was so sure that Ms. Kemnitz intended Seniors Inc., rather than the Park District and its Senior Center facility, to receive her bequest directed to the “Park Ridge Senior Center” that Grodsky reportedly gave Seniors Inc. $250,000 of before the Park District woke up and claimed the bequest for its Senior Center.  When she received the Park District’s claim, she promptly lawyered up and filed the lawsuit. 

Perhaps because Grodsky and certain seniors were worried about the Park District’s prevailing in that litigation, a group of Senior Center “members” led by Helen Roppel are trying to join the suit by claiming to be an unincorporated association calling itself…wait for it…the “Senior Center.”  As in: Let’s say we’re an association, call ourselves the “Senior Center,” and then say we’re the “Park Ridge Senior Center” named in the bequest.

How convenient.  And how blatantly petty and dishonest.

And as if those aren’t enough goats for one rodeo, add to the mix the “Park Ridge Senior Center Senate,” whose officers drafted and circulated to Senior Center members a self-serving letter, along with some even more self-serving Senior Center Q & As, ripping the Park District for daring to challenge their “rights to control what happens at the [Park District’s Senior Center] building,” including their entitlement to Senior Center dues (“our dues”) that “should have been deposited in our accounts” rather than the Park District’s accounts, and deciding who can be a member of the Senior Center (“it was the Senior Senate which made those membership rules”).

It’s no secret we view the “leadership” of Seniors Inc. and this “Senior Senate” as a bunch of greedy geezers who make bratty young children seem temperate, cooperative and frugal by comparison.   Which might explain why they are stomping their feet and threatening to take “their” money and start their own senior center independent of the Park District.

Great!  How soon can they leave?

Whatever good intentions may have accompanied the founding of the Senior Center 30 years ago have been replaced by a greedy entitlement mentality by this senior “leadership” which insists on members’ paying a paltry $45/year in “dues” (that’s 17 cents a day!) even as they continue to bleed the taxpayers of roughly $160,000 each year to cover the Senior Center’s operating deficits.  As best as we can tell, that’s the lowest-priced fee – by far – the Park District charges for any facility membership or program, which makes the $160,000 shortfall sucked out of the pockets of all Park District taxpayers all the more unacceptable.

So the sooner these geriatric welfare kings and queens pack up and leave, the better off everyone else will be.

But don’t expect that to happen anytime soon.  The greedy always know when they’ve got a great deal and how to exploit it to the max.  This senior crowd has been feeding at this particular trough for 30 years, and they’re not about to give it up – especially when they’re confident the Park District is likely to cave in to their demands if they keep playing hardball.

This fiasco is just another example of the shameless-versus-spineless contests we regularly write about, with governmental bodies invariably lacking the backbone.  And it should be a warning to the Park District about the dangers of abdicating management and control of its programs and facilities to self-serving special interests like Seniors Inc. and the Senior Senate.  And of not keeping a close and measured eye on its own employees.

Although Grodsky was a well-paid, high-seniority (pun intended) Park District employee, she apparently “went native” years ago, aligning herself with those 800-1,000 “seniors” (anybody 55 and older) belonging to the Senior Center instead of with the tens of thousands of taxpaying residents of the Park District – including the several thousand “seniors” who have never belonged to the Senior Center and likely never will.  That twisted allegiance gave Grodsky an almost cult-like following among the Seniors Inc. leadership and Senior Senate members to whom she effectively turned over Senior Center decision-making, some of whom talked about her in ways reminiscent of steamy jungles, guayabera shirts, dark glasses and adulterated Kool-Aid. 

Which is why, even though the Park District has waved the white flag in the Grodsky lawsuit, we aren’t betting on Grodsky, or the Seniors Inc. leadership, or the Senior Senate, accepting that surrender promptly or graciously.  They’ve already got $250,000 of Kemnitz found money in addition to the $241,000 sitting in Seniors Inc.’s treasury (as of its 2010 Form 990-EZ), so the remaining $80,000 of Kemnitz’s bequest could easily become a litigation war chest.

As we’ve already seen, these petty and greedy geezers don’t give a damn about running up the taxpayers’ tab for their own benefit.

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