More Of The Wacky World Of Ald. Bach.  An article in this week’s Herald-Advocate (“Pay cut unlikely for elected officials,” July 14) reports that the City Council’s April vote to cut the pay of the mayor and the aldermen to $1 per month cannot take effect until Spring 2011 for the aldermen, and until Spring 2013 for the mayor. 

Those cuts were the brainchild of Ald. Don “Air Marshall” Bach, who proposed them with what appears to have been little prior thought or investigation into the nuts and bolts of the matter.  In Bach’s wacky world view, saving $20,304 in mayoral and Council salaries – even as he was proposing spending $165,000 in anti-O’Hare funds and $186,000 in handouts to various private community groups, while at the same time cutting police officers – is what passes for fiscal responsibility.  Go figure.

But according to Finance & Budget Comittee chair Ald. Rich DiPietro, once Mayor Dave Schmidt pointed out how Bach’s proposal violated Illinois law, “the thing died.”  As well it should have.

Ryan Still Shilling For Scharringhausen.  At last Monday night’s City Council COW meeting, Ald. Robert Ryan resumed his effort to get the City to take the 21,000 square foot Fairview parking lot off the Scharringhausen Family’s hands for the tidy sum of $700,000+, under the guise of ensuring that there will be parking available if/when the redevelopment of Target Area 4 ever gets going.  

Ryan deftly recited buzzwords like “intangible needs,” “economic development” and “quality of life” – all those warm-and-fuzzies that resist objective measurement but sure sound good to unthinking listeners.  And, true to form, Ryan invoked the Uptown Plan and “expert” opinions in support of his position, even suggesting…wait for it…an expert “feasibility study” to determine what kind of parking garage the City could put on Scharringhausen’s property. 

From what we’ve seen of the City’s past real estate bungles (e.g., the old Bredemann Toyota property, the old City reservoir block, the current Courtland lot, etc.), however, we’d have a better chance of turning that $700,000+ into a profitable “investment” if the City spent it on Powerball tickets.

But the real questions that need to be answered by Ryan are: “Why should the City engage in land banking when it can acquire any property it needs by eminent domain whenever needed”; and “Why should the City be in the parking business in the first place?” 

The City has been renting the Scharringhausen lot for years without having to tie up $700,000 of its capital.  If putting a parking garage on the Scharringhausen lot would be such a profitable venture, some enterprising private developer should be willing to put its private capital at risk to reap those profits.  And that way, the property stays on the tax rolls.

Another Good Point By Ald. Carey.  Only a few weeks ago Ald Tom Carey (6th Ward) had the good sense to propose the $500,000 cap that was added to the O’Hare war chest referendum language by a 4-3 vote (Carey, DiPietro, Sweeney and Mayor Schmidt as tie-breaker v. Allegretti, Bach and Wsol) of the City Council.  Carey correctly noted that taxpayers are concerned about the City making open-ended financial commitments to what continues to look like a losing battle.

At last Monday night’s COW meeting, Carey displayed more good sense when he noted, during a discussion of the City’s parking enterprise fund, that the two Park Ridge Police Dept. community service officers (“CSO”s) included in the parking fund’s budget don’t appear to be generating enough parking-related revenue to pay their own way.

We realize that police officers aren’t supposed to be “profit centers.”  But if the cost of two CSO’s is going to be assessed against the parking fund’s budget rather than accounted for like most/all other police department personnel, there should be some economic basis for doing so – such as, perhaps, revenue generation through parking fine enforcement.

Justifying expenses by the revenues they generate?  What a novel concept!

Our opposition to local government being conducted in secret has been strong and consistent. Unfortunately, too many of our local politicians have been equally strong and consistent in defending government operating away from public view, perhaps none more adamantly than Ald. Jim Allegretti (4th Ward).

At last Monday night’s Council meeting, Allegretti was the only alderman present (Fifth Ward Ald. Robert Ryan was absent) to vote for going into closed session to discuss the City’s acquisition of the parking lot property (asking price: $740,000) that the City currently leases from a limited liability company owned by the William Scharringhausen family. With that closed session motion defeated, the parking lot acquisition was continued to the Committee of the Whole meeting on July 12.

Allegretti didn’t explain the reason for his “yes” vote, but we found Alds. Rich DiPietro”s (2nd Ward) and Don Bach’s (3rd Ward) comments about why they were voting against the closed session that night interesting.

DiPietro voted against it because Ryan, the driving force behind the acquisition of that property, was absent; and because DiPietro believed it likely that whatever was going to be discussed in that closed session “would be in the public domain within 24 hours.”

That sounds like a thinly-veiled slap at Mayor Dave Schmidt, who as First Ward alderman in January 2008 disclosed closed session discussions about then-mayor Howard Frimark’s attempt to have the City purchase 720 Garden for a new police station – at $200,000 more than the City’s appraisal of its value. Schmidt’s whistle-blowing earned a “condemnation” by Frimark and five of Schmidt’s fellow aldermen: DiPietro, Allegretti, Bach, Ryan and Carey.

DiPietro still doesn’t seem to “get” that the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) only permits, but doesn’t require, closed session meetings, and that it also doesn’t require what goes on in closed session meetings to be treated as secret by the meeting’s participants.

But so long as the threat of Schmidt’s (or another Council member’s) “going public” with closed session information has made at least DiPietro think twice about running into closed sessions every chance they get, we’ll take that as a small but significant victory for City government transparency.

Tonight’s Park Ridge City Council Committee of the Whole (“COW”) meeting (City Hall, 7:00 p.m.) has two agenda [pdf] items dealing with land that got our attention for different reasons.

The first of those comes under the Procedures & Regulations section of the COW and is titled “Land use alternatives / 1200 Elm Street.”  The Agenda Cover Memo [pdf] contains the recommendation of the City’s Director of Community Preservation & Development, Carrie Davis, that the Council ask the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission (“P&Z”) to consider a zoning map amendment changing the old City Garage property at Greenwood and Elm from its current R-2 zoning to either R-3 or R-4.  Not uncharacteristically for work product from Ms. Davis, her recommendation provides no explanation of why this should be done, or done now.

As we wrote in our post ”Not The Time To Re-Zone Greenwood & Elm” (05.26.10), there is no good reason to fiddle with the zoning of that property at this time.  The proper time to consider a zoning change is when a real live developer comes to the City with a real live plan for that property which the City is interested in exploring.  Re-zoning in a vacuum, especially for such a unique parcel, is both premature and foolish.

But it’s the second land-related agenda coming under the Public Works section of the COW that is the more intriguing one, identified benignly as “Parking – Target Area 4.”  As stated in the applicable Agenda Cover Memo [pdf], this particular study was instigated by 5th Ward Ald. Robert Ryan, who requested Staff to look into “long term parking” related to future redevelopment of what is known as Target Area 4 of the City’s Uptown Plan. 

Instead of just coming right out and saying so, the wording of the memo by Deputy City Mgr. Juliana Maller suggests that the purpose of this exercise is to consider the City’s acquisition of the parking lot it has been renting for several years from the Scharringhausen Family.  And although Maller writes that “it is difficult to recommend land banking during these difficult economic times,” she doesn’t recommend against it but simply passes the buck by asking the Council to “Discuss and Provide direction to staff.”

We think “land banking” by the City is a bad idea, especially when the City already has shown itself to be completely incompetent at it – as it displayed with its money-losing purchase of the white elephant 229 S. Courtland property just south of City Hall a few years back.  Why should a purchase of 20 S. Fairview from the Scharringhausens turn out any better?

We questioned the sweetheart nature of the City’s parking deal with the Scharringhausens two years ago in our post ”The Politics Of Park Ridge Parking” (06.04.08), noting that it looked like the City was helping the Scharringhausens carry this asset until the right developer came along to cash them out for big bucks.  But with no developers on the horizon, is Ald. Ryan trying to get City taxpayers to cash out Scharringhausen?  After all, Ryan voted to give $400,000 to Bill Napleton to clean up his contaminated property, so using tax dollars for private purposes is not unprecedented for Ryan.

Our suspicions are raised even more by the fact that the property’s listing agent [pdf] is none other than one of Park Ridge’s consummate insiders, Owen Hayes II.  As we reported in “515 Busse Highway – The Park Ridge Police Station That Almost Was” (11.15.07), Hayes was on the verge of helping one of his clients turn a nifty $200,000 profit on what is now the Avenues to Independence building by selling it to the City…until  it was discovered that the lucky undisclosed “client” was Hayes himself.  How convenient!

As for a Ryan/Hayes connection, let’s start with the fact that Hayes was Ald. Ryan’s campaign treasurer [pdf].  Might that explain Ryan’s sudden interest in the City exploring the acquisition of property on which Hayes might earn a $35,000+ commission?  That’s not quite a Patti Blagojevich commission, but it’s not bad for sleepy little Park Ridge.

Whether these dots can be connected into a Chicago-style kinky land deal or whether they are just random circumstances coming together by mere happenstance is not yet clear – just like it’s not yet clear why Ald. Jim Allegretti has such an inordinate interest in putting up four billboard’s in the Second Ward. 

Maybe Ryan will explain it tonight.  Or not. 

Two agenda items for tonight’s City Council COW meeting caught our attention: Fourth Ward Ald. Jim Allegretti’s attempt to scale-back the “supermajority” requirement for over-riding decisions of the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission (“P&Z”); and the renewal of the City’s lease for parking spaces on the Scharringhausen family’s 20-22 S. Fairview lot.

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For those who haven’t been paying attention, Allegretti has been trying to finagle a way for the City Council to get around P&Z’s refusal to approve a zoning code amendment to permit Generation Group, Inc. to erect 4 billboards along the Tri-State Tollway.  On November 16, 2009, the Council rejected Allegretti’s proposal to let the Council trump P&Z decisions by simple majority vote and, instead, approved Third Ward Ald. Don Bach’s proposal to give the Council P&Z trumping power by a “supermajority” vote.

From the video of that 11/16 meeting (in contrast to City Clerk Betty Henneman’s sanitized meeting minutes), however, it is clear that Bach understood “supermajority” to be measured by only the aldermen, not by the aldermen and the mayor – the latter of which is how the term “city council” is defined in the State of Illinois municipal code and not otherwise defined in the Park Ridge municipal code.  That would explain why Bach, on at least two occasions during that November meeting, referred to “four versus five” when comparing majority to supermajority voting.   

So when Bach pointedly proclaimed, at the 2:31:55 mark of the April 12, 2010, COW meeting video, that “[he] knew [he] was asking for six votes” when he made his “supermajority” proposal back on November 16th, he may have been engaging in a bit of creative truth-telling, as well as some character re-building.  Which is understandable, considering how mindful he needs to be of having his competence doubted as he begins gearing up for a re-election bid next April that could serve as a springboard to a possible run for mayor in 2013.

But if Bach really meant it when he said at that April 12, 2010, COW meeting – that, back in November, he wanted “to make it as difficult for [the Council] to overturn [P&Z’s] expert recommendations as [the Council] could without leaving too much …wiggle room” – then we’ve got what we will call, immodestly, the best solution to this issue: forget about all this “supermajority” foolishness and simply require nothing less than a unanimous Council vote to trump any P&Z decision.

If a P&Z decision is so wrong the Council needs to trump it, then the Council should be able to muster a unanimous vote to do so.

We doubt that Bach has the stones to propose such a thing but it would be worth the price of admission, if only to see how quickly Allegretti could turn purple and start spinning dervishly in his chair.

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In June 2008, we questioned the City’s leasing of 50 spaces from the SCH Real Estate, LLC, a venture operated by the Scharringhausen family and represented by Patrick Owens of Park Ridge’s first family of law, Owens Owens & Rinn (“The Politics Of Park Ridge Parking,” 06/04/08). Back then we questioned the deal in view of the fact that the City was going to pay the Scharringhausens $500/space/year while it was leasing spaces from the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists for only $140/space/year. 

Last year’s lease [pdf] changed that from 50 spaces to 57 spaces, and from $500/space/year to $360/space/year.

This year’s lease [pdf] has the City paying the same rental for the same number of spaces.  But for some strange reason the proposed lease term is only for 6 months with an automatic six month renewal, instead of for one year.  And for some other strange reason the lease can be terminated on one-month’s notice rather than on six-month’s notice.

We’re not necessarily saying there’s anything kinky about this latest lease, but we do wonder why those two points weren’t flagged as notable changes from last year’s deal in Cathy Doczekalski’s “Agenda Cover Memorandum” to the COW [pdf].

Could it be that the Scharringhausens have some plans in the works for that lot that may come due before the end of the upcoming lease year?  Or is this 6-month lease with a 1-month out simply designed to give the Scharringhausens some special mid-term bargaining power?

One thing is certain: if either Cathy D or her boss, City Mgr. Jim Hock, know the answers, they sure aren’t sharing them with the members of the City Council.

We have to confess that anytime we hear a bureaucrat or elected official talk about parking in or around Uptown, our ears perk up – because that can mean a land deal is in the works. 

So we paid attention when Park Ridge’s Economic Development Director Kim Uhlig said that she wants to make sure Park Ridge has enough parking spaces for all those visitors who regularly clog the streets and sidewalks of Uptown.  Or maybe she means all those visitors that Uhlig hopes will be clogging the streets and sidewalks once she starts marketing Uptown to the traveler-filled hotels in the communities surrounding O’Hare. 

In any event, the City has embarked on an Uptown “parking inventory” designed to identify all of the available parking spaces in Uptown.  Uhlig wants City staff to have its recommendations ready by September 1, even though the effects of the Target Area II redevelopment – with its underground and surface parking – will not be known by then, which would seem to make any “recommendations” now about available Uptown parking premature at best.

So what’s the real point of this exercise?  We’re not sure, but it’s beginning to smell a lot like the first step in a process of justifying the City’s buying up of more private land from one or more “lucky” – a/k/a “well-connected” (a/k/a Friends of Frimark?) – owners, based on some cooked up projections of our future parking needs. 

And not just buying up more private land but also leasing more private land, also from “lucky” owners like SCH Real Estate, LLC [pdf], with whom the City Council voted (at its May 19th meeting [pdf]) to renew a lease for 50 parking spaces in the South Fairview “permit” lot for another year at $500 a space, or $25,000 a year.  Interestingly enough, the City rents 32 spaces from the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists for a mere $4,500, or a shade over $140 per space. 

Why the big difference? We don’t know for sure, but we have to wonder if the fact that one of SCH’s two owners is Bill Scharringhausen [pdf], reportedly an old friend of Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark, has anything to do with it?  Or that SCH’s registered agent is attorney Patrick D. Owens, a member of the prominent Park Ridge law firm of Owens, Owens & Rinn headed by Jack Owens, the go-to guy for local zoning and land deals?  That firm and its partners contributed at least $1,750 to Frimark’s mayoral campaign fund, so one can imagine that their phone calls to 505 Butler Place get returned. Promptly.  

Never mind that, as can be seen from the figures in a May 8, 2008, memo [pdf] from City Finance Director Diane Lambesis to the City Council’s Finance & Budget Committee, the City may actually be losing money on the new SCH lease deal because it is projecting $1,000 less in revenue than it will be paying in rent.  And that’s before the cost of the liability insurance the City, in the lease [pdf], committed to maintain on the property that also covers SCH, as well as the cost of City staff actually doing the work of operating the parking lot, is figured in.  But what the hey, its only the taxpayers’ money!

We understand that the City has been leasing these parking spaces from the Scharringhausens for quite awhile now, although this appears to be the first year that the lessor is SCH instead of some other Scharringhausen-related entity.  So it looks like the taxpayers have been helping carry this appreciating asset on the Scharringhausen books for some time – and will likely continue to do so until Uptown Redevelopment south of the tracks goes forward and a willing developer comes up with the right price for them to cash out big-time. 

Or maybe Frimark will offer them the “right price” if he can’t lock up his favorite location du jour for the proposed big new cop shop: the freshly-defunct Napleton auto dealership property.  After all, with the other tax dollar giveaway ol’ “Let’s Make A Deal” negotiated (for Napleton’s original Cadillac dealership at Northwest Hwy and Meacham) having cratered, don’t Park Ridge taxpayers deserve yet another opportunity to bail out Frimark’s buddy and benefactor, Bill Napleton?   

Any way you cut it, it sure sounds like a mighty sweet deal for the Scharringhausens.  But when you’re “lucky” enough to be a friend of Frimark, sweet deals just seem to come your way.