Normally we would consider it too early to start speculating on the April 2013 municipal elections, but we received several bits of unsolicited information “over the transom” in the last week that piqued our curiosity and which we have decided to share, if only for their entertainment value. 

Thanks to former mayor Howard Frimark’s successful 2006 cut-the-Council referendum, three aldermanic seats – in the 2nd, 4th and 6th wards – are up for grabs next April, with the main event being the regularly-scheduled quadrennial mayoral race. 

So it’s only fitting that the first entertaining bon mot is the rumor that Frimark, who recently relocated from the 6th Ward  to the 2nd Ward, did so in order to run for the seat that current Ald. Rich DiPietro is expected to be vacating after 18 years on the Council.

History tells us that the 2nd Ward trails only the 3rd Ward in voter apathy, measured by the number of uncontested aldermanic elections it has had over the past decade.  In the absence of any other identified heir-apparent groomed by Richie D waiting in the wings, perhaps Frimark figures he can count on an empty field and a blessing from his departing buddy to return him to The Horseshoe, albeit in a smaller chair than the one the voters took from him in 2009.

And in light of the recent four-way “contest” for the mayoral appointment to fill the last 10 months of the 6th Ward term by former candidate Marc Mazzuca, transplanted former 7th Ward ald. Jeff Cox, and former Maine Twp. trustee Peter Ryan, all of whom are potential candidates for a full term next April, Frimark may have figured that the easiest way back to 505 Butler Place is by the northwest passage.

Whether anybody challenges Ald. Sal Raspanti in the 4th Ward will likely depend on just how well he is perceived to be handling the demands of the office.  His elections to both the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District Board in 2005 and to the City Council in 2011 were uncontested and, therefore, he didn’t have a real opportunity to demonstrate his stump ability or his vote-getting prowess. 

He already has earned a couple of kudos from the fiscal responsibility crowd for his recent votes to cut off budget appropriations for the private community group corporations, and to deny a multi-million dollar subsidy for the developer of the Whole Foods property.   But 10 months can be a lifetime in government and politics, so it’s likely Raspanti will still have a number of opportunities to enhance or diminish that perception in the interim.

The real intrigue, however, will be related to the mayoral race.  We’ve already heard rumors of the active recruitment and/or endorsement of challengers to Mayor Dave Schmidt by Frimark, by anti-O’Hare activist/wing-nut Gene Spanos, by recent Niles immigrants Rob and Kim Biederman, and by an un-named former Park District commissioner. 

Frimark’s recruiting efforts are no surprise, given his loathing of Schmidt and rumors that he himself doesn’t have the stomach for another run.  Although we understand that Frimark is seeking a “seasoned” candidate with some prior Council or other elective-office experience, his inability to recruit such a candidate might cause him to fall back his unsuccessful 2011 7th Ward aldermanic candidate, Franklin Ramirez. 

Interestingly, Ramirez, who describes himself as a “community and youth activist,” has started soliciting $10 contributions for bumper stickers bearing his name and his Facebook page address.  So unless Ramirez is planning to move out of his parents’ home and into one of the 3 even-numbered wards with aldermanic seats up for grabs next year, his bumper stickers would appear to be either a novel commercial “branding” exercise or the precursor to a mayoral run.

Even more intriguing is the rumor that the Madigan-ista Biedermans and the RINO (Republican In Name Only) Spanos are already talking up 5th Ward resident Larry Ryles, although we haven’t been able to tell whether their respective efforts are joint or independent.

Rob Biederman spent 5 years as a key political operative for Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and 3 years as Atty. General Lisa Madigan’s strategic communications director, while wife Kim was a Niles village trustee and Niles mayoral candidate before their emigration to Park Ridge following her unsuccessful 2009 campaign.

Spanos backed Schmidt in 2009 but reportedly soured on the mayor because of Schmidt’s refusal to support a major City funding commitment to fight O’Hare expansion and to make the “Fly Quiet” program a legal requirement rather than the merely voluntary program it currently is.

Ryles has been very active in Kiwanis, which gives him a solid base of support among the Kiwanians.  And his position on the Police Chief’s Advisory Task Force gives him another discrete group of potential supporters.  Support by the Biederman’s might suggest a renewed attempt by state Democrats to politicize Park Ridge government in ways that the then-dominant Homeowners Party was alleged to be doing for state Republicans prior to the HOs’ disastrous performance in the 2003 aldermanic elections, when HO-endorsed aldermanic candidates were soundly defeated in five of the six contested ward races. 

Whether Ramirez, Ryles, and/or other candidates actually take the plunge in 2013 remains to be seen, but we think the smart money is that Schmidt definitely will have at least one challenger.

And speaking of money, campaign cash should be available to one or more Schmidt challengers.

The Citizens for Non-Partisan Local Elections, which was formed in January 2009 as a de facto successor to the now-defunct Homeowners Party, is still sitting on the $15,000 it “inherited” from the HOs.  That would serve as some decent seed money, although that committee’s chairman/treasurer, former 1st Ward HO alderman John English, has not made any public comment on that committee’s intentions since it was founded.

And if we understand the tax code correctly, private 501(c)(6) corporation Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”) may draw on its $80,000+ bank account to campaign for or against candidates for public office, since its running of the Taste of Park Ridge event makes such campaign funding ancillary to its primary bread and circuses exempt activity, thereby providing legal cover for any political or “lobbying” activity.  

All in all, the 2013 municipal elections look to provide a lively bit of political theater.  Hopefully the outcome will be closer in quality to “Death of a Salesman” than to “Springtime for Hitler.”

To read or post comments, click on title.

With the unanimous approval of the City Council, Mayor Dave Schmidt’s appointee to fill the 6th Ward aldermanic vacancy, Marc Mazzuca, was sworn in at last Monday night’s Council meeting.

RE-DISCLOSURE: The editor of this blog was a member of the four-person selection committee who interviewed the four applicants for the position and recommended Mazzuca.

Mazzuca took his seat at The Horseshoe some seven years and change after he lost the race to succeed retiring 6th Ward veteran Frank DePaul, to Mary Wynn Ryan by a mere 5 votes in April, 2005.  The Council he joins in June 2012, however, is far different from, and only half the size of, the one he would have joined but for the want of 6 votes.

Back then, Mazzuca chose not to seek a recount despite reportedly strong encouragement from supporters of newly-elected mayor Howard Frimark, who viewed Mazzuca as a Frimark ally while viewing Ryan as a guaranteed vote with an alleged “bloc” of old and new aldermen – Don Crampton (1st), Jeannie Markech (2nd), Kim Jones (3rd), Jim Radermacher (4th), Mark Anderson (5th), Rex Parker (6th), Jeff Cox (7th) and Frank Wsol (7th) – whose purported goal was to harass and hinder Frimark.

The G-9’s first official act was to re-claim the Council’s right to organize its own committees, which for years had been ceded by previous Homeowners Party aldermen to previous Homeowners Party mayors.  That was a long-overdue and sound public policy move. 

But it became a rallying point for the purple-beribboned Frimark supporters (including then-private citizen, now mayor, Dave Schmidt), who responded to his plaintive cries of “They’re stealing my powers” – think Emperor Palpatine crying “Help me, Anakin, I’m too weak” just before electrocuting Mace Windu in “Star Wars: Episode III–Revenge of the Sith” – with scathing condemnations of the G-9 that left many G-9ers hiding in plain sight for the remainder of their terms. 

Nevertheless, they scored a couple more notable successes, including passing a first-ever ethics ordinance for aldermen and posting a multi-million dollar budget surplus for FY 2006-07 – even if almost all of that surplus came from the City’s sale of its former “Reservoir Block” to the private redeveloper of Uptown, PRC Partners, for what may have been a couple-three million dollars less than it was worth because the City never even obtained an appraisal of the property. 

But the G-9 was already beginning to crumble from petty political infighting when an annoyed but emboldened Frimark put a referendum on the November 2006 ballot seeking to cut the Council from 14 aldermen to a more “manageable” 7, claiming that it would save $8,600/year in $100/mo. aldermanic stipends. 

Although the Council cut was opposed by the entire G-9 and a number of former aldermen, it effectively became a mid-term referendum on the G-9; and Frimark prevailed, 7,688 to 6,354.

A dispirited G-9 – save for Parker and Wsol – chose not even to seek re-election when all their terms expired in May 2007.  Parker lost to Frimark ally Tom Carey by 1,043 to 654, while Wsol defeated Frimark ally Bob Kristie, 973 to 566.

And Mazzuca’s opponent?  Ryan found a soft-landing in an uncontested election for the Park Ridge Park District Board, where she continues to serve to this day.

Mazzuca now fills the seat of Tom Bernick, who barely used it during the single year he held it after running unopposed in April 2011.  But that didn’t stop Bernick from ripping the Council on his way out the door.

“I didn’t like the politics; I didn’t like the hypocrites; I didn’t like the game-playing. I wasn’t for that,” Bernick was quoted in an article in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate last month, in which he also complained about “street fighting,” “mud-slinging” and the slow pace of decision-making.

That from a guy whose views on a number of City issues raised by the Herald-Advocate in a candidate’s questionnaire back in April 2011 could be, and were, summarized by the phrase: “Candidate did not submit an answer.”

We trust that won’t be Mr. Mazzuca’s problem.  And he’s got 10 months to show the people of the Sixth Ward what a real representative can do.

So welcome, Marc.  And good luck.

To read or post comments, click on title.

The motto on our banner is a Thomas Jefferson quote: “Information is the currency of democracy.” 

Like many people in the community, we rely for our “currency” in no small part on our two local newspapers.  And in some respects, they do an adequate-to-good job.  Unfortunately, local news reporting can also be uneven for a variety of reasons, some reasonable and others irresponsible.

Which may explain why, just the other day, we received an e-mail about the article in last week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate about Maine Twp. High School Dist. 207’s agreement with the Maine Teachers Association to a new 3-year contract (“District 207 teachers’ contract approved,” June 15).  The e-mailer asked what we knew about the “step” increases built into the teachers’ pay scale, whether D-207 has “ladder” increases like D-64 does, and how the new contract affected either the “step” or “ladder” structure.

Our answer: Not much at all, in large part because the boards and administrations of both our local school districts seem to subscribe to the code of “omerta” when it comes to transparency and accountability, especially about unpleasant things like test scores and compensation of employees. 

That H-A article did little to increase public knowledge of the new contract.  Sure, it reported that the teachers will receive a .66% raise in year one (beginning August 16th), 1% in year two, and a cost-of-living raise in year three with a range of .50% to 2.4%.  But the only mention of “steps” or “ladders” was to report that the new contract includes a new, 25-step pay scale, up from the 20-step scale of the past.

We understand those increases are non-merit based, but confirmation of that is another bit of important information that was missing from the article.

District 207’s “spokesman” – don’t you just love how every governmental body now has at least one public relations “professional” to spin and obfuscate – claims the new scale will cause a decrease in pay raises related to those “step” increases.  How exactly?  The article doesn’t say, presumably because the reporter and/or her editor didn’t think that kind of information is important enough to track down, even though “step” and “ladder” increases represent a significant component of teacher compensation that is effectively guaranteed year after year.

Or maybe they didn’t want to tick off the spokesman, who can make their jobs a lot tougher simply by reducing the tidbits of information he tosses out like Hartz Mountain Dog Yummies to those media types who happily wag their tails instead of snarl.

The article continues with the District’s self-serving statement that the new contract also has “some important cost-containment measures on insurance costs.”  What are those measures?  What actual savings will they produce?  Once again, questions like that seem to be above somebody’s pay grade.

Since even the H-A must feel guilty shilling for just one side, the article also gives the teachers union its own props, quoting the union’s president about his organization’s efforts “to maintain programs that attract and retain quality education professionals to District 207 while making concessions that allow the district to maintain financial strength and stability.” 

What “programs”?  What “concessions”?  Anybody?  Bueller?

We’re thinking that what really attracts and retains those unionized “education professionals” at D-207 is the top-shelf pay and benefits, especially at the relatively homogenous and affluent Maine South.  So a look at how D-207’s pay and benefits compare to other similar districts would have been an angle worth exploring.  But even though sites like championnews.net and Openthebooks.com  are making that information much more readily available than ever before, without the need for FOIAs, such comparisons don’t seem to be the H-A’s stock in trade when it might mean offending certain public officials or special interests. 

But where that article really slides to high school-newspaper quality is the lack of any explanation of why D-207 board member Ed Mueller voted against the contract.  After being exposed to the District’s and the union’s propaganda, doesn’t the public deserve to hear whatever reason(s) may have been behind Mueller’s lonely dissent? 

Or does he have to issue his own press release in order to give our local media its information in bite-sized, pre-chewed pieces?

Until that occurs, the rest of us remain stuck in the dark with more questions than answers.  And public officials who seem to like it that way.

UPDATE:  Today’s Park Ridge Journal article failed to add any information or understanding to this situation, apparently also just regurgitating whatever sound bites “spokesman” David Beery tossed out – and lamely stating that, as to the maximum pay grade for the district,” “[t]hose figures were unknown.”

Unknown?!?!  Gee, did the unidentified Journal reporter even think to ask?  Wouldn’t it be more useful information than the excerpt from what is described as a D-207  “media release” quoting Board president Sean Sullivan self-serving back-slapping: “The contract accomplishes the board’s main objective of putting students first” – the old reliable “It’s for the kids” justification/alibi that may still be the single most effective public relations device since at least WW II. 

But while the two local papers continue to operate at the level of mediocre high school newspapers, at least the TribLocal put a little meat on this story’s bones.  It describes the reason behind lone Board dissenter Ed Mueller’s “no” vote on the contract – “[H]e felt the agreement was too much, as he pointed to the sagging economy and data that shows District 207 teachers are some of the highest paid in the state” – a fact about which the H-A and Journal kept strangely silent, or else irresponsibly clueless.  The TribLocal story also reported on Mueller’s concern about “state lawmakers’ threats to shift the pension costs on school districts.” 

Gee, some actual journalism.  Way to go, TribLocal reporter Jennifer Delgado. 

Ms. Delgado also reported that Board president Sullivan, in what seems to us as being ostrich-like fashion, dismissed Mueller’s concerns by “contend[ing] the district can’t react to a hypothetical situation.”  That’s right, Sean, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain – even if the man is Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, the single most powerful Illinois lawmaker who recently proposed shifting a substantial portion of school pension obligations to the individual school districts.  Is that the management style you learned as CFO at Triton College?

Thanks to the TribLocal, at least we can offer Mr. Mueller, of whom we previously have been critical on occasion, some kudos for actually representing the students AND the taxpayers. 

To read or post comments, click on title.

Depending on your favorite brand of politicians and their political pundit accomplices, the current recession is either the best or the worst time for a governmental unit to undertake major infrastructure projects and the long-term bonded debt that goes with them.

One “school” of politico-economic thought proclaims the current historically-low interest rates as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to load up on all the bonded debt a governmental unit might need or want for the foreseeable future.  The other “school” laments the existing historically-high debt levels and long-term liabilities as a reason for austerity and caution.

But when infrastructure has been neglected for too long – as it has been in Park Ridge – choice and patience can themselves become an unaffordable luxury.

Monday night (June 11), the Park Ridge City Council commenced serious study and discussion of a new water and sewer fee structure that is intended, in part, to help finance a $15 million sewer improvement-flood relief project and a $3.5 million automated water meter reading system, the latter which promises to increase accuracy in water billing and reduce/eliminate hundreds of thousands of dollars of “losses” in water billings. 

These rate increases are also needed to keep up with the escalating costs of the water we buy from Chicago, which appears intent on remediating, at least in part, decades of gross mismanagement and outright corruption by its twisted dwarf former mayor, Richie Daley, through the regular jacking up of water rates to gouge communities like Park Ridge for the foreseeable future.

Although the new fee structure ordinance is scheduled for a first-reading this coming Monday, June 18, and a final-reading at the July 16 Council meeting, we don’t think this is a “done deal.” 

That’s because, while an “average” residential consumer might see his/her water bill increase by $10/month, major water users like Lutheran General Hospital, the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District, and local schools will take a major expense hit.  And major expense hits bring out the complaints, the special interests, and their advocates.

In a report published back in 2010, Lutheran General was reported as using 87.5 million gallons of water a year, twice the amount of second place user, the Park Ridge Recreation & Park District, and third place user High School District 2007 (Maine South and Maine East).  Don’t expect any of those organizations to quietly accept these increases.

Which is okay by us. 

Open debate on important issues, the more informed and vigorous the better, usually leads to better overall decisions than the silent, go-along-to-get-along approach that was the rule rather than the exception for City decision-making during most of the two post-Marty Butler decades.  Most of the problems the City faces today are the product of the kick-the-can-down-the-road approaches of previous Councils – populated by faux-Republican “Homeowners” and faux-“Independent” Democrats – to just about every difficult or unpleasant situation.

The last time the City’s water service was seriously discussed was in January 2010, which spurred us to write “Whose Water Are You Carrying, Ald. Wsol?”  But back then, the principal focus of the discourse was just the Chicago increase, not catching up with neglected infrastructure or modernizing/improving any aspect of the service.

While most of what we’ve heard of this water/sewer initiative sounds promising, we’re always concerned about giving government a lot of “extra” money – the effect of which is often tantamount to posting a flashing neon sign that says “Government With Money: Please Fleece Us.”  And, as we’ve seen repeatedly, there are plenty of wolves willing to do just that – including some dressed in sheep’s clothing and bleating plaintively.

Unlike a fine Bordeaux, neglected sewers and water mains don’t get better with age – unless you enjoy the dusky, vegetal “nose” that accompanies chronic flooding.  So we applaud this City Council for setting out to grapple with problems its predecessors consistently ignored. 

Let this debate begin.

To read or post comments, click on title.

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.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Here are a few morsels to tide our readers over until we can get a little deeper into some other stuff:

Frimark On The Move?  A couple weeks ago, former Park Ridge mayor Howard P. “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark told the Park Ridge Journal that he wouldn’t seek appointment to the Sixth Ward aldermanic seat recently vacated by Tom Bernick because the committee Mayor Dave Schmidt was forming to screen and recommend an appointee was packed with Schmidt supporters.

In the interest of full disclosure, the editor/publisher of this blog is one of four 6th Ward residents – along with Park Ridge Recreation and Park District Board president Rick Biagi, Chamber of Commerce director Gail Haller, and resident Alison Harrington – appointed by Schmidt to that committee.

The irony of Frimark’s comments is two-fold.

First, we hear that only a week or so after he made that comment, Frimark moved out of the 6th Ward (where he had been residing for less than a year) and reportedly relocated to the 2nd Ward.  With current Ald. Rich DiPietro rumored to be ending his 18-year Council tenure next year, no clear successor on the horizon, and the 2nd Ward’s history of uncontested elections, might Frimark be trying to carpetbag his way back onto the Council from that ward rather than compete with whomever Schmidt appoints in the 6th Ward?

Second, on the one occasion Frimark got to appoint an alderman – to succeed himself in the 4th Ward upon his election as mayor in 2005 – he appointed Jim Allegretti.  Neither Frimark nor Allegretti, however, disclosed that Allegretti had made a $300 contribution to Frimark’s campaign fund that had not yet been publicly reported at the time of his appointment and confirmation by the Council – which Allegretti followed up with an additional $200 contribution about a month after the appointment.

Some suspicious minds might view those two contributions as typical Illinois-style pay to play, although we prefer to just consider them an interesting coincidence.  But they may explain why Howard’s suspicious of everybody else.

One More Time For 322 Vine.  At tonight’s meeting, the City Council is supposed to again take up the saga of 322 Vine and its many alleged building code violations that the City can’t/won’t prosecute.  Hopefully, the 322 Vine neighbors and the general public will finally hear the whole story behind why City Staff dogged enforcement of the building code for almost 3 years, and why the City Attorney abruptly abandoned prosecution efforts once he interviewed the City’s key witnesses: Building Administrator Steve Cutaia and outside consulting engineer Bernie Bono.

As we have previously opined, it looks like this situation has been botched irretrievably and cannot be salvaged in a way that might reasonably square things with the neighbors.  But a full airing of the situation would still provide information that can be used to fill in or otherwise correct what appear to be gaping holes in the building code enforcement system, as well as impose some needed accountability on those code enforcers who performed the irretrievable botching and then strung along the neighbors with false hopes of some action being taken.

Airing out this malodorous situation might not come a moment too soon, as we hear some major building code issues have arisen with another single-family home that may make 322 Vine’s pale in comparison.  That might pop up tomorrow night, too.

Which means there may be a lot of tap-dancing and stonewalling tomorrow night, and perhaps even a closed session to shield the building code enforcement system and/or its enforcers from embarrassing public scrutiny of all its/their shortcomings.  Will the Mayor and the Council let them get away with going into the Star Chamber?

It’s Fun To Go To The O-N-C-C.  This past Friday (06.01.12) Park Ridge Mayor Dave Schmidt attended the June meeting of the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (the “ONCC”) in Rosemont, in part to ask for the ONCC’s support of Park Ridge’s request to the FAA for a supplemental environmental impact study (“EIS”) that the FAA recently denied.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, the ONCC is the red-headed stepchild of former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley and some compliant O’Hare-area governmental units which was born back in 1996.  As best as we can tell, its primary function has been to apply a sheen of legitimacy to whatever Chicago’s wants to do out at O’Hare.  That usually involves Chicago throwing money (mostly federal dollars?) for sound insulation at those affected communities to buy them off.  And it’s worked like a charm so far.

According to the Herald-Advocate’s Jennifer Johnson, who attended the meeting, Schmidt’s request “was met with reluctance” from Arlene Mulder, ONCC’s chairman.  In case you haven’t been following Mulder’s career, she has been an elected official in Arlington Heights since 1979, and moonlights as ONCC chairman when she’s not serving as Arlington Heights mayor, METRA board member, vice president of the Illinois Municipal League, or executive board member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Can you say “professional politician”?

According to the H-A story, Schmidt described Mulder’s back-of-the-hand response to his request as “bureaucratic mumbo jumbo” and branded them the words not of an ONCC chairman but, instead, of an Arlington Hts. mayor who is hoping that O’Hare expansion will totally eliminate flights over her own town, despite his attempts to reassure her that he was just looking to reduce noise over Park Ridge and was “not asking for them to point the planes at your house.”

Think Mulder gives a rat’s derriere about noise over Park Ridge? 

According to the ONCC’s own website, for January 2012 (the latest month posted on that site), only 1 Arlington Hts. complainant filed only 1 complaint about O’Hare noise.  Contrast that with the 145 complaints by 43 Park Ridge complainants during that same time period.  Whatever deal Mulder cut with Daley years ago obviously has worked out pretty well for her town, and she’s not going to support anything which might change that in any way.

Unfortunately, the ONCC has become the only game in town since the money-wasting Suburban O’Hare Commission became defunct, so Park Ridge’s continued ONCC membership is probably justified, however marginally.  But only someone who still believes in the tooth fairy would expect any real support by the ONCC of Park Ridge’s battle against O’Hare noise – at least so long as Mulder is running the show as her Chicago masters dictate.

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With the announcement that the Park Ridge Youth Campus is closing down, the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District has expressed interest in acquiring all or part of the almost 12 acre parcel for as-yet unspecified recreational purposes.

That brings back memories of November 1996, when the Park District attempted to acquire another large parcel of non-profit land: the 14-acre Edison Park Home property along Canfield south of Talcott.  The District needed approximately $8 million to buy the land from Cambridge Homes, which already had acquired it from Lutheran Social Services but admirably put its development plans on hold until the bond-debt authorization referendum could be held.

Such a referendum was needed because the Park District had foolishly used up all its non-referendum borrowing ability a few years earlier to build the Community Center on land it acquired from the YMCA after that organization decided to close down its Park Ridge facility.    

Unfortunately for the Park District and its referendum, the City wanted the extra tax revenue that would come from the 50+ single-family homes that were contemplated for what is now Brickton Place – which would come with virtually no additional costs to the City, as Cambridge would be installing all the needed infrastructure; and no additional police or fire personnel were expected to be necessary.

Supporters of School District 64’s April 1997 “Yes/Yes” referendum to build a new Emerson Middle School didn’t want the passage of an $8 million referendum by the Park District in November 1996 to jeopardize the success of D-64’s $20 million+ plans, even though adding all the homes planned for that site was projected to generate more than $100,000 a year in operating deficits for D-64, based on the number of students those homes would add and the cost of educating them compared to the tax revenue they would generate for D-64.

So the Park District was left to sell that referendum on its own, using a “Keep the ‘Park’ In Park Ridge” slogan.  And it failed, costing the District the 2 baseball fields, 2 soccer fields, 1 football field, and the tennis, volleyball and basketball courts that were included in the plans devised by the District’s consultant.

Despite the current recession, we have to believe that the price for the Youth Campus will be higher than the $8 million Edison Park Home went for 16 years ago, especially given the Youth Campus’ “Country Club” location.

Which leaves us unsurprised to hear that the Park District may be looking into partnering with a private developer – Mark Elliott? – to split up the Youth Campus land, with roughly half of it being privately developed into single-family homes while the remainder goes for parks and recreation.  That could be a win-win situation: converting half of a currently tax-exempt property into taxable property, while at the same time reducing the community’s shortage of park and recreation land.

But although the District can always use more acreage – according to generally accepted standards, Park Ridge arguably is scores of acres short of the parks and recreation space recommended for a community its size – any major capital expenditure like this deserves to go to referendum in order to ascertain and enlist the support of the taxpayers, even if the District has sufficient non-referendum bonding power to do the deal without voter approval. 

This is especially important in light of the recent discovery that Centennial Pools are in need of imminent replacement after 60 years of faithful service.  With Oakton Pool gone, the District is no longer over-saturated (pun intended) with outdoor water for a community our size in a northerly climate such as ours. 

It’s with that last point in mind, however, that we hope the Park District seriously considers a design and/or features for any new Centennial pool complex that would permit the new facility to operate for at least double the customary 3-month outdoor pool season. Perhaps some form of indoor/outdoor facility (such as is available from companies like the Berndorf Baderbau Group) might be the answer, although it will require a little outside-the-box thinking and greater initial expense.

But it beats committing several million dollars of capital, or issuing an equivalent amount of bonded debt and then servicing it for 5-15 years thereafter, for a facility usable a mere 3 months per year.

That doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, even for government.

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As regular readers of this blog know, we tend to devote a majority of our posts to the operation of City government.  In large part that’s because City government directly affects all Park Ridge residents in a variety of ways, while the other governmental bodies impact most residents more indirectly by their effect on our pocketbooks through their ever-increasing tax assessments.

But our postings also reflect the fact that the City Council appears to be the most transparent of all of our local governmental bodies – with its meetings broadcast live on WOW, the meeting videos posted on the City’s website, and the meetings regularly covered by on-site reporters from both local newspapers and the TribLocal.  City Council meetings also regularly feature the most vigorous public policy debates.

Nevertheless, we try not to ignore the other local governmental bodies.  And a report in last week’s edition of the Park Ridge Journal (“Dist. 64 Fine Tuning After School Costs,” 05.23.12) about the fees for D-64’s “after-school program” at Jefferson School caught our attention, especially the part about how D-64 is attempting to fine-tune that program to reflect parents’ complaints…about the cost of the program! 

Many/most taxpayers might expect parents who already are getting $10,000+ per year, per kid, of what amounts to “free” education not to beef about paying the fully-loaded costs of the after-school program (a/k/a babysitting) that enables them to work and afford the property taxes to obtain that almost-free education for their kids in the first place.  Unfortunately, such an expectation would be wrong, at least as to those shameless-but-vocal parents who seem able to make a relatively spineless administration and school board quake in their boots.

So, as reported by the Journal, a 6-1 vote of the D-64 Board ensured that those parents will continue to get dependable, well-supervised after-school babysitting for the low, low price of $5/hour – less than most of them pay the neighbor kid for less-dependable services when they go out to dinner and/or a movie on Saturday night.  And because of those low, low rates, the District projects a $5,866.93 loss for FY 2011-12, and a $17,540 loss for FY 2012-13.

That should be unacceptable to the taxpayers who already are subsidizing the vast majority of the cost of a D-64 education. 

If one believes in the value of public education – as we do – one also has to accept the fact that there are limits on what that “public education” covers, and at what cost.  The first phase of our research on the origins of public education in this country has led us to conclude that taxpayer-funded “public” education was intended to include nothing more than the basic classroom education: the old “readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic.”

Yet currently, in addition to the after-school babysitting program, D-64 offers a variety of “elective” extracurricular activities, such as athletics and music, for which it does not even attempt to recover the fully-loaded costs.  Instead, those activities are designed only to cover supply expenses, not the expenses for the personnel who teach/coach/administer them.

A report dated May 21, 2012, from the D-64 Community Finance Committee “Community Coordinators” Ares Dalianis and Genie Taddeo (both former D-64 Board members) shows that the CFC appears to be making some progress in getting a handle on the true costs of providing these activities.  More importantly, as noted on Page 4 of Attachment 1 to that report, the CFC is proposing “investigating the true costs of these electives, plus any other clubs or activities, and increasing elective fees to accurately cover all costs associated with the elective programs.”

All we can say is: “Bravo!”  And: “It’s about time!”

We are big fans of user fees, primarily because they are one of the most effective ways – if not the most effective way – of restricting discretionary, unnecessary and/or excessive use of public services whose costs are both significant and reasonably allocable.  Elementary school elective and extracurricular activities fit that bill to a “t,” which is why it is refreshing to see somebody associated with the D-64 administration actually talking about recovering those costs.    

Now we just need to see whether the CFC, and the D-64 Administration and Board, can walk that talk.

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In the political cesspool known as Chicago, kinkiness in enforcement of the building code, the zoning code, and virtually every other code is a longstanding tradition.

Almost every builder, remodeler and handyman claims to have “a guy” who can do miraculous things to expedite projects and eliminate code problems.  And the best of those “guys” usually work at “the Hall” – as in City Hall, until recently the ancestral home and domain of the Daleys

But naïve as we try not to be, we never thought those kinds of Chicago-style goings on happened in our sleepy little town.

At Monday night’s City Council meeting, however, 5th Ward resident Jeff Getz recounted an 11-minute tale of woe – which can be seen and heard from 1:03:45 to 1:14:55 of the Council meeting video on the City’s website – concerning his neighbor’s property at 322 Vine that has mysteriously defied or evaded numerous attempts by the City over the past 3 years to address as many as 15 building code violations.

According to Getz and other neighbors, some of those violations should have prevented occupancy, including 8 listed on an undated City “Building Inspection Report Form” reportedly issued on June 18, 2009 by City Building Administrator Steven L. Cutaia that includes the unequivocal admonition: “There shall be no occupancy until these issues are resolved.”

But June-July 2009 e-mail traffic between and among Cutaia, 322 owner/builder/resident Philip Spagnolo, P.E., John Zimmermann, P.E. of Terra Consulting Group, then-City Mgr. Jim Hock and Bernie Bono, P.E., of Bono Consulting, reveals something else.  They show that the very same day Cutaia issued his written “no occupancy” decree, he also assured Spagnolo “that he will not enforce the issue” or keep Spagnolo and his family from moving in.  And the day after that, Hock assured Spagnolo that the City (a/k/a, the taxpayers) “will take care of any billing from Mr. Bono” that the City apparently had initially assessed against Spagnolo.   

That’s starting to sound Chicago-style kinky to us.

The 322 Vine neighbors contend that not only did Spagnolo move into that residence on the 4th of July 2009 weekend, before all the violations were corrected and an occupancy permit lawfully issued, but he has been thumbing his nose at the City and his neighbors ever since, even as flooding regularly occurs from “overland” water running off the 322 parcel that was elevated between 1 and 2 feet prior to construction of what some might call a “McMansion,” contrary to building code restrictions.

All of which may make Bono the single most intriguing figure in this saga, if only because he reputedly worked for Spagnolo before being hired by the City to advise it on the enforcement (or non-enforcement) of the 322 Vine building code violations against Spagnolo.  That sounds like some sort of conflict of interest to us, but apparently it didn’t stop whoever at City Hall recommended and approved his hiring.  Nor did it stop Bono from accepting the engagement.

Paging Steve Cutaia?

In a July 6, 2009 e-mail to Getz and fellow 322 Vine neighbor Cliff Kowalski, Cutaia cites “the sensitivity of this matter” as the reason “the City had hired a state licensed civil engineer to perform the final inspection” needed for the issuance of an occupancy permit.  We understand that engineer was Bono, even though Cutaia was apparently keeping Bono’s identity close to his vest back then.

Almost 3 years later, however, and notwithstanding intervening citations issued to 322 Vine by the City, City Attorney Everette “Buzz” Hill sent a May 11, 2012 letter to Mr. & Mrs. Getz, advising them that, despite the fact that Spagnolo “had not made the changes that the [City’s 01.13.12 Notice of Violation] letter demanded,” he had recommended to the City that it not proceed with the prosecution of that violation.

Why?  Hill had interviewed the City’s witnesses “whose testimony would be required” to prove the violation, but had determined from those interviews “that the City could not carry its burden of proof with respect to the proposed citations.”

Those witnesses?  Bono and Cutaia.

As Getz disgustedly asked the City Council Monday night: “Is it my problem that the City cannot trust its own employees and consultants to testify” in support of the City’s own code enforcement? 

No, it shouldn’t be.  And Cutaia shouldn’t be issuing written orders while giving wink-and-nod assurances that they won’t be enforced.  And these types of processes shouldn’t take 3 years to resolve, especially when the “resolution” ends up being the lawyer-written equivalent of “never mind.”

Monday night Ald. Dan Knight (5th), whose ward is the scene of this charade/farce, termed it “a 3-year travesty” while sternly admonishing City Staff to make certain it “can’t happen again.”  As can be seen in e-mail traffic as recently as last month, however, Knight still was being told by Cutaia that 322 Vine lacked the “acceptable swales” that Bono claimed “existed in 2008, when he performed and approved the final drainage design”; and that City code enforcement was still proceeding.   

The Mayor and the City Council should take this fiasco seriously and treat it as what it appears to be: hard evidence that something is very wrong in the City’s building department and won’t be going away on its own accord.  That something makes the City’s building code a joke, at least to some people – which is why a legitimate investigation needs to be conducted.

Of course there likely will be attempts at wholesale dumping of all responsibility on the recently-departed Hock and the less-recently departed Carrie Davis, who ostensibly supervised Cutaia in the early stages of this debacle.  That’s called the “empty chair” defense in legal circles, and it will be especially inviting here because Davis wae sacked by Hock, albeit belatedly and in one of his many incidents of mis-management that nevertheless earned him a new contract in late 2010 with a $120,000+ severance package.  Feel free to thank Alds. Joe Sweeney and Rich DiPietro for that waste of tax dollars.

But from the looks of just the information we’ve been able to review in recent days, Getz may not have been too far off the mark when he voiced his suspicions to the Council Monday night of “back-room deals” involving City employees and consultants.  Or, in Chicago parlance, the possibility that somebody may have “a guy” at “the Hall.”

Only this “Hall” is 505 Butler Place.

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Tonight the Park Ridge City Council will have another opportunity to strike a blow for sane, fiscally-responsible government for the second straight week, when the Zoning Code map amendment for the Whole Foods project comes up for a second reading.

We’ve got two words of advice for our aldermen: Defer it. 

And defer it with the express and unqualified direction to the developer (Park Ridge 2004 LLC) and/or Whole Foods that the map amendment will not be taken up again until they legally commit to doing this deal in a way that is acceptable to the Council – and that, unless the developer drops its demand for any bribe money whatsoever, what is “acceptable to the Council” will not be determined until the Council drafts and thoroughly debates a complete overhaul of the ridiculous City Council Policy No. 31. 

This particular developer bought this property several years ago as a speculative investment; i.e., accepting certain risks in return for the prospects of a substantial reward from developing the property.  The original plan was for a 168-unit condo complex to be built by then-mayor Howard Frimark’s campaign contributors Bruce Adreani and his Norwood Builders, which required a zoning map amendment to change the site to R-5 multi-family residential from…wait for it…B-1 commercial, the classification the same developer now wants restored. 

The City accommodated the developer back then with that change, and even agreed to let it build 8 units more than the Code permitted for the size of the site.  As we noted in our 10.19.07 post “An EOP Riddle,” those 8 extra units would have netted the developer and/or Norwood an estimated $600,000 of extra profit, but at least it wouldn’t have come directly out of the taxpayers’ pockets. 

The market for condos cratered, however, and the developer now wants to abandon that R-5 plan in favor of this B-1 opportunity.

Frankly, we vastly prefer B-1 over R-5 because we believe Park Ridge already has become over-dense, from the standpoint of housing units, for its over-taxed infrastructure.  And we think a Whole Foods would be an excellent addition to the City’s retail base, but not at any price.

From a public policy standpoint, we believe the only “acceptable” way to do this deal is with NO subsidy/incentive/bribe to the developer or to Whole Foods.  If our community needs to bribe businesses to get them to locate and invest here, we’ve got big problems that need to be addressed directly instead of papered over with cash handouts to those businesses. 

The more important reasons for our objection to such bribery, however, is our belief in fundamental fairness and a level playing field for all retailers, as well as our opposition to this kind of corporate welfare for the well-off (Whole Foods) and/or the risk taker (Park Ridge 2004 LLC).  As we understand it, the subsidy they are demanding from Park Ridge taxpayers will enable the developer to offer the rent deal Whole Foods wants while at the same time enabling the developer to increase the profit or reduce the loss on its speculative investment – which is just another variation on the “privatizing profits while socializing losses” theme.

That’s just plain wrong and should not be tolerated, even if it means Park Ridge’s “clean” eaters will need to continue burning fossil fuel traveling to a neighboring town to buy organic.

Which makes us wonder where Park Ridge’s “99%”-ers have been hiding during this debate. 

Why aren’t those residents who profess to abhor how the federal government has bailed out Wall Street and who have replaced Dick Cheney’s photo on their dart boards with Jamie Dimon’s showing up to “Occupy 505 Butler Place” in support of the Council’s not giving in to this local bit of crap-italism by a national retail giant?  Whole Foods Market Inc., No. 273 on the Fortune 500 list, is doing so well that near the end of last year it hiked its dividend 40% and announced a $200 million share-repurchase program.   Why should Park Ridge taxpayers subsidize that kind of performance?

We realize it’s much easier to sit around railing idly against NATO, Wall Street and the “one percent” – or to park oneself in front of MSNBC or FOX and shouting “Right on!” or “#$@% you!” at Lawrence O’Donnell or Sean Hannity – than it is to regularly show up at Park Ridge City Council meetings and actually try to do something to improve local government and the community, irrespective of how one might define “improve.”

But if you don’t accept “trickle-down,” then shouldn’t you start working from the “grass-roots” up.

UPDATE:  Last night the developer and Whole Foods blinked…and agreed to do the Whole Foods project without any tax-sharing subsidy/bribe from the taxpayers.  For those keeping score, that means the City will get an extra $2 million or more that otherwise would have gone to the developer and/or Whole Foods over the 20-year term of the proposed revenue-sharing agreement.

Well done, gentlemen!  For the second week in a row this Council showed that, unlike at least two decades of its predecessors, it actually has a spine and is willing to stand up to shameless demands of private special interests looking to feed from the public trough. 

Which proves, once again, that “no” is the most powerful tool in the negotiating toolbox – and a tool that boneheaded bureaucrats and clueless politicians usually keep in the box because they lack both the brains and the…guts to use them on behalf of the taxpayers.  And in addition to winning that battle of wills, the Council also voted 5-1 (Smith dissenting) to approve the zoning map amendment from R-5 to B-1, but with the proviso that it will revert back to R-5 if the developer doesnt’ t get a building permit in 12 months and an occupancy permit in 36 months.

In addition to a big shout-out to the Council for actually walking the walk, we also want to offer a shout-out of another type to those gutless wonders and self-serving whiners who bashed the Council for risking their supply of organic lemonade.  And chief among those naysayers are certain members of the City’s Economic Development Task Force who, at their meeting last week, barbecued Ald. Sal Raspanti (4th) for actually DOING HIS JOB and standing up for the taxpayers against corporate greed.  Those EDTFers let it be known that the Council’s “no” vote on the proposed tax-sharing arrangement irresponsibly jeopardized the chances of bringing Whole Foods to Park Ridge.

How does it feel to be proved almost immediately and totally wrong, folks?  

We suggest that every one of those EDTF chowderheads who ripped on the Council for taking its hard-line position against throwing away tax dollars RESIGN from the EDTF, because they have demonstrated both their incompetence and their lack of good judgment – which, if the Council had listened to it, would have cost us taxpayers over $2 million.  The City doesn’t need that kind of “citizen input,” even if it’s free.   

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