Park Ridge Mayor Dave Schmidt’s message in the most recent edition of The Spokesman (“Budget problems persist,” August 2010) is a needed reminder that the City continues to face substantial financial problems that must be addressed on an immediate and ongoing basis instead of at year-end, when the money already has been spent and we’re staring at yet another multi-million dollar deficit.

Schmidt correctly points out that the chronically-mismanaged State of Illinois owes Park Ridge over $1 million in payments that the City Manager and the City Council counted on to help balance the 2010-11 budget. Whether and when that money ever hits the City treasury remains to be seen, which appears to be why Schmidt reiterated in The Spokesman his previously-disclosed plan to veto the Council’s expected donation of approximately $200,000 of City funds to a variety of private community groups who can’t or won’t do what it takes to raise the private contributions necessary to support themselves without handouts of tax dollars.

While Schmidt cites the current precarious financial circumstances as the principal reason for his opposition to throwing money at these community groups, we think donating public funds to private organizations is bad public policy at all times, especially without a quid pro quo arrangement by which those private groups contract with the City as vendors to actually sell their specialized services to the City.

We also note that City Council Policy Statement No. 6 permits City funding of these community groups solely in “limited circumstances” and prescribes certain criteria for the appropriation of public funds to benefit private entities:

3. When considering use of limited public funds for private non-governmental organizations the City
shall consider:

   A. The community need for offered services(s)
   B. The community benefit for such service(s)
   C. Private financial support for the service(s)
   D. Community volunteer support for the service(s)

Throughout the entire course of debate on community group funding, these four criteria were virtually ignored by the City Council. Instead, we got general ipse dixit pronouncements from the aldermen who favor these kinds of donations about what a great deal these groups provide for the City. And most of the organizations who appeared before the Council seeking funds provided no specifics about how many Park Ridge residents they serve, what the cost of those services for Park Ridge residents really is, and exactly what Park Ridge taxpayers are getting for their money.

To the contrary, from the limited hard data these organizations provide it appears that (for example) the Center of Concern provides the great majority of its services to non-Park Ridge residents, and that 15-20% of the Senior Center membership consists of non-Park Ridge residents. But during the City Council budget hearings, the Council asked no such questions and the community groups provided no such information beyond their standard warm-and-fuzzy sales pitches.

We hope the City Council finally wakes up to economic reality and demands an up-to-date accounting from City Mgr. Hock that shows exactly where the City’s finances are in relation to the 2010-11 budget before it even considers giving public funds to private groups. We also hope the Council demands a detailed accounting from each group about exactly what it does, for exactly whom it is done, the specific per-person cost of doing it, and why it can’t/won’t be done with private donations rather than by these groups sticking their snouts into the public funding trough.

The Mayor once again has sounded the financial alarm. Will the aldermen once again sleep through it?

One of the comments to our August 3 post about Taste of Park Ridge (“TOPR”) and the private corporation that runs it on an exclusive no-bid, no-contract, no-accountability basis, Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”), inquired about the City officials who gave away TOPR to Taste Inc. back in 2005.

That’s a good point, because while we have called Taste Inc. on the carpet for its sweetheart deal and its secrecy, in situations like this it takes at least two to tango: the opportunistic private individuals/organization that want something from government, and the typically (for Illinois, at least) complicit/clueless public officials who blithely give it away.  Oh yes…and let’s not forget the sheep-like voters, who are happily distracted from the harsh realities of incompetent and/or corrupt governance by the bread and circuses our politicians cynically provide.

As we’ve previously pointed out, the Taste Inc.-sters cashed in on the opportunity given them in June 2005 by then-mayor Howard Frimark and then-Alds. Don Crampton, Kirk Machon, Rich DiPietro, Jeannie Markech, Andrea Bateman, Kim Jones, Jim Radermacher, Jim Allegretti, Mark Anderson, Joe Baldi, Rex Parker, Mary Wynn Ryan, Jeff Cox and Frank Wsol.  So instead of running TOPR through the planned City committee that was going to be subject to the Illinois Open Meetings Act and would be returning all profits from the event to the City, the Taste Inc.-sters promptly set up their private corporation answerable to nobody and began running TOPR for what appears to be solely Taste Inc.’s benefit.

During its first four years in operation, Taste Inc. produced no reports for the City and didn’t even file IRS Form 990 tax returns – facts ignored first by Frimark and those fourteen aldermen who gave TOPR away, then by Frimark and his stripped-down Council of Alds. Dave Schmidt, Rich DiPietro, Don Bach, Jim Allegretti, Robert Ryan, Tom Carey and Frank Wsol.  Rather than call Taste Inc. to account for its activities, all those officials were too busy being “politicians” – working the beer tents or otherwise making themselves visible to the voters by helping run the TOPR circus.

But last summer, Mayor Schmidt finally called Taste Inc. to account for its activities.  And for the first time ever, Taste Inc.’s Dave Iglow and Albert Galus showed up at a Council meeting with a “report” [pdf] which claimed $266,652 of “gross receipts” but said absolutely nothing about the profits produced by those revenues. 

We had to wait until March of this year to see Taste Inc.’s first-ever IRS From 990 [pdf], which inexplicably reported only $163,391 of total revenues (what happened to that $266,652?), but also reported a whopping $65,221 of “excess” – what most of us in the real world call “profit.”

In addition to the gross revenues discrepancy, we also noticed that Taste Inc.’s Form 990 doesn’t report the $20,000+ in free City services (police, fire and public works) that Taste Inc. received, even though there is a specific line item (Page 3, Part III, Line 5) asking for “[t]he value of services or facilities furnished by a governmental unit to the organization without charge.”

We wonder whether Taste Inc. president Dave Iglow, who signed that Form 990, or Taste Inc. accountant James Vourvoulias, who prepared it, have an explanation for those discrepancies; and, if so, whether they will share that explanation with the public that effectively puts that $65,000 in Taste Inc’s bank account.  And we have to wonder whether our Mayor, our City Council, or our highly-paid City Manager will even bother to ask for such an explanation.

We also have to wonder what particular public policy causes the Mayor and the City Council to keep giving away $20,000+ a year in free services to a private organization that is pocketing $65,000+ in profits originally intended for the City’s coffers, even as that same City Council cuts police officers because it can’t afford the $100,000-per-officer annual cost. 

But, then again, what can we expect from public officials who, if not actually “in bed” with the Taste Inc.-sters, do their best to keep Taste Inc.’s pillows fluffed?

As readers of this blog know, we have taken it upon ourselves to try to get some transparency and accountability out of the folks who run Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”), the private corporation that was given an exclusive no-bid, no-contract monopoly on the City’s premier civic event, Taste of Park Ridge (“TOPR”), in June 2005. 

The reason we have undertaken that thankless task is because nobody else at City Hall has stepped forward to do it ever since then-mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and his Purple Ribbon-wimped City Council gave away TOPR to a group of “volunteers” who were supposed to form a City committee and operate TOPR under the City’s control for the City’s financial benefit.

Within weeks of the Council’s decision, however, those volunteers formed the Taste Inc. corporation and began running TOPR as a private business while reaping the benefits of “free” City services (police, fire and public works) worth as much as $20,000 a year, all while maintaining a level of financial stonewalling that would make the notoriously secret Mars candy family proud: until last year, Taste Inc. never produced any written report to the City, nor did it file the IRS Form 990s that are required of not-for-profits with gross revenues over $25,000

Heck, we’ll bet even the Mars family filed their tax returns! 

The only thing the public knew about Taste Inc.’s finances was that it gave $1,000 to the campaign fund of former Taste Inc.-ster Bob “the Dude” Dudycz, in September 2007, even though a 501(c)(3) organization (which Taste Inc. was at the time) is prohibited from making such political contributions.  And in case you’re wondering, that contribution to The Dude’s campaign wasn’t voluntarily disclosed by Taste Inc. 

Whether that explains why Taste Inc. shut down its 501(c)(3) operation last year and reincorporated a couple weeks later as a 501(c)(6) that can lawfully make political contributions, is anybody’s guess because Taste Inc.’s president Dave Iglow (Pines Men’s Wear), vice-president Albert Galus (Academic Tutoring Centers), treasurer Jim Bruno (Chase Bank), and directors Dean Patras (Broadway Livery Service), Sandy Svizzero (Parkway Bank), Barb Tyksinski (All On The Road Catering) and John Warnimont (Activision Electric) aren’t saying.

But when Taste Inc. finally filed its first-ever Form 990 in March of this year (for 2009), it showed a whopping “profit” of $65,221 on $163,391 of gross revenues for that 3-day event.  Instead of that money going into the City’s coffers like was originally intended back in 2005, however, the money may have ended up in Taste Inc.’s bank account for Taste Inc. to use as it pleases.  

Not surprisingly, the Taste Inc. triumvirate (Iglow, Galus and Bruno) has been stone-cold silent about last year’s profit and whatever additional profit it made from this year’s event.  Silence, especially about Taste Inc.’s and TOPR’s finances, has been their stock in trade, except when they’re verbally patting themselves on the backs or praising all the volunteers who provide the free labor that lets Taste Inc. rake in that kind of cash without having to account for it.

So when Galus crowed to the Park Ridge Journal (“Well That Was Fun!” July 14) about sales at this year’s event being “very good” and stated that he would have a “final number” later that week, we wondered whether Taste Inc. had turned over a new leaf and was going to make itself more transparent and accountable to the taxpayers who pour all that money into Taste Inc.’s coffers. 

Even we can be hopelessly naive sometimes!

Almost three weeks later there still is no “final number” from Taste Inc.  And if Taste Inc. repeats last year’s initial Form 990 filing procedure, we won’t know how much Taste Inc. pocketed from this year’s event, or the total cash it is sitting on, until March 2011 – less than a month before what might be hotly-contested April aldermanic elections.

How many Park Ridge aldermanic seats can a 501(c)(6) corporation buy for $65,000?

What does Ald. Robert Ryan know that the rest of us don’t?

We can’t help but wonder upon reading this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Debate to resume on parking lot purchase,” July 28), which describes Ryan’s continuing effort to get the City Council’s endorsement of his plan to spend $700,000+ of scarce City funds to buy the Scharringhausen parking lot that the City has been renting for around $20,000 a year. 

We also wonder if Ryan’s concept of sound municipal finance really is: “Hey, why spend $20,000 a year renting a lot when we can spend $700,000+ to own it” – especially when (according to an analysis by City staff) it generates only $22,800 in annual commuter parking fees? 

Frankly, we thought this was just a typical “insider” deal, where an established Park Ridge community member (Scharringhausen) cashes out long-term R.E. investment (Fairview lot) through connected R.E. broker (Owen Hayes II), who enlists the aid of a friendly elected official (Ald. Ryan, whose campaign treasurer was Hayes).

But it sounds like Ryan may have bigger plans than just a one-off property deal.  As the H-A reports, Ryan is talking about the Scharringhausen lot supporting “new development” within the surrounding Uptown area.  And he wants the City to spend some money on a “feasibility study” to determine whether a City-owned parking deck could fit on that site.

Unfortunately, that’s vintage Robert Ryan: Spend taxpayer money on a consultant to tell you how to spend even more taxpayer money and/or pile up public debt.  That’s why he may be the biggest, most consistent spendthrift on this Council.  And that’s saying a lot, give the drunken-sailor mentality of most of them.

For anbody who needs some help finding “dots” to connect, you can start with Ryan’s strong advocacy for sinking public funds into Uptown Redevelopment when he served on the Uptown Advisory Task Force (“UATF”) a decade ago.  Before that, as a member of the District 64 School Board, he led the charge to borrow and spend around $15 million to knock down what was then the District’s newest school building (Emerson Jr. High) and build Emerson Middle School.

That expenditure and related debt service appears to have sent District 64 into a financial death spiral that put it on the brink of the State Board of Education’s taking over its finances, until the District snuck through $5 million of “working cash” non-referendum (“back-door”) bonds as a band-aid measure in 2005, and followed that up with its big tax increase referendum in 2007.

We’ve seen what Ryan can do with the taxpayers’ money, so we think it’s time to see what Ryan can do with his own money.

If Ryan really wants to ensure that parking remains on the Scharringhausen property, he should buy the property himself and get into the parking business.  Or he could form a partnership with buddy Owen Hayes to do it.  That way, the taxpayers don’t have to foot the bill; and the property stays on the tax rolls.

Maybe they could get some of those behind-the-scenes land speculators we keep hearing about to invest in the deal.  They could all form an LLC to buy the lot and run it – which, fittingly enough, would support all that “new development” some of those same behind-the-scenes folks are reputedly looking to promote in and around Target Area 4.

If those land-speculation rumors are true, the speculators must be chomping at the bit by now to get some action on their TA-4 “investments” that were supposed to be short-term flip-jobs but have been languishing in this bad economy.

We don’t care whether Ryan is trying to help out some friends on a parking lot deal, or whether he’s trying to jump-start TA-4 – so long as it’s done with private money and/or debt instead of public funds.  That’s why we encourage Ryan and Hayes to pony up their own cash to do the deal.

“R & H Parking,” anyone?

Roughly one-third of our growing property tax bills goes to Park Ridge-Niles School District 64.  That’s a reason to pay attention to what’s going on with D-64, even if you don’t have kids enrolled in its schools.

In the past we have been critical of D-64’s unimpressive performance on the ISATs, noting that – as reported in the Chicago newspapers – D-64 schools are regularly outperformed by less affluent districts and/or those that spend less per student, on teachers, and on administrators.

But according to an article in last week’s Park Ridge Hearld-Advocate (“Kids not reaching ‘full-growth’ targets on standardized tests,” July 20), during the just-completed school year only 56.7% of D-64 students reached their “MAP” full-growth targets in reading; and only 57.2% reached their “MAP” full-growth targets in math. That’s down from 60.5% and 61.4%, respectively, for last year’s scores.

The MAP evaluation, developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association (“NWEA”), appears to be the latest educational BFF of D-64 teachers and administrators, presumably because – unlike other tests – the MAPs are designed to measure a student’s educational growth against his/her past performance rather than against other standards.  Those test results also are used to set curriculum priorities.

NWEA is a not-for-profit corporation based in Oregon that claims to be “dedicated to helping kids live their dreams” (really, that’s on its website!).  Such dedication can be pretty lucrative, however, as NWEA booked over $54 million in revenues in 2008 (based on its latest IRS From 990 posted on GuideStar) – and its President/CEO made almost $400,000 that year.  Not too shabby for an organization not interested in “profit.”

But back to D-64’s MAP quest. 

Diane Betts, assistant supt. for student learning, is quoted as saying: “We’re a little disappointed that we slipped down.” 

And well you should be, Ms. Betts.  And so should be the people who pay the bill for it, because high-quality education is extremely important for the students, their parents, and the community as a whole (e.g., for the positive effect good schools have on property values).  

Betts went on to state that there is “some variance between buildings and teachers.”  Surprisingly (or maybe not), neither the H-A article nor anything we could find on the D-64 website identified those variances, buildings or teachers. 

When it comes to how our schools and teachers are performing their duties, there shouldn’t be any secrets.  Any “variance between buildings and teachers” should be explained, with those buildings and those teachers identified so that parents and community members can meaningfully address those variances at public meetings.  And so they can hold teachers and administrators accountable for them.

We can imagine the D-64 administrators and teachers union…uh, we mean the “Park Ridge Education Association”…howling about “rights to privacy” and a “lynch mob” mentality if such information were readily available.  To that, we say: “Too bad.”

If you want the security of a public paycheck, pension and benefits, then you owe those taxpayers accountability for what you do to earn them.  And that goes for teachers and adminstrators alike.

As we have noted before, it appears the price taxpayers of Park Ridge are paying for education signficantly exceeds the quality of the education the students are getting, at least based on standardized test scores like the ISATs.  And, so far, we have not heard any satisfactory explanation of that situation from either the administrators or the teachers.  Worse yet, our “representatives” on the D-64 School Board – Pat Fioretto, Russ Gentile, John Heyde, Sharon Lawson, Ted Smart, Genie Taddeo and Eric Uhlig – continue to be deafeningly silent.

Which is why we’re also troubled by Ms. Betts’ quote that “[t]he lofty 70-percent goals may not be realistic” for D-64.

Those “lofty” goals she is talking about are reportedly the student growth rates of NWEA’s claimed 3400+ “partner” school districts, the better performers of which have 70% of their students meet or exceed their average growth standards, whatever that really means.  So if one of our head educators thinks 70% – which is a “D-” in most school grading systems – is too “lofty” a goal for our students, it sounds like D-64 may have a “standards” problem.

Unimpresive ISAT scores are one thing, but how can D-64 get lost with a MAP?

Given the tomfoolery that passes for local government here in Park Ridge, we generally avoid looking beyond our own community’s boundaries for governmental silliness elsewhere.

But the July 19, 2010, edition of the Chicago Tribune’s “Trib Local” for the City of Elmhurst got our attention with its headline: “Elmhurst considers violation for eye-rolling”.   It seems that Elmhurst officials are considering a “disorderly conduct” ordinance designed to prohibit certain behavior by citizens attending city meetings. 

This comes in the wake of the recent ejection of an Elmhurst woman from an Elmhurst city committee meeting for…you guessed it…”rolling her eyes”…and for…wait for it…”sighing”…during the discussion of a proposal for Elmhurst’s hiring of a state lobbyist which she opposed.

The Elmhurst city attorney indicated that such an ordinance would not provide for criminal penalties but would simply be a way for that City’s public officials to enforce its sense of “decorum” at its meetings.  If the Elmhurst officials go the ordinance route, we can’t wait to read the official description of what constitutes “eye-rolling” and “sighing.”

Whether such a proposal gets any traction in Elmhurst or elsewhere remains to be seen, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t appeal to those thin-skinned public officials who have what is disparagingly referred to as “rabbit ears” when describing certain sports referees and umpires who over-react to every chirp from the fans.

In fact, we can think of one particular Park Ridge alderman who, when sitting at The Horseshoe, appears nettled by virtually any sound from the audience other than “Hosannas.”  And we must confess that the memory of former mayor Howard Frimark’s upbraiding of a City Council meeting attendee for (as best as we recall) “smirking” brings a wry smile – okay, a smirk – to our faces.

Based on what transpires at many City Council meetings, a mere smirk could be considered admirable restraint.  And based on what goes on at some of those meetings, even torches and ropes might be viewed as nothing more than a measured response.

But it’s good to know that for the time being, to the Elmhurst City Council a kiss is just a kiss and a sigh is just a sigh…even though the latter might get you thrown out of a city meeting.

A few months ago, when the City Council was putting together its 2010-11 budget, Mayor Dave Schmidt warned about the financial risks to the City of expecting a continuation of tax dollars from the State of Illinois.  He asked City Mgr. Jim Hock and the Council to come up with some contingency cuts in anticipation of some or all of that State money not coming in, or not coming in when needed. 

Despite warnings from both State Sen. Dan Kotowski (D) and State Rep. Rosemary Mulligan (R) that Governor Quinn was serious about cutting money to municipalities, and despite the State already being months behind in its income tax revenue sharing with Park Ridge (and other municipalities around the State) for 2010, Hock and a majority of the City Council chose to ignore that issue, with Hock suggesting the City could wait until we saw what the situation was in July.

Well, it’s now July 19th, and we still don’t have any more of that State income tax revenue – nor is the State giving us any clear assurances of when, or even if, it will show up. 

Under such uncertain circumstances, we would expect that sound money management would dictate that Hock and the Council would have begun discussing specific additional cuts that cut be implemented if State funding remains delayed.  But according to Hock (as reported in the latest issue of the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate): “It’s not fruitful to discuss what you might cut and then try to lobby your legislators and say, ‘We need this money.’”

Gee, Jim, is it “fruitful” to sit on your hands and continue to spend money the City doesn’t have, as if the State cash is already on its way from Springfield?  Is it “fruitful” to put the City at increasing risk of a full-blown finanical crisis?

Not surprisingly, Hock’s comments come just as the City Council is preparing to finalize the release of one-half of the $190,000 of taxypayer-funded handouts to the various private community groups who claim they provide “essential” services to the community – services which those organizations have consistenly failed (or refused) to document as specifically going to Park Ridge residents, and at what cost. 

At the last COW meeting Hock acknowledged that the City has laid off approximately 27 employees over the past 2 years purely for financial reasons.  Four of those employees were police officers laid off just this year.  Two of those police officers could have been retained for just a shade more than that $190,000 being given away to those community groups.  

So when a Council majority (we’re betting it’s made up of Alds. Allegretti, Bach, Carey, DiPietro and Ryan) votes tonight to approve the immediate payment of 50% of the amounts budgeted for the community groups – $95,000, or about the cost of one cop – rather than waiting until more State funding comes in and seeing whether (and by how much?) the City has overspent its revenues during the first quarter of the new budget year, they will be sending a clear and unequivocal message to the taxpayers:

All of those community organizations are more important to them than whatever security was formerly provided by 2 police officers, and more important than the various City services that have been eliminated or reduced.

Update (07.20.10)  Despite the presence of representatives from several of the community groups looking for their annual handouts, a decision was deferred to the August City Council meeting at the request of two aldermen (believed to be Alds. Allegretti and Bach), presumably because Alds. Carey and Ryan were absent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In what kind of world is a referendum on spending more than $50 million on flood relief not considered “any more out of line” than a referendum on spending no more than $500,000 on combating O’Hare noise and pollution? 

In the wacky world of Ald. Don “Air Marshall” Bach (3rd Ward), that’s where. 

At Monday night’s City Council Committee of the Whole (“COW”) meeting, Bach actually made that argument in a vain attempt to get support for his flood control bonding referendum proposal that has appeared from its first mention to be more of a political stalking horse than a legitimate referendum question.  Which is why, in our post “The ‘Dog Giveth, And The ‘Dog Taketh Away” (06.25.10), we retracted the kudos we had given him when we thought his flood control referendum proposal was legit. 

Apparently because he operates in his own wacky world, Bach actually voted for the O’Hare referendum resolution after opposing the inclusion of the $500,000 spending limit, and despite criticizing it as providing not nearly enough funding to do “the job,” without ever explaining what “the job” actually is – other than to spend however much of the taxpayers’ money he can get away with in trying to control this region’s number one economic “engine” that has monolithic county, state and federal support. 

But given how kooky Bach can be, we wonder whether he cast that “yes” vote only so he could be in a position to call it for a reconsideration vote, which only an alderman who votes in favor of a measure is permitted to do. 

We raise that question because the Council passed the $500,000 limit proposed by Ald. Tom Carey (6th Ward) only with the tie-breaking vote of Mayor Schmidt, as the aldermen present that night were deadlocked 3 “yes” (Sweeney, DiPietro and Carey) to 3 “no” (Bach, Allegretti and Wsol) – in the absence of Ald. Robert Ryan (5th Ward), who would have been expected to vote “no” on capping O’Hare expenditures at $500,000. 

[This appears as a “voice vote” – without explanation – at Page 6 of the Draft Minutes [pdf] of that meeting, even though it required a show of hands when the voice vote did not produce a clear winner.  You can see it for yourself on the City’s website, at 1:42:50 of the 6/21/10 meeting video] 

So a reconsideration vote to nuke that referendum question taken when all seven aldermen are present could result in a 4-3 reversal, which could be followed up with a 4-3 passage of a new O’Hare referendum question without any dollar limit, the kind that Bach, Allegretti, Ryan and Wsol seem to prefer. 

If that is to occur, City procedures require that it come at this coming Monday night’s Council meeting, which is the first meeting subsequent to the one where the action was taken for which reconsideration is sought.  

That could be entertaining.  And if “Air Marshall” Bach has anything to say about it, it also might be wacky.

Two years ago we began looking into the Taste of Park Ridge (“TOPR”) and how it came to be operated by a private corporation, Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”), that was formed for no apparent reason six years ago by some of the people who at that time were identified for appointment to an “Ad Hoc Committee” of City government being formed to run TOPR for the City. 

What started out as curiosity became concern upon our discovering that Taste Inc. had failed to file any IRS Form 990s (the income tax returns required for not-for-profit organizations with annual revenues over $25,000) or otherwise account to the City for its stewardship of TOPR.  That concern was heightened when we discovered that Taste Inc. had contributed $1,000 to the campaign fund of Bob Dudycz, one of the original Taste Inc.-sters, in September 2007.

That concern turned to skepticism when we discovered that Taste Inc. voluntarily dissolved itself as a 501(c)(3) corporation in February 2009 and then re-incorporated as a 501(c)(6) corporation in March 2009, with no record of what it did with the money the original Taste Inc. could be expected to have had on hand when it dissolved.  What also caught our attention is that 501(c)(6) not-for-profits can do a few things 501(c)(3)s can’t, like use its funds for lobbying and political campaigns.

With rampant corruption seriously impairing the public’s trust and confidence in govenrment here in Illinois, we frankly wondered what was going on with TOPR and Taste Inc., and why our City government seemed to be oblivious to it.

Because when it comes to having trust and confidence in City government, what’s the average Park Ridge resident supposed to think when he/she learns that the City Council, without any known explanation, completely abandoned the TOPR plan [pdf] it debated and approved on June 6, 2005, when it virtually handed TOPR to Taste Inc. without even requiring a bid, a formal contract, or any accountability?

What’s the average Park Ridge resident supposed to think when he/she learns that, instead of the TOPR “profits” going into the City’s coffers as the Council originally intended, those profits not only end up in Taste Inc.’s bank account but the City also gives Taste Inc. approx. $23,000 in City services free of charge?

And what’s the average Park Ridge resident supposed to think when he/she learns that our elected representatives at City Hall have let this happen for six straight years without any serious effort to hold Taste Inc. accountable for all those “profits” that might total more than $350,000, judging by the $65,000 “profit” reported on the only IRS Form 990 tax return [pdf] (for 2009) there is a record of Taste Inc. having filed during the six years it has run the event?

Why is it that two mayors and a total of 18 aldermen have consistently turned a blind eye to this situation?  Is it because of the popularity of the event itself?  Are they afraid of demanding (or even merely requesting) some real accountability from the folks who run Taste Inc – Dave Iglow, Albert Galus, Jim Bruno, Dean Patras, Sandy Svizzero, Barb Tyksinski and John Warnimont – for fear those folks might walk if they can’t continue to treat TOPR as their own?

As we stated in our last post, the City Council actually got it right on June 6, 2005, when it approved a TOPR plan that would have entrusted that event to an “Ad Hoc Committee” of City government, accountable to the City Council, with its meetings subject to the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) and all “profits” going to the City.  Mysteriously, that plan was abandoned almost immediately; and the mayor and the aldermen who conceived of and approved that plan seemingly became afflicted with collective amnesia.

So we call on the current Mayor and City Council to take their collective heads out of the sand on this issue and re-take ownership of TOPR for 2011.  They should implement the TOPR plan approved by the Council on June 6, 2005, by creating the proposed “Ad Hoc Committee” and offering the Taste Inc. officials positions on that committee.  And we call on those Taste Inc. folks to accept that offer – if they truly are the public-spirited volunteers committed to running the City’s premier civic event without any expectation or hope of personal gain, as they claim to be.

From what we’ve seen of our public officials and the Taste Inc.-sters, we think the chance of that happening is just about zero.  But we’d love to be proved wrong.