Today marks Day Two of the 2010 edition of Park Ridge’s signature civic event, the Taste of Park Ridge (“TOPR”).  From what we saw of last night’s festivities, once again a good time is being had by all.  And we think that’s great…really we do.   

Our problem with TOPR is more of a financial one, reflected in part by learning over the past few days that a number of our residents still think TOPR is run by the City of Park Ridge and/or by the Chamber of Commerce; and that it’s a big money-maker for the City.

For those of you who don’t know (but do care), since 2005 TOPR has been run not by the City or by the Chamber, but by a private 501(c)(6) not-for-profit corporation, Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”), which is the successor to a private 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation with that same name that previously ran TOPR, managed by basically the same individuals.

But that wasn’t the City Council’s intent back in 2005, when TOPR was on the ropes because the Chamber was bailing on the event.

According to the relevant portion of the June 6, 2005, City Council meeting minutes [pdf], in proceedings that read like a description of herding cats, then-mayor Howard Frimark personally pitched the idea of giving TOPR to a 10-member “Ad Hoc Committee” of City government, along with $23,000 of City funds.  That Ad Hoc Committee was to be subject to the Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”), and a condition of that $23,000 appropriation of public funds was that:

“within 30 days of the conclusion of the event, the committee would provide the City Council with an accounting of income and expense and to the extent that there are any funds remaining, the funds will be returned to the city after all expenses are paid.”

What’s not to like about that, right?  Which would explain why all those grand TOPR plans were approved by the Council that very same night. 

Two weeks later, however, the original 501(c)(3) version of Taste Inc. was incorporated [pdf] as an Illinois not-for-profit corporation.  We could find nothing to indicate that any notice of this incorporation was given to the City Council.  

Interestingly enough, at Council meetings on July 18, 2005 [pdf], July 17, 2006 [pdf] and July 16, 2007 [pdf], Frimark trumpeted the success of TOPR and promised that reports would be forthcoming from “the committee” or the “Taste Committee.” 

What “committee”?  What “Taste Committee”? 

No City-related one that we could find.  But according to the Taste Inc. website, Taste Inc. isn’t just the private corporation.  It also has its own TOPR “Committee” [pdf] that is not affiliated with or accountable to the City Council, or subject to IOMA. 

As best as we can tell, no “reports” were ever produced by either a TOPR “committee” or a TOPR “corporation” – until last summer, when Taste Inc. produced what we would call more of a “public relations” piece [pdf] than a meaningful financial disclosure like the IRS Form 990 that Taste Inc. had not filed up to that time.   

But nobody on that 2005 Council – which included current Alds. Jim Allegretti, Rich DiPietro and Frank Wsol – or any Council since appears to have cared enough to inquire about the original TOPR deal, or where the City’s share of the “profits” was, even as Mayors Frimark and Schmidt, and many aldermen as well, manned beer tents and booths while watching the money roll in.  

Which may have been great for Taste Inc., but not nearly so good for the City’s finances.  Or the City’s accountability to its taxpayers, who have been funding Taste Inc. through “free” City services which last year alone were valued by the City at around $23,000, a number that curiously mimics the original TOPR funding.

Based on Taste Inc.’s first-ever IRS Form 990 [pdf] filed just this March, Taste Inc. booked a $65,000 “profit” last year alone – on $163,000 of revenues (we have a question or two about that number, but that’s for another post).  If the original 2005 TOPR deal was being enforced by our City officials, that would have put $42,000 (including reimbursement for the cost of those “free” City services) in the City treasury.  Not a boxcar number, granted, but better than a sharp stick in the eye.  Heck, it would almost pay half the cost of one of those police officers the City laid off this year.

How did TOPR go from a City-controlled “Ad Hoc Committee”-run event to one run by the private Taste Inc., which gets to keep all the “profits” to use as it chooses?

It sure would be swell if Taste Inc. honchos Dave Iglow, Albert Galus and Jim Bruno provided a full public explanation of that metamorphosis – preferably during an open-session City Council meeting, although we’re more than willing to give them explanation space here if they want it.

And if they choose to provide a comprehensive explanation rather than just another P.R. piece, we would hope they would explain why there appears to be no record of the 501(c)(3) Taste Inc. having filed Form 990 income tax returns for 2005 through 2008; how much “profit” Taste Inc. generated in those years; what Taste Inc. did with that profit; why they changed to a 501(c)(6) Taste Inc. last year; and what happened to any money that 501(c)(3) Taste Inc. had on hand when it voluntarily dissolved in February 2009.

We’ve asked for some of that information before.  But when it comes to such disclosures, for people who dress in bright orange shirts those Taste Inc.-sters sure seem to be shrinking violets.

And we also invite former Mayor Frimark, current Mayor Schmidt, and past and former aldermen Allegretti, Anderson, Bach, Baldi, Bateman, Carey, Cox, Crampton, DiPietro, Jones, Machon, Markech, Parker, Radermacher, Ryan (Mary Wynn), Ryan (Robert), Sweeney and Wsol to explain to their tax-weary, increasingly under-served constituents why they let a private corporation walk away with the City’s signature civic event and the profits it generates, without any accountability.

This is not one of the bigger gaffes by City government in recent years, nor is it a problem anywhere near the magnitude of the City’s finances, flooding, O’Hare, etc.  But it’s precisely because it is not that big or complex a problem that we wonder why it hasn’t been managed better, if not simply ignored.  

It’s not often we say this, but our elected officials put together a reasonable deal for the City on TOPR that should have been a win/win for the taxpayers and the community as a whole.  So why did they walk away from it?

It’s that time of year again – time for the Taste of Park Ridge (“TOPR”), the City of Park Ridge’s premier civic festival run, once again, by private corporation Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”) without any contract with, or accountability to, the City even though it costs the taxpayers almost $23,000 in unreimbursed City services.  

Two years ago, in ”Time For A Transparent Taste” (07/07/08), we first questioned the secret way in which TOPR was being run by Taste Inc., at that time an Illinois 501(c)(3) corporation [pdf].  Taste Inc. did not publicize its financial information and also appeared not to have filed any IRS Form 990s [pdf], the federal tax return form required of 501(c) corporations who have annual revenues greater than $25,000, for the first four years of its existence: 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.  

Even though non-profits don’t have to pay taxes, the required Form 990 is an informational return intended to allow the IRS and the public to evaluate non-profits and how they operate.  Most, if not all, of the Form 990s filed with the IRS are posted on the GuideStar website, but none were ever listed there for Taste Inc. in any of those first four years, even though it was a certainty that Taste Inc. had revenues exceeding $25,000 in each of those years. 

Our questions stirred up a hornets’ nest of comments both challenging and defending Taste Inc’s conduct.  We were accused of being conspiracy theorists, axe grinders and worse.  But through all that time Taste Inc. produced nothing to account for the money it took in or how it was spent.  

So around this time last year, in ”One Year Later: Another Call For Transparency From Taste Of Park Ridge” (06.22.09), we re-raised those same questions, along with a new one: Why did Taste Inc. voluntarily dissolve itself on February 20, 2009 [pdf], and then re-incorporate on March 4, 2009 – but, this time, as a 501(c)(6) corporation with Chicago attorney Leo Aubel replacing Pines’ Dave Iglow as its registered agent? 

Yet another question was raised by the way the original Taste Inc. dissolved: we could find no record of it having followed the prescribed procedures for dissolution [pdf], including any record of what it did with whatever assets it had from those first four years of operations.  In other words, it looks like the original Taste Inc. was a scofflaw as to both its annual IRS filing requirements and its dissolution – with no accounting of whatever assets it accumulated from four years of operations and what it did with them on dissolution.    

As for why Taste Inc. effectively changed from a 501(c)(3) corporation to a 501(c)(6) one, the single biggest difference between the two appears to be that a 501(c)(6) corporation may engage in political activity [pdf] on behalf of, or against, individual candidates for public office, so long as that political activity does not constitute the corporation’s primary activity; and a 501(c)(3) cannot [pdf].   By running the TOPR, therefore, Taste Inc. has the “primary activity” qualification necessary for it to engage in political activity. 

What could that mean for Park Ridge government?   

Well, judging from Taste Inc.’s first-ever Form 990 [pdf] filing in March of this year, Taste Inc. is sitting on $65,221 in surplus assets just from last year’s TOPR event.  If Taste Inc. does that well this coming week, it theoretically could have a $130,000 campaign “war chest” with which to help finance aldermanic candidates in next April’s municipal election. 

That’s over $18,000 for each of the seven wards, which as best as we can tell would comfortably exceed what has been spent by any aldermanic candidate in the history of Park Ridge – other than Mark Anderson, who in 2003 spent a shade over $20,000 [pdf] to defeat incumbent Homeowners Party 5th Ward Ald. Steve Huening.   And it would far exceed the next biggest aldermanic campaign spender, Howard Frimark, who dropped a little under $13,000 [pdf] that same year to win the open 4th Ward seat [pdf].

Back in 2003, however, the City Council still had 14 aldermen, with only 7 seats at stake in any one election.  That made it impossible to win an entire Council majority in any given election. 

But with the current 7-person Council, Taste Inc. could commit $20,000 to four individual races to elect a 4-alderman Council majority favorable to any interests or agenda it might wish to advance.  And even after that $80,000 expenditure, Taste Inc. would still have $50,000 left over as “seed” money for TOPR 2011. 

Was the switch from a 501(c)(3) to a 501(c)(6) part of a plan by Taste Inc. to become a political powerhouse?  Or are its motives more benign? We don’t know, and the folks running Taste Inc. remain characteristically closed mouth. 

But irrespective of whether they intend to become moneyed power brokers in Park Ridge politics, that $65,000 in operating surplus reflected in Taste Inc.’s initial Form 990 filing makes one thing crystal clear: Taste Inc. can well afford to reimburse the City for the approximately $23,000 in City services it uses.But if past history is any guide, don’t expect that check to be in the mail to City Hall anytime soon. 

[To be continued…] 

Happy Independence Day! 

Although we have come to celebrate “Independence Day” on July 4th – the day that the Continental Congress approved the wording of the Declaration of Independence – the vote declaring independence from Great Britain actually occurred on July 2nd, 1776, when the Congress adopted the following resolution of independence on motion of Richard Henry Lee of Virginia: 

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances.

That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation. 

This language was incorporated into the last paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, which ends with those Congressional delegates pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the principles of independence.  And after approving that Declaration, those Congressional delegates went out and acted on those principles to build this great nation. 

That’s why, as we have done in the past, we mark these patriotic days with a call for Park Ridge residents to live their patriotism more fully by getting involved in local government. 

Sure, it’s easier to sit around with friends and beef and moan over coffee or stronger drink about what’s going on in Washington or in Springfield.  But rather than wringing your hands about those things, you can accomplish a lot more by rolling up your sleeves and getting involved in the governance of the City of Park Ridge, the Park Ridge Park District, and School Districts 64 and 207.  

And to bring home that point, we offer the following: 

“Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.”  Thomas Carlyle
 

“The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.” Justice Louis Brandeis
 

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”  Albert Einstein

On this Independence Day weekend, give some thought to what you can do to make our local governmental bodies better.  Nobody’s expecting you to pledge your lives, your fortunes and your sacred honor to that cause. 

Just pay closer attention, go to some meetings, and demand accountability from the people we elect to govern on our behalf.

The Agenda for the Park Ridge City Council’s June 21, 2010, meeting contained three different items related to the City’s O’Hare Advisory Commission (“OAC”), including a resolution for the adoption of an advisory referendum question for the November 2, 2010, election about whether the City of Park Ridge shall support the efforts to stop the expansion of O’Hare Airport; and a discussion about hiring legal counsel for that effort.

No member of the OAC addressed the Council on any of those items.  In fact, it appears that no member of the OAC was even in attendance.

So yesterday’s article in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Airport panel feels shut out of referendum decision,” June 29) causes us to wonder more than a little about the motives, and even the good faith, of certain members of the OAC.

According to that H-A article, OAC Chairwoman Jennifer Perry and members Christine Kutt and Gary Ziols were highly critical of the Council for not consulting with OAC on the referendum question.  Kutt suggested the OAC was formed to create “the illusion that [elected officials] care,” while Ziols said he intends to resign from the OAC in disgust that the Council has not acted on OAC’s proposed mission statement.

So why weren’t any of them at the Council meeting on June 21 to express those sentiments?

It can’t be because they didn’t know about it, as these items were on the agenda.  The City Staff’s liaison to the OAC, Steve Cutaia, even authored the memo about the resolution.  And we can’t believe Ald. Don “Air Marshall” Bach – or Ald. Jim Allegretti, who wanted to give OAC $250,000 in this year’s budget – wouldn’t have given them a heads-up.

So why weren’t they there?

Perry’s complaint about the referendum question as passed by the Council focuses, not surprisingly, on the inclusion of the $500,000 figure – even though that was the figure OAC had hoped to get in the City budget this year!  She believes (along with Alds. Allegretti, Bach and Wsol) that such a dollar amount will turn off the voters and prevent them from letting the City Council know their view on the really important issue: whether O’Hare noise solutions are important to residents.

Well, Ms. Perry, while the referendum is still over four months away, we’ll clue you in: O’Hare noise solutions are important to residents…but only if those solutions are realistically achievable, and without bankrupting the City.  And guess what?  Noise solutions have been important to a lot of residents for those many years prior to November 2008, when it first became important to you and many of your fellow Belle Plaine corridor folks. 

But we get the sense that most residents aren’t all that impressed with the likely effectiveness of much of what the OAC has proposed, especially when what we all would like – less noise and pollution – is vigorously opposed not only by the City of Chicago, but also by the State of Illinois and even the federal government (as evidenced by that recent $410 million for O’Hare runway construction).  While Air Marshall Bach says we need to fight O’Hare with “everything we’ve got,” we get the sense most residents feel we’ve already “been there, done that” during the decade-plus reign of O’Hare-obsessed Mayor Ron Wietecha and his rubber-stamp Councils.

Which means that while many of those residents oppose O’Hare expansion, they don’t want to give OAC or the officials sitting around The Horseshoe at City Hall a blank check for another tilt at the O’Hare windmill.  But all you OAC folks (and you, too, Gene Spanos) have the next four months to persuade the voters otherwise. 

But first you might try showing up at City Council meetings where OAC issues are being discussed and voted on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Wednesday’s post, “An Infrastructure Referendum Is Worth Considering” (06/23/10), we commended Ald. Don Bach (3rd Ward) on proposing a flood control/infrastructure referendum, even though we thought his $50 million bond issue figure was not fiscally prudent.

But after reading Bach’s comments about that referendum proposal, we have to wonder – once again – about that guy’s view of how local government is supposed to work.  And we need to take back our commendation.

According to an article in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Alderman wants to ask voters $50M flood control question,” June 23), Bach’s reason for proposing a flood control referendum sounds like little more than criticism of the Council’s vote Monday night to pass a $500,000 O’Hare Airport referendum resolution:

“Since the Council seems to be okay with assigning an amount for a referendum question on O’Hare without any idea of what it may actually cost, I would think that every argument presented tonight to assign one to the O’Hare question is applicable to the flood control question.”

Not quite, Alderman.

In the first place, the Council reportedly took the $500,000 price tag for the O’Hare referendum from the figure proposed by the City’s O’Hare Airport Commission, so Bach’s suggestion that the number was pulled out of thin air is just plain wrong.  And if Bach can’t seem to distinguish between $500,000 current cash v. $50 million of bonded debt, he needs help.  Or prayer.     

As reported in a separate Herald-Advocate article about the O’Hare referendum resolution (“Want to spend $500K to fight O’Hare noise,” June 22), Bach bad-mouthed the $500,000 dollar figure: “The amount for the O’Hare question is inappropriate.  There’s no evidence that amount will do the job.”

Gee, Don, then why did you vote for it!

Was it because you were for it before you were against it?  After all, you voted against adding the $500,000 figure to the resolution only a few minutes earlier, so why didn’t you just stay the course and keep Ald. Allegretti company by voting “no” on the resolution itself? 

But troubling as Bach’s minute-to-minute flip-flop Monday night and his badmouthing of the resolution almost immediately after voting for it might be, we find his complaint that $500,000 may not be enough to “do the job” on O’Hare even more troubling.

Gee, Don, what exactly is “the job” that needs to be done?  And why isn’t $500,000 enough?

Although he has yet to articulate exactly what is “the job,” Bach sounds like he wants the taxpayers to write the Council a blank check for dealing with O’Hare: “We should fight the expansion with everything we’ve got, including legal means,” he intoned in his best Air Marshall voice from his seat at The Horseshoe during the O’Hare referendum debate. 

A fondness for blank checks is why spendthrift elected officials – and appointed ones, for that matter – dislike advisory referendums with dollar amounts attached.  It’s so much easier for them to spend money when they can get voter endorsement of some un-priced plan, program or project that they can then spin and leverage into however many dollars they like. 

So when it comes to dealing with O’Hare, we get the sense that the Air Marshall and his wing-men – Alds. Allegretti and Robert Ryan (when he’s not the “missing man” in that formation) – hate to see the “amount” line on the check already filled in.  

That’s the kind of attitude that drove O’Hare-obsessed former mayor Ron Wietecha and a rubber-stamp City Council to pour money down the Suburban O’Hare Commission rat hole for years, and then make that ridiculous $650,000 Peotone airport “investment” on our behalf.  But just when that Council finally woke up and realized our money was gone, Wietcha dropped his resignation letter on the city manager’s desk after hours one September night in 2003, and bolted for Barrington without ever giving his constituents a full accounting of that misbegotten deal.  

Sounds to us like Bach yearns for a return to those days of yore.

A few years ago then-Ald. Don Crampton (1st Ward) presented a detailed study of the City’s sewer and related infrastructure problems and suggested a $40 million bond issue to address those problems.  That suggestion went nowhere, and since that time our infrastructure has been passively maintained, if not outright neglected.

Now Ald. Don Bach (3rd Ward) wants the City Council to consider adding a referendum question to the November ballot that would ask the voters whether they want the City to issue $50 million in bonds to fund all 41 recommendations of the City’s Flood Control Task Force.

Taking questions such as that to the voters is always a good idea.  Getting 8,000+ “yes” or “no” answers to a fairly-drafted “yes” or “no” question gives our public officials a far better sense of the public’s view than 800 responses to cleverly-worded surveys that seem contrived to produce particular answers.

But with the City already servicing over $38 million of bonded debt – all of it appearing tied to the Uptown TIF, and much of it with many years remaining – we question the wisdom of more than doubling that debt and saddling homeowners with it for 20 years or more. 

Although bonded government debt is sometimes compared to home mortgage debt, that is an apples to oranges comparison.  Unlike home mortgage debt which is tax deductible and is incurred with the expectation that it is funding the purchase of an appreciating asset, municipal debt is not deductible by the City and the assets it funds (e.g., sewers), while essential, only depreciate in value.  So the financial equation is very different from that of a home mortgage.

One of the arguments being made for more bond issues now is the low interest rates.  But low interest rates that produce debt service obligations the taxpayers can’t, or don’t want to, meet are a false economy. 

We think the prudent approach is for the City to complete the sewer study and prioritize the sewers needing repair or replacement, and follow that with a plan for phasing in the work (and the bonding) over a 5, 10 or even 15 year period as the situation warrants.  The City also should look into bonding for a term shorter than the 20-year+ that adds substantial interest costs to the total price.  

The result would likely be a bond issue referendum question for a smaller, more-manageable amount that would not tie the City’s financial hands so tightly in future years while still providing the funding necessary to tackle the most pressing infrastructure needs.  

It would be ideal if this could be done by the late August deadline for the City’s putting a referendum question on the November ballot, as those general elections always seem to have better voter turnouts than the April local elections.  But getting the process right and at the right price is at least as important as getting it done quickly.

We commend Ald. Bach on raising this issue.  Now let’s see his – and the City Council’s – follow through.

The well known children’s book titled “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” describes the escalating consequences of honoring what appears, at first glance, to be an innocuous request. 

Tonight the Park Ridge City Council will consider giving the “mouse” known as the City’s O”Hare Airport Commission (the “OAC”) a “cookie” – in the form of a resolution to put the following innocuous-sounding advisory referendum question on the November ballot: 

“Shall the City of Park Ridge support the efforts to stop the expansion of O’Hare Airport?”
 

When it comes to O’Hare expansion, we would hazard a guess that the vast majority of Park Ridge residents are against it.  That’s because it’s hard for most of us to see a bigger O’Hare providing any substantial benefits for Park Ridge.  Instead, we see it bringing more noise and pollution. 

But it’s one thing to be against O’Hare expansion, and another thing to want to “support the efforts to stop the expansion of O’Hare Airport” by throwing away a lot of our increasingly scarce tax dollars – especially with Chicago, Cook County, the State of Illinois and the federal government all promoting that expansion, as evidenced by the Obama Administration’s recent $410 million gift to help Mayor Daley build two new runways and extend a third.   

So by proposing referendum language that doesn’t put a price tag on that “support,” Ald. Rich DiPietro (2nd Ward) is either an inept draftsman or just plain dishonest, because leaving out any dollar commitment appears designed to seduce a vote of general support that can later be used by the Council to justify whatever dollars it decides to appropriate for fighting O’Hare expansion – just like previous Councils used to do when appropriating $65,000 a year for Suburban O’Hare Commission (“SOC”) membership, or squandering $650,000 on a Peotone airport. 

Ironically, DiPietro’s referendum question was opposed by the three aldermen who wanted to budget $165,000, $200,000 and $250,000, respectively, for the OAC: Alds. Don Bach (3rd Ward), Robert Ryan (5th Ward) and Jim Allegretti (4th Ward).  Their objections, voiced at the last Committee of the Whole (“COW”) meeting, were directed to the arguable lack of time between now and November 2 to “educate” the voters so that they can make “informed” decisions. 

Ryan was the most vociferous on that point, and he should know: he was instrumental in both tax-hike referendums for Elementary School District 64 (1997 and 2007) which mobilized scores of volunteers and spent more than a year’s time “educating” the voters about why the District needed, in the first instance, a new Emerson Middle (a/k/a, Junior High) School and, in the second instance, multi-millions of additional dollars to shore up irresponsibly-depleted reserves.  From what we’ve seen, what Ryan calls “education” can also be called “propaganda.” 

But since DiPietro appeared to spring that language on the Council at the last COW meeting, maybe Allegretti’s, Bach’s and Ryan’s “no” votes were merely a knee-jerk reaction.  Because if they have had a chance to chat up DiPietro in the interim, they may have come to understand the deceptive benefits of a warm-and-fuzzy referendum question that doesn’t splash cold-water reality of what it will cost into the voters’ faces. 

While we think a referendum question without a price tag attached is dishonest, we do support a price-included O’Hare referendum for the November ballot, for the reasons stated at the last COW by Ald. Joe Sweeney (1st Ward) and Mayor Dave Schmidt.  Sweeney correctly pointed to the much higher turnout that November general elections enjoy over our April local elections, while the mayor correctly noted that the April election results would come too late for the 2011-12 budget cycle.   

Will DiPietro become enough of a stand-up guy to amend his referendum question to include a price tag?  If not, will Allegretti, Bach and Ryan figure out that DiPietro’s vague language might be their best chance to get voter support for something they can then use to argue for boxcar dollars for the OAC? 

Tune into 505 Butler Place tonight at 7:30 p.m. and find out.

Update (06.22.10): Last evening the City Council approved Second Ward Ald. Rich DiPietro’s O’Hare expansion referendum resolution for inclusion on the November 2, 2010, ballot – but only after Mayor Dave Schmidt broke a tie so that a dollar limit could be added to quantify the amount of “support” the voters will be asked to approve for fighting O’Hare.

With Ald. Robert Ryan (5th Ward) absent, Schmidt’s vote ensured passage of Sixth Ward Ald. Tom Carey’s amendment placing a $500,000 limit into the referendum question, someting opposed by Alds. Jim Allegretti (4th Ward), Don Bach (3rd Ward) and Frank Wsol (7th Ward).  Once the dollar figure amendment passed, however, Wsol and Bach joined with Carey, DiPietro and Ald. Joe Sweeney (1st Ward) to pass the referendum resolution over Allegretti’s lone objection.

Allegretti’s principal objection to any sort of O’Hare referendum, especially with a dollar amount attached, was that the addition of such an amount would increase the likelihood of the voters voting “no” – a result Allegretti consistently argued would be the product of ignorance.  But when questioned by a resident about what information he believed the voters need to cast an informed referendum vote, Allegretti’s response was: “a lot.”

Allegretti has been unwavering in his view that Park Ridge residents want the City Council to make decisions for them without these cumbersome referendums.  Fortunately, his view was in the minority…even if for only one night.

About 40 fans of Oakton Pool won a stay of execution for that facility last evening: they persuaded Park Commissioners Richard Brandt, David Herman, Stephen Vile and Mary Wynn Ryan to reject Director Ray Ochromowicz’s recommendation to close Oakton after the current season. 

Their winning argument was an interesting amalgam of emotion, nostalgia  and self-interest, with a marked aversion (if not outright hostility) to facts, figures and dollars.  But pleading the case for a decrepit and overlooked facility that has lost an average of $85,000 in each of the past three pool seasons – more than the other three outdoor pools combined – leaves few other options. 

Two positive things may have come out of that meeting, however, assuming those Oakton Pool Fans (“OPF”s) and the Park Board take full advantage of the opportunity presented. 

First and foremost, the OPFs need to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.  They need to come up with realistic ideas either for making Oakton Pool financially solvent “as is,” or for selling the District’s voters on a replacement facility.  And they should do it NOW…in time to turn those ideas into one or more referendum questions that can be put on the November ballot, thereby giving the Park Board some community-wide input in time to make an informed decision on whether to re-open Oakton for the 2011 season. 

In that same vein, if the Park Board is going to keep Oakton open, it should create a commission comprised of OPFs and entrust it with the management of Oakton Pool for next season.  Give it authority (albeit with Staff and Board oversight) for the planning, programming and executive-level management so that it can implement all those magic-bullet ideas that were flowing last night for getting more people to Oakton, such as more/better advertising, better programming, better maintenance, better swimming instruction, strategic partnerships with other swim clubs, corporate sponsorships, etc. 

Why?  Because the Park District has shown itself to be incapable of managing Oakton any better than what we’ve seen over the past three years.  If the OPFs can’t do a better job, the conclusion would become virtually inescapable that Ochromowicz, Board President Jim O’Brien, and Commissioners Rick Biagi and Marty Maloney are right: Oakton’s day in the sun has come and gone. 

To their credit, Biagi, Maloney and O’Brien tempered their votes for closing Oakton with support for putting one or more Oakton referendum questions on the November ballot by Board action rather than requiring citizens to run a petition drive…so long as the OPFs can come up with meaningful ones.  Hopefully, at least one more commissioner will sign onto that idea and make it a reality. 

Several commissioners noted that last night’s turnout was the biggest in the history of the Oakton Pool drama that has been ongoing since the diving well imploded back in 2005.  But one night does not a plan, a program, or a strategy make.  

Are the OPFs up to the challenge, or are they simply buying time with the taxpayers’ money?

The Scharringhausen land deal got COW approval for full Council consideration this coming Monday night on a vote of 4-3: Allegretti, Bach, DiPietro & Ryan v. Carey, Sweeney & Wsol.  And if the “winning” four get their way, that consideration is likely to come in a closed session meeting, outside the presence of the public or the press.

So why are the “Scharringhausen Four” so hot to trot on buying that property now, after all these years of renting it from the Scharringhausens?  We don’t know, because we don’t recall any of the Scharringhausen Four so much as suggesting its purchase, even as recently as this April when the Council approved renewing that lease.  So what happened in just two months to make this such a front-burner issue?

Are they simply trying to do the Scharringhausens a favor by having the City take property off their hands that they haven’t had a whole lot of luck selling?  Are they just trying to give Realtor Owen Hayes II an easy commission? 

Or might this be an attempted under-the-radar first step in jump-starting the recently moribund redevelopment of TA-4, so that the real estate speculators with property (or options, or contracts on property) down that way can at least salvage their investments now instead of waiting until, if ever, developer interest in that part of town arises of its own accord?

For those not paying attention, the last time we recall the City hiding in closed session to discuss the purchase of private land was in early 2008, when former mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and the Council tried to finagle the City’s purchase of 720 Garden – ostensibly for the new cop shop that the public didn’t want, and at a price a couple hundred thousand dollars above the City’s own appraisal.  We wrote about that deal in posts like “Adding Insult To Injury” (01.28.08), “Why Are We Bidding Against Ourselves” (03.14.08) and “Why There’s No Need For ‘Secret’ Discussions Of Property Deals” (08.18.08).

That deal fizzled when then-Ald. Dave Schmidt blew the whistle on that behind-the-scenes, closed session wheeling and dealing, thereby distinguishing himself from Frimark and his fellow aldermen by achieving the understanding that “closed sessions” under the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) are voluntary, not mandatory; and that what goes on in them is neither “secret” nor even “confidential.” 

That earned Schmidt a rousing-but-meaningless condemnation by Frimark and alderpuppets Allegretti, Bach, Carey, DiPietro and Ryan – presumably for Schmidt’s having the audacity to provide public information to the public, as permitted by IOMA. Imagine that!

But that was then, and this is now – and at least four aldermen seem interested in going back into hiding this coming Monday night to once again wheel and deal over the City’s acquisition of private land that will do somebody(ies?) a favor with our tax dollars.

Will anybody blow the whistle on that?