In our 01.24.13 post, “Two Lessons On Governmental And Political Integrity,” we criticized the way Fire Chief Mike Zywanski cried “Wolf!” about public safety while trying to blow the purchase of $150,000 of cardiac monitors/defibrillators past the City Council, despite a woeful lack of critical information about that purchase.

The purchase recommendation in his 01.14.13 Agenda Cover Memorandum was so vague and incomplete on its budget and appropriations details – as even the City Council concluded in deferring it to the 02.11.13 Committee of the Whole (“COW”) – that we didn’t even address how it also appeared to circumvent the City’s competitive bidding process, designed to get the best possible deal for the taxpayers while at the same time preventing self-dealing (a/k/a, graft) by those officials involved in the procurement process.

So we’re getting around to that now.

Section 2-9-9 of the City Code governs that procurement process.  Subsection D requires competitive sealed bidding for all goods and services purchase contracts over $20,000 – unless the City Manager determines that the bid process isn’t appropriate for such products or services, in which case those purchase contracts would be covered by the competitive sealed proposals process of Subsection E.

Subsection F provides seven specific exceptions to the competitive process for “contracts which by their nature are not adapted to award by competitive selection process,” none of which appear applicable to the monitors/defibrillators Chief Z wants to buy.  That could account for there being no explanation in Chief Z’s memorandum of why this purchase is exempt from competitive bidding.

That’s the “if you don’t have the answer, ignore the question” rule of bureaucratic survival.

That memo states that the Fire Dept. “conducted an evaluation of the major brands of Cardiac Monitor/Defibrillators designed for Paramedic use in the field” [emphasis added], which evaluation led to the determination that the Zoll device is the “best option” for the PRFD.  Yet no written report, or even any specific details, of that evaluation process were included in Chief Z’s memo.  Nor were they made part of his 02.11.13 Agenda Cover Memorandum , which purports to address the competitive bidding issue in its “Question #5 Response” but which doesn’t even come close to doing so.

Heck, it doesn’t even mention the City’s competitive bidding provisions.

Such an omission, however, didn’t stop the Council – during the Public Safety portion of last Monday’s COW meeting – from advancing this purchase by a 5-0 vote (Alds. Sweeney and Raspanti absent) for approval at tonight’s Council meeting.

So why hasn’t Acting City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton put this purchase on tonight’s Council meeting Agenda as an action item?

If we had to bet the ranch, we’d wager that Chief Z and Hamilton are still trying to come up with something that can pass for an “evaluation” and satisfy Ald. Dan Knight’s (5th) request, last Monday, for a copy before the Council takes its final vote on Chief Z’s recommendation.

That’s because, if such an evaluation actually existed as of last Monday, we would expect Chief Z and/or Hamilton to already have produced it, thereby facilitating the approval of this deal at tonight’s meeting.  But they haven’t – which suggests that Chief Z may have been fibbing about that evaluation; and that Hamilton may be aiding and abetting the cover-up of that fib.

That would be extremely disappointing under any circumstances.

But it takes on an extra dimension in light of mayoral challenger Larry Ryles’ making this equipment purchase his most recent political cause célèbre.  Ryles has been barbecuing Mayor Schmidt and Ald. Knight for delaying the purchase of this “critical” replacement equipment, notwithstanding that Chief Z himself finally admitted at last Monday night’s meeting – under pointed questioning by Knight – that any delays in the purchase of replacement monitors/defibrillators were not negatively impacting the health or safety of Park Ridge residents.

But facts don’t seem to matter to Ryles, just as they never mattered to his political mentor, former mayor Howard Frimark.  So we’re not going to hold our breath wondering whether Ryles will show up at City Hall tonight demanding an explanation of why this purchase has been delayed once again.

For a guy who wants to be “the 24/7 mayor,” Ryles has been incredibly reluctant to actually stand up and address the Council about City issues.  Like Frimark, Ryles seems more comfortable laying in the weeds and shooting from ambush.  But that’s another issue for another time.

Meanwhile, back at City Hall, Ald. Knight and the Council apparently are still waiting for Chief Z’s evaluation of the competing cardiac monitors/defibrillators that would demonstrate why Zoll’s product is better than the competition and/or lower priced; and why it shouldn’t need to go through competitive bidding despite being more than $100,000 above the threshold for such bidding.

Although we’ve seen no hard evidence that Chief Z has engaged in any unethical behavior regarding this equipment purchase, we can’t ignore the fact that a $150,000 equipment purchase such as this often contains enough “flexibility” to easily accommodate…oh, say…some complimentary Bulls tickets, or a couple of expensive dinners, with wine, to oil the procurement machinery.  THAT’S one of the main reasons there is a competitive bidding process in the first place.

So while Chief Z’s failure to include his purported “evaluation” in either of his memos, and his inability/failure to produce that evaluation within 24 hours of Knight’s 02.11.13 request could simply be the product of boneheadedness, it creates a reasonable suspicion that things aren’t working they way they should be.

Or as they’ve been represented to the City Council and the public.

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At Monday night’s Park Ridge City Council Committee of the Whole meeting, the Council got further confirmation – as if even the most hapless alderman needed it by now – that the Uptown TIF could remain a money-sucking albatross around the City’s neck for the remainder of its 23-year life.

Or for another 13 years, to be exact.  Assuming it’s not extended.

That was the word from the City’s outside TIF consultants, Kane McKenna and Associates, who told the City that by May 1 of next year the City’s TIF Fund will be in hock to the City’s General Fund by about $6 million.  While one fund owing another a boxcar number might sound like the creative accounting and mumbo-jumbo that comes out of Washington D.C. when discussing the federal government owing hundreds of billions of dollars to “Social Security” for loans that the SS “trust fund” made to keep the government operating, it’s real dollars to us average taxpayers.

The problem is a simple one: back in 2003, then-mayor Ron Wietecha and a recklessly “motivated” City Council borrowed and spent way too much on the Uptown TIF District Redevelopment project – selling themselves on the pie-in-the-sky revenue projections provided by the developer, PRC Partners; by our disingenuous then-city manager, Tim Schuenke; and by local realtors and retailers, many of whom were hoping the project would give their own businesses the jump-start they were desperately looking for.  Oh, and maybe some local real estate speculators, who saw the new project as a way to goose up the values of neighboring property and scalp a quick profit.

Kind of like those speculators who were buying up or optioning all that land in and around the expected venues for the “guaranteed” Chicago 2016 Olympics.

Compounding the problem of those ridiculous revenue projections is the strong possibility that the City sold off the City land on which the bulk of the project sits – the old reservoir block – for as much as two or three million dollars less than it was worth.  That’s because our irresponsible public officials were so consumed with getting the project done that they threw caution (and/or common sense) to the wind, and didn’t even get the property appraised.

Brilliant!

The City then undertook a lot of infrastructure expenses in furtherance of the project, and as a favor to the private developer.  It issued a bunch of long-term bonded debt and pledged all the City’s assets as security for that debt.

For the first few years the TIF bumbled along with nobody paying close attention or publicizing its performance – because then-Deputy City Mgr. Juliana Maller, who nominally was in charge of keeping track of the TIF, was clueless and uninterested; and because reliable information was next to impossible to come by, probably because such information would have become increasingly embarrassing for the culprits still sitting around The Horseshoe and harboring further political (or commercial?) ambitions.

Not until Allison Stutts became Finance Director and took over TIF analysis from Maller did Mayor Dave Schmidt and the new Council start to get some of the unhappy totals – and it became increasingly apparent that the City needed some TIF experts to advise if anything could be done to improve the situation by refinancing or other creative tactics.

According to Page 16 of the Kane McKenna report (which also is available on the City’s website under the 01.11.13 City Council meeting attachments), the City currently is on the hook for over $39 million in additional TIF debt service.  But that’s far from the worst part of the report.

On that same page, in that same table, Kane McKenna forecasts three separate alternate scenarios, with the best one projecting that the TIF will end up costing the City $7.4 million.  The worst case scenario: The TIF ends up $27 million in the in the hole.  And, as the consultants note: “The imbalance between TIF revenues and obligations…is significant”; and none of their suggested action plans is “a complete remedy.”

If you watch Monday night’s City Council COW meeting video on the City’s website, you will hear the Kane McKenna representative discuss how these scenarios were drawn up with a conservative underlying premise of no growth in sales and property tax revenues, which is unlikely.  But even building in an equally unlikely 4% annual growth in such revenues, the deficit in the “special” TIF fund could still end up at $10 million or so, to go along with the locked-in $7.35 million cumulative obligation to the school districts and the Park District under all three alternative scenarios.

Fortunately for all the perpetrators of this goat rodeo but one (current Ald. Rich DiPietro), these revelations come when they no longer are public officials.  And if you ask them about how they could have been so wrong about this project – for which they were planning on as much as a $20 million-plus profit by the expiration of the TIF’s 23-year term – you can expect more songs and dances than the original Broadway production of “Cats.”

But the bottom line, especially as we move into the final months of the mayoral and City Council races, is that it looks like the TIF will continue to be a major drain on City finances for the foreseeable future, the proverbial 500 lb gorilla sitting in the corner of the City Council chambers at every meeting.  We therefore encourage all taxpayers/voters to press all the candidates for City office on how they view this problem, and demand specific answers about what they intend to do to address it.

Mindless, pie-in-the-sky irresponsibility by City officials brought us to this place.  Does anybody but the village idiot(s) think more mindless pie-in-the-sky irresponsibility will get us out of it?

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A minor snow/sleet storm may have held down attendance at last Thursday night’s City of Park Ridge town hall/candidates’ debate.  But the 40-50 folks who made it to the Park Ridge Senior Center heard Mayor Dave Schmidt and four of the six City Council candidates talk about their beliefs and ideas for improving City government.

The main event of the evening was scheduled to be the first debate between Schmidt and challenger Larry Ryles.  But with Ryles a no-show along with 2nd Ward candidate George Korovilas  and 4th Ward hopeful Jane Johnson, Schmidt, 2nd Ward candidate Nick Milissis and 4th Ward candidate Roger Shubert got to play Q and A with the moderators, Park Ridge Journal editor/publisher Todd Wessell and Park Ridge Herald-Advocate editor Ben Meyerson, who also asked questions tendered by the audience.

That made the featured “bout” a battle of the 6th Ward bantamweights, with current alderman Marc Mazzuca and challenger Vincent “Vinny” LaVecchia displaying two different styles and views of City government, especially on finances.  That bodes well for an energetic contest between them, a welcome difference from two years ago when Tom Bernick ran unopposed but then resigned his seat barely a year into his 2-year term.

And we hope the absences of Korovalis and Johnson last Thursday night are not an indication of their lack of commitment to their respective campaigns.  The voters in those two wards need and deserve more, and more vigorously-contested, aldermanic races than what they’ve been getting.  Not only those voters, but voters throughout the entire community, would have been better served with three aldermanic debates Thursday night rather than just one.

But the biggest disappointment was Ryles being MIA.  As reported by both local newspapers, he went through two alibis for not attending – it was “Schmidt’s debate,” and there were no “ground rules” to establish the “controlled environment” he desires – before coming up with, at the eleventh hour, the excuse he apparently felt he could best sell to the voters: a family commitment.

That’s too bad, because we would have loved to have heard Ryles actually try to answer a number of those questions asked of Schmidt.

For example, we would have loved to have heard Ryles explain why, despite his insistence on keeping property tax levy increases at or below the CPI, he was MIA from the recent Council debates that led to the Council’s adopting the 2.15% increase, the lowest in over a decade; and why he didn’t share with both the Council and the public what specific additional expenses he would have cut, or how specifically he would raise revenues, in order to cut that levy increase even further.

We also would have loved to have heard Ryles identify each specific business he reportedly has been accusing Schmidt of driving out of town, or keeping out of town – and how Ryles would have prevented those departures while luring the others in.  We’re still waiting to hear what specific retailers Ryles thinks he can bring here, and what devices or techniques he plans on using (and at what cost).j

And we can’t wait to hear Ryles’ plans for dealing with the City’s biggest black hole, the misguided and mismanaged Uptown TIF.

Although Ryles may have been MIA last Thursday night, two of his key backers were prominently in attendance: former mayor Howard Frimark, rumored to be serving (with exquisite irony, we might add) as Ryles’ one-man “truth squad”; and ubiquitous local public relations and marketing hired gun, Dick Barton. Frimark was observed furiously scribbling away, seemingly creating a verbatim transcript of the proceedings.

Fortunately, you don’t need to rely on Frimark’s play-by-play, because Schmidt had the festivities videotaped and posted on YouTube, where you can see and hear the candidates who participated; and judge for yourself just how unfair to Ryles was the forum and format Schmidt created.

The next chance to see the candidates in the flesh – assuming they all show up – is at the Park Ridge Republican Women’s Forum on March 7 at 7:00 p.m. in the South Park Recreation Center.  The mayoral candidates also are scheduled to debate before the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce at the Park Ridge Country Club on March 13 between 11:30 and 1:30 p.m.; and before the League of Women Voters on March 14, at 7:00 p.m. in the City Council Chambers.

Until then, expect Ryles to continue to be MIA, even while hiding in plain sight.

To read or post comments, click on title.

We received an undated “Press Release” from Ald. Jim Smith (3rd) concerning his plan for “raising issues and offering amendments” at the January 28th City Council Committee of the Whole meeting concerning the City’s sign ordinance.

Unfortunately, we didn’t receive it until days after that meeting.

Which is probably okay, because we had a hard time making much sense out of what Smith is complaining about – other than Mayor Dave Schmidt for creating a Sign Task Force that, according to Smith, Schmidt “packed…with proponents of rigorous regulation” who have proposed amendments to the Zoning Code that will create “a more business-hostile environment.”

Who are these business-hostile task force folks? 

Judy Barclay of the Historic Preservation Commission.  Mark Dejardins, who reportedly operates a sign business.  Sheila Duda of the Tea Lula tea shop.  Kathie Hahn of the Park Ridge Park District.  Brian Kidd of the City’s Appearance Commission.  Alfredo Marr of the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission.  local real estate agent Joan Sandrik.  Resident Paul Sheehan.  And Gary Zimmerman, of the City’s Zoning Board of Appeals.

Frankly, we aren’t aware of any facts that would suggest these folks are “anti-business.”  And Smith doesn’t explain how they are, or how he knows it.

Whether the City’s sign ordinance needs clarification, amendment, or a complete rewrite is unclear to us.  Generally speaking, we don’t find any of the business signs around town offensive.  But the Sign Task Force was created to assess that situation and, as best as we can tell, it has done its job.

Is every one of the recommendations the Task Force has come up with optimal?  Probably not.  But do the proposed amendments make the Zoning Code hostile to businesses with signage? 

As best as we can tell from his Press Release, they may require “a number of new signs even though the original ones are perfectly serviceable for their intended purpose.”  But the only example he offers is the Dunkin’ Donuts at Touhy and Greenwood. 

That’s not a bad example, mind you, because it does illustrate the odd-to-goofy situation (if Smith is correct) where a non-compliant, free-standing sign is permitted to advertise the dry cleaners next to DD but cannot also advertise DD – because the dry cleaners’ sign is grandfathered in, while the newer DD does not enjoy the same status and exception to the rule.

Smitty’s real beef, however, seems to be not the “grandfathering” exception that currently creates this anomaly, but the proposed elimination of that exception by these proposed amendments, which would require replacement of the entire sign by January 1, 2015 with one that conforms to the ordinance.

In recent months, Smith has demonstrated an amazing ability to propose things that don’t even get a second from the rest of the Council.  That occurred at the January 28th meeting, when he moved to delete Section 14.18 of the revised sign ordinance – the section that sets a January 1, 2015 deadline for non-conforming signs to be brought into compliance – and failed to get a second.   

That two-year amortization period has been acknowledged by City Attorney Everette “Buzz” Hill as being “aggressive,” so a Council debate on the length of that amortization period would have made sense.

Had Smitty been concerned with actually legislating rather than political grandstanding, he could have moved to expand the compliance window to 3, 4 or even 5 years.  Or he could have sought a special compliance window for those businesses who installed a new sign within the past 1 or 2 years, so that they could recoup more of their recent sign investment made without any expectation of a change in the ordinance.  Either one would have triggered the kind of debate these issues deserve.

Instead, he chose to make his DOA motion. 

But only after issuing his Press Release, and baying at the moon.

To read or post comments, click on title.

As any regular reader of this blog knows, we love contested elections. 

We love it when two or more candidates for the same public office are forced to show why they deserve to be elected over their competition.  We love it when an incumbent actually has to defend his/her record, and when a challenger has to demonstrate that he/she actually has better ideas than the incumbent.

Which is why the current mayoral campaign has, so far, been a disappointment.

In one corner we have one-term incumbent Mayor Dave Schmidt, an iconoclastic fiscal conservative who comfortably defeated tax-and-spend incumbent opportunist mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark in 2009 by effectively capturing the roughly 1,000 votes which provided Frimark his margin of victory in 2005. 

By 2011, Schmidt – who acquired the nickname “Mayor No” for vetoing unaffordable, unsound and/or unwise spending – had outlasted four of Frimark’s alderpuppets, who slunk off the Council without even standing for re-election.  And after several years of the City piling up millions of dollars in annual operating deficits, Schmidt and the new Council have begun posting annual operating surpluses which, cumulatively, are expected to top $2.5 million for the three most recent fiscal years, the third of which will end April 30.

In the other corner we have newcomer Larry Ryles, a challenger who nevertheless acts like he’s running a “rose garden” campaign by dodging mano-a-mano match-ups with Schmidt whenever possible – starting with a February 7 “town-hall” debate scheduled for the Park Ridge Senior Center that will also include aldermanic candidate debates. 

As reported in this week’s Park Ridge Journal (“Town Hall Still A Go”) and Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Ryles turns down request for second Park Ridge mayoral debate”), Ryles’ alibi for dodging that town hall debate is that Schmidt organized it.  Seriously.  Even though it will be held on a “neutral” site (a Park District facility) and will be moderated by members of the City Hall press team.

Ryles is also reportedly trying to dodge the Park Ridge Republican Women’s Forum on March 7.  Which leaves him committed to only the Chamber of Commerce luncheon debate at the Park Ridge Country Club on March 13, and the League of Women Voters debate the following evening.

That’s unfortunate, because good government is furthered by Schmidt’s record being challenged on its merits by a competent critic.  Yet all Ryles seems capable of mustering are a few spitballs from the weeds – most notably his criticism of Schmidt for the Council’s recent reduction of what originally was looking like an 11.11% property tax levy increase, down to a 2.15% one – even though Ryles uttered not a peep of protest at the December 17 City Council meeting when that 2.15% levy was approved. 

That’s not surprising, however, given that we don’t see how Ryles can possibly reconcile his criticism of the levy reduction with his tub-thumping insistence that taxes should not be raised any higher than the inter-year increase in the Consumer Price Index. 

But so long as Ryles keeps hiding in plain sight by dodging debates with Schmidt, the voters will continue to be deprived of the opportunities they deserve to see and hear the two candidates meaningfully go toe-to-toe on all the important issues facing our community. 

And to find out specifically what would Ryles do about them that would be different from what Schmidt has been doing for the past four years.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Today we’re giving our inner-curmudgeon a well-deserved rest and offering a big Watchdog bark-out to those folks over at the Kalo Foundation for winning Park Ridge’s most recent Governor’s Hometown Award for its efforts to save the Alfonso Iannelli home and studio at 255 N. Northwest Hwy.

Not only did they perform a grand community service by saving that historically-significant building from the wrecking ball and replacement by several townhomes, but they did it without…wait for it…a handout of taxpayer dollars from City government.

Huzzah!  Huzzah!  Huzzah!

For those who might not remember, we had our doubts about whether the Kalo Foundation would go the way of so many other not-for-profit private corporations which wrap themselves in the mantle of “community group” and then expect to get a substantial portion of their funding each year just by showing up at City Hall with their hands out – usually with a few former aldermen or other former elected officials in tow for the appropriate winks and nods.  In our 11.26.07 post with a subsection titled “Hello, Kalo”, we sounded a critical note when the newly-established foundation started making sounds like it was heading to the public trough.

But the Kalo folks strapped it on, going on a fundraising quest that generated in excess of $300,000, including a six-figure matching-type challenge grant from an anonymous donor.

There’s still a ways to go before the Kalo Foundation realizes its goal of completely restoring the Iannelli building and turning it into a fully-operating museum.  But we’re not about to bet against Betsy Foxwell, Anne Lundy, Dennis Van Mieghem, Judy Barclay, Marcia Burgis, and all the rest of those intrepid Kalo Foundation volunteers and arm-twisters who pulled the nails out of that building’s coffin at the eleventh hour.

And they’ve provided a shining example – for whatever other local private-corporation community groups want to watch and learn – of how private taxpayers will support community groups and projects perceived by those taxpayer as both providing valuable services to the community, and making a genuine effort to generate the revenue they need instead of resorting to big-dollar City handouts.

And that deserves a hearty Watchdog “Well done!”

To read or post comments, click on title.

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. 

To read or post comments, click on title.

Park Ridge Mayor Dave Schmidt caught some aldermanic flak over his hiring of Acting City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton last summer after the Council sent then-city mgr. Jim Hock packing by unanimous vote. 

The flak came primarily from Alds. Sal Raspanti (4th ward) and Marty Maloney (7th), and it was directed toward the process Schmidt employed – because it didn’t include Council involvement other than to approve Hamilton’s hiring.  Those were legitimate criticisms, especially about a process employed by a mayor who not only has talked but also walked “transparency” line for the past four years he has been mayor. 

From the moment Hamilton’s hiring was confirmed by the Council – over Raspanti’s and Maloney’s “no” votes, as we recall – the primary question was whether Hamilton could do the job well enough to keep it beyond his May 1, 2013, contract end date.  His performance also would be a significant test of Schmidt’s theory that a city manager with a strong private-sector background could do a better job than the traditional public-sector bureaucrat. 

So the Council’s solid endorsement of Hamilton at last Monday night’s Council meeting was a significant achievement for the Acting City Manager.

Leading the cheers for Hamilton was Ald. Joe Sweeney (1st), who suggested dropping Hamilton’s “acting” status and making him the regular City Manager – in part because of Hamilton’s efforts in hiring new personnel and executing the Council’s cost-cutting agenda.

Unfortunately, Sweeney promptly left the reservation and began witlessly advocating for a one-year contract extension for Hamilton, insisting that Hamilton was just one Council meeting away from termination; and that he deserved “job security” because the City is “taking [from Hamilton] and not giving.”

Say what?  Since when did a six-figure salary and benefits become all “taking,” Ald. Sweeney?

But we probably shouldn’t expect more from a guy who voted to give Hock his 18-month contract with a $130,000 severance – even while acknowledging that it was a great contract for Hock but not such a great one for the taxpayers.  Apparently Sweeney doesn’t subscribe to the aphorism: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

Fortunately, Raspanti nailed it when he reminded Sweeney that job “security” is not a right or an entitlement in the real, non-governmental, world: “Maybe the public sector works a little different…but anybody who works for a living is one bad move away from losing their job.”

Exactly!

While the other aldermen didn’t go as far as Sweeney, it was clear from their comments that most of them approved of Hamilton’s job so far.

Ald. Marty Maloney (7th Ward) said Hamilton has done a “fantastic job,” but noted that the Council “owe[s] it to the taxpayers” to put the right person in the job, and at the right price – pointedly referencing the sweetheart contract the previous Council (including Sweeney and Ald. Rich DiPietro) gave Hock in December 2010…for reasons that make no more sense today than they did back then: “I’m not interested in putting together a sweet deal like you guys did for Jim Hock.”

Despite how well Hamilton’s interim appointment appears to have worked out so far, we believe a more formal search process – even at the $20-30,000 cost being discussed – is the right approach for a position as crucial to City government as city manager.  In our form of government, the city manager is the CEO and COO rolled into one.  Which might explain why the City’s current financial problems and questionable infrastructure can be attributed in large measure to the bumbling and dissembling of the City’s two most recent city managers – Tim Schuenke and Jim Hock – aided and abetted by compliant, complicit, rubber-stamp City Councils.

Meanwhile, the biggest test for Hamilton so far will be the 2013-14 budget process. 

If he and new finance director Kent Oliven nail it, Hamilton might have an inside track to losing his “acting” status when the formal search is commenced after the new Council is seated in May.

If not, however, his honeymoon may well be over.

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When anybody mentions “essential government services,” we think in terms of sewer, water, police, fire, streets and sidewalks. 

The problem with water and sewer, however, is that they are buried under the ground.  Consequently, they tend to remain out of sight and out of mind – the easier to neglect without a hue and cry of protest – until a sewer collapses or a water main breaks.

So an article in last week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Dry summer meant tough break for water mains,” Jan. 4) caught our attention because it reported 65 water main breaks in Park Ridge during the first half of FY2012-13.  That’s 10 to 15 more than is customary for an entire year.  And that doesn’t include 22 water service leaks during 2012.

Worse yet, that also doesn’t include the winter months when most breaks tend to occur. 

This situation becomes even more problematic given that the City’s Public Works Department already has spent its $50,000 overtime budget.  So Public Works will likely need to use money from City’s the construction fund to address future water main breaks between now and the beginning of FY 2013-14 on May 1.

That got us thinking and looking for any comprehensive information about the City’s sewer and water systems. 

Unfortunately, we could find no such information on the City’s website.  That’s a problem for several reasons, the first and foremost being that it suggests the City itself doesn’t have such information – or at least not in a sufficiently user-friendly form that it could be posted on the website for all to see.  That lack of transparency is a dis-service to the taxpayers, especially when boatloads of tax dollars are spent on a variety of other things that those taxpayers may not consider as “essential” as sewer and water. 

What we would expect is a map showing the entire network of sewers and water lines, with clearly-marked date(s) when each particular section or feature (e.g., a pump) was last inspected, when it was last repaired, and when it was last replaced.  That way, residents would have real-time knowledge of the condition of our unseen infrastructure…and a better idea of whether some portions of that infrastructure are ticking time bombs that shouldn’t be neglected further.

According to the H-A article, Public Works Director Wayne Zingsheim correctly notes that a water main break is “something you can’t let run [because] people need to have water,” but that the City’s efforts at replacing older, less-durable piping have been slowed by the cost involved. 

The apparent lack of a comprehensive sewer and water map with accurate up-to-date status reports on the condition of those systems’ components would seem to leave the Public Works Dept. with an inability to develop a comprehensive, systematic multi-year process of inspecting, maintaining, repairing and/or replacing those components.  And it also makes sound budgeting decisions almost impossible.

But perhaps the worst part of having no such comprehensive analysis available to the taxpayers is that it prevents them from understanding a significant portion of the City’s infrastructure needs, including those needs that directly affect each individual taxpayers’ sewer and water systems.  Which means that, come budget time, those taxpayers are unable to provide their aldermen with any meaningful, informed input or feedback about how much money is being budgeted for those “essential” services – versus how much is being budgeted for discretionary spending.

The more the taxpayers remain in the dark on matters such as this, the easier it is for their elected representatives and the City’s bureaucrats to set the City’s spending agenda and manipulate public opinion.  Until a few more water mains break, or a few more sewers collapse.

And the City has already spent that money on discretionary items.

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Another year – and 103 more PublicWatchdog posts – has passed.  So it’s time to take a brief look back and a brief look forward.

The year 2012 began with our questioning  whether then-city manager Jim Hock would raise his game in response to the City Council’s demand that he start earning his approximately $215,000 annual compensation.  He didn’t, and he was gone before mid-year.  But the City’s taxpayers are still holding the bag for his defaulted interest-free home loan, which former mayor Howard Frimark and then-and-now City Attorney Everette “Buzz” Hill conspired to subordinate to a bank loan Hock also took out for less than half the amount of the City’s loan, all without even telling the Council. 

Whether Mayor Schmidt and the Council learned anything from that wasteful exercise remains to be seen.  It also remains to be seen whether Hock’s replacement, Acting City Manager Shawn Hamilton, can raise his game enough to lose the “Acting” but still retain the rest of the title when his contract runs out this Spring. 

And with number-cruncher extraordinaire Allison Stutts having left the City’s finances in the hands of newcomer Kent Oliven, we hope he and Hamilton have the common sense and the work ethic needed to stick with Stutts’ battle-tested budget playbook rather than start cutting corners on what appears to have become the best budget process the City has employed in at least 20 years.

At the beginning of 2012 we also called for open-session contract negotiations between our local governments and the various employee unions, with special mention of Park Ridge-Niles School District 64’s then-upcoming teacher negotiations.  The idea would be to have all such negotiations occurring in meetings open to the public, and broadcast/videotaped for viewing by those citizens who were not able to attend in person.  That way, the public could judge for itself who was being unreasonable in their demands or offers.

Not surprisingly, that didn’t occur for any of the negotiations conducted last year.  Worse yet, the D-64 negotiating team of Board president John Heyde and member Pat Fioretto agreed to a new contract that continued the D-64 practice of actually requiring secret, closed-session contract negotiations.  Chalk up yet another bargaining coup for the Park Ridge Education Association, a/k/a the teachers union. 

Last year saw the closing of the Park Ridge Youth Campus up in the City’s 1st Ward.  A local institution for over a century, in recent years it had become a continuous source of police calls related to resident runaways and physical altercations between residents.  Come April, the voters will have a chance to decide whether to borrow and spend over $13 million to turn that 11+-acre parcel into a park and recreation complex – or leave it available to private developers, most likely for single-family residential.

We also look forward to this April’s local elections because of all the contested races, including: 

• for City of Park Ridge mayor, Mayor Dave Schmidt and challenger Larry Ryles;
• for 2nd Ward alderman, Nicholas Milissis and George Korovilas;
• for 4th Ward alderman, Roger Shubert and Jane Johnson;
• for 6th Ward alderman, Ald. Marc Mazzuca and Vincent LaVecchia;
• for Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 School Board, incumbent Scott Zimmerman and newcomers Terry Cameron, Vicki Lee, Dathan Paterno, Benjamin Seib and Rick Van Roeyen vying for four seats;
• for Maine Township High School District 207 Board, incumbents Eldon Burk, Eric Leys, Margaret McGrath and Carla Owen vying with newcomers Mary Childers, Jin Lee, Jeffrey Spero and Sean Story for five seats; and
• for Park Ridge Recreation and Park District Board, incumbents Rick Biagi, Richard Brandt, Steven Hunst and Stephen Vile vying with challengers James Phillips and Joan Bende for four seats.

Our hope for these elections is that the candidates will take their campaigns seriously and actively engage each other in substantive debates not only on the issues but also on their individual philosophies of local government – instead of hiding behind vague pronouncements, warm-and-fuzzy promises, and outright dishonesty about the costs of those promises.

Unfortunately, the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District will be giving the taxpayers only one referendum (a binding one, for $13 million, on the Youth Campus park and recreation plan) in April instead of two (the second being an advisory one, for the $7.1 million Centennial outdoor pool project), but only because it legally can’t get away with giving us none at all.  That display of contempt will earn this Park Board the dubious distinction of being the first in 20 years to do a major multi-million dollar project without seeking the advice of the voters via referendum.

Nevertheless, our hope for 2013 is that all members of this community – individuals, businesses, community groups, etc. – strive to become more self-reliant and less dependent on local government (a/k/a, the taxpayers) to solve their problems.  In that regard we close this post with two quotes from the late longshoreman/public intellectual (and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner) Eric Hoffer:

“It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities”; and “The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.”

Happy New Year!

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