The City of Park Ridge is one step closer to voting on an ordinance intended to encourage the preservation of old and historically significant buildings following Monday night’s City Council Procedures & Regulation (“P&R”) Committee of the Whole (“COW”) meeting to discuss the draft ordinance crafted by the Historic Preservation Task Force.

We like old buildings that add character to the neighborhoods they grace, and we prefer them to some of those F.A.R.-fudging, cookie-cutter structures that have popped up around town in recent years.  But we also favor the rights of individual property owners to decide what to build on their land, unless those rights are in conflict with an over-riding public purpose.

We also are naturally suspicious of grandiose and factually suspect government pronouncements, like some of those we found in Section 23-1-1 D [pdf] of the proposed ordinance, such as that preservation will  “[s]tablilize and improve the economic vitality and value of the City in general” and “[e]nhance the City’s appeal to visitors so as to support and stimulate commerce.”  

We’re surprised somebody couldn’t find a way to stick “vibrant” in there somewhere.

But unless and until we can identify and ensure the preservation of a lot more “historically significant” buildings in Park Ridge than we here at PublicWatchdog currently are aware of, we don’t see our community becoming a national attraction akin to “Colonial Williamsburg” anytime soon.  That means our City Council and Staff better figure out how to close the multi-million dollar budget holes without counting on an avalanche of tourist dollars.    
 
The concept is a good one in principle, however, and we hope the proposed ordinance gets a thorough hearing on issues such as whether, and at what cost, the City will be able to effectively preserve historically significant buildings from being torn down or dramatically altered by their owners or developers – unless the City uses already-scarce public funds to acquire them.

We would also like to see somebody (the to-be-created Historic Preservation Commission?) begin pro-actively identifying, at least on a threshold basis, all the structures that are likely to qualify for historic preservation status and why, so as to give both their owners and the City some idea of the scope of the preservation task at hand.

We understand that the ordinance will be on the City Council’s agenda this coming Monday (September 28, 7:30 p.m.).  For those who believe in the preserving the character of our community, that might be a meeting worth attending.

An agenda item at tonight’s City Council meeting (7:30 p.m., City Hall) is a request from Park Ridge 2004 LLC, the developer of Executive Office Plaza (“EOP”), to defer the City’s consideration of the Stage 2 development plan for 18 more months, until March 2011.

Back in November 2007, a 4-3 majority of the City Council voted to sweeten the pot for the developer – a joint venture that included Norwood Builders and Chody Real Estate – by giving it 8 more residential units than the City’s zoning code allows, notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of neighboring residents and others in the community who saw no reason for such a variance and/or who suspected it to be the product of insider wheeling and dealing.

As can be seen from the Staff memo dated September 21, 2009 [pdf], the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission (“P&Z”) recommended, back on November 24, 2008, that the Council approve the developer’s Stage 2 plan, but with four conditions. Under the City’s zoning code the Council was supposed to review that recommendation within 30 days, which would have been in December 2008. 

But because “the applicant was not prepared to move forward,” the Council apparently took no action, although we find it puzzling that we can’t seem to find anything in any Council minutes that would explain the legal and/or factual basis for the Council’s inaction – which effectively has given the developer an almost 9-month de facto extension because either someone at City Hall was asleep at the wheel or somebody intentionally (but inexplicably) left it off the Council’s agenda.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

In any event, according to a letter from the developer’s attorney [pdf], the “current economic climate does not permit the Developer to secure financing for the Project nor is it advisable to compel the Developer to commence construction of the Project at this time.”  The letter goes on to say that “[i]t benefits neither [sic] the Developer, the City, nor local residents for construction of the Project to occur on the Property at this time.”

Says who?

First of all, we’re more than a little confused by the attorney’s citation to provisions of the City’s zoning code (e.g., Section 5.5(D)(2)(b)(i) and Section 5.5(C)) which – based on the version that’s available on the City’s website – don’t seem to support or even reference the arguments the attorney is making.  Surprisingly, there’s no mention of that in the Staff Memo.

But, more importantly, it seems to us that if this project is going to go forward, there is no benefit to the City or its residents to delay it; and the developer’s attorney didn’t identify any such benefit in his letter.  That also wasn’t questioned in the Staff Memo.

Oddly enough, Community Preservation & Development Director Carrie Davis, the author of the Staff Memo, doesn’t provide the Council with an actual substantive recommendation on the 18-month extension request under the “Recommendation” heading.  Instead, she simply, and without explanation, ignores it – stating only that, if the Council goes with the extension, then the developer should be required to immediately replace all boarded-up windows with glass and remove all the litter.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

If you check out the Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 website, you will find a reference to the District’s August 2009 “update” of its efforts to recruit members of five “Action Teams” to devise ways to implement the District’s “Strategic Plan,” which is currently still in draft form [pdf].

We have to confess we find that most “strategic plans” – especially those devised by governmental bodies – come off like a collection of stereotypes, riddled with clichés and salted with aphorisms.  And District 64’s seems to fit that bill, starting with a “Mission” statement that reads like it was the blue-light special in the “educational” section of Mission Statements R Us.

Instead of the gobbledy-gook that jams “inspire,” “embrace,” “discover,” “achieve, “thrive,” “providing,” “integrating” and “fostering” into one quasi-Faulknerian sentence, why not simply adopt as its mission the definition of the “supreme end of education” often attributed (some say, incorrectly) to Samuel Johnson:

Expert discernment in all things – the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

But since most people pay little attention to mission statements after they’re drafted, we’re going to focus on a few of the draft plan’s “Parameters” and a couple of its “Beliefs.”

            Parameter (No. 1) says that “[n]o new program or service will be accepted unless…it[s] benefits clearly justify the costs….”  We can’t wait to see the District implement this one, maybe because in more than a decade we have yet to see or hear about anything coming out of the ESC that comes anywhere close to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis…about anything.

            Parameter (No. 2) insists that “[n]o program or service will be retained unless it provides an optimal contribution to the mission and [the] benefits continue to justify the cost.”  So not only does this Parameter reiterate cost-benefit analysis, but it also moves into the realm of that superlative known as “optimal.”  Can anybody remember the last time the District achieved anything that fit the “optimal” description?

            Parameter (No. 3) promises that performance on the ISAT standardized tests “will always compare favorably with other high-achieving districts.”  Depending on how the District defines “other high-achieving districts,” the next time this happens will be the first – as evidenced by the fact that no District 64 elementary or middle school has ranked among the Top 50 in ISAT scoring since those rankings began several years ago.

            Parameter (No. 4) promises that “[a]bsent dire unforeseen financial circumstances, the District will honor its commitment to not seek a referendum before 2017.”  We realize this reflects the “deal with the devil” the District made with the voters in order to garner enough support to pass the big tax increase referendum in 2007, but it’s this kind of foolish promise, also mentioned during the 1997 “new Emerson” referendum campaign, that pushed the District’s finances perilously close to a State Board of Education takeover during the period of 2003-2005.

But if you don’t get the warm-and-fuzzies from those Parameters, maybe you can try some of the “Beliefs.”  The two we like best are:

            Belief (No. 5), which states that “[h]igh expectations and a positive attitude result in higher performance.”  Okay, but that must mean it’s time to jack up those expectations, or get a lot more positive with the attitude – in view of the District’s lackluster performance when compared to those “other high-achieving districts.”

            Finally, Belief (No. 6) makes “[e]veryone within our community…responsible for the education and development of our children.”  Hey, we can buy into that “it takes a village” business from Park Ridge’s own Hillary Clinton, but putting responsibility on “everyone” usually results in responsibility being taken by no one.  And that’s the kind of government plan we’ve come to know and pay for, handsomely, on a regular basis.

We just never realized it was “strategic.”  

Last week, both local papers reported on the new teacher contract approved by Park Ridge-Niles School District 64, under which the teachers will receive a 2.5% increase per year over the next 3 years.

Both newspaper articles similarly pointed out that the teachers will also get annual “step” increases, although only the Journal noted that those step increases will average approximately 2% – making the raises on average approximately 4.5% per year, or approximately 13.5% guaranteed over the three years of the contract.

What we find troubling about both accounts, however, is that there is no mention of exactly what that 2% – or 4.5% – translates to, either over the range of more than 360 individual teacher salaries or, more importantly, for the overall cost to the District. 

That’s not the best reporting by our two local newspapers, but we suspect that one reason for the absence of such information is that it wasn’t offered up by either the District or the Union.  And local governments around these parts know that not offering such information to overworked and underpaid suburban reporters pretty much ensures that it won’t show up in their stories.

So if you’re either Board president John Heyde or Union president Fred Klonsky, saying nothing about the total extra dollars this contract will cost the taxpayers means that they can get away with patting each other on the back while telling the stiffs who pay the bills that the contract was “fair.”  Who’s in a position to beef when they don’t have any hard numbers to beef about?

Even District 64’s own website posts only a press release [pdf] which, not surprisingly, is silent on these overall costs.  And if you go to the District’s website and look up its “Education Finance Fact Book,” you will find that the District’s teachers were paid $22.3 million…in 2006 [pdf], the last year the District has reported. 

In a world of truly transparent government, the District would keep such information up to date – which shouldn’t be that hard when it’s just a matter of website management.  So we have to wonder whether there’s a reason why subsequent years’ figures aren’t reported, especially because we have to assume the District and the Union had them to use during their 2.5% negotiations.

Could it be that lack of information beyond 2006 is a convenient way for the District to avoid reporting on salaries for 2007 and 2008, the years in which there was an influx of extra money coming from the most recent tax increase referendum?  You remember that referendum, don’t you…the one in which the District, the Union, and their respective supporters virtually swore on a stack of Bibles that those tax increases wouldn’t be going for higher teacher salaries?

Well, no matter how you spin it, a 4.5% (general and step) annual increase means over $1 million in extra salaries, even based on that outdated 2006 salary figure.   Which means that some of that referendum tax money is, indeed, going for higher teacher salaries.

So yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and “he” is all the taxpayers of District 64 who continue to fill the stockings of the District 64 teachers – and those well-paid administrators, whose salary increases have a “Compound Annual Growth Rate” that’s almost 2% higher than the teachers’ raises over that 2002-2006 period – without regard for the educational performance (e.g., standardized testing) of the District’s students. 

But for all you taxpayers who may have lost your private sector jobs, or have watched your private sector pay cut, or seen your private sector 401(k) turn into a 41(k), the District wants you to know that its “teachers will continue to contribute toward the cost of their own health insurance coverage.”

Just like private sector employees have been doing for decades, even without those guaranteed 4%+ salary increases.

This week’s editions of the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate and the Park Ridge Journal carried accounts of how the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission (“P&Z”) is addressing the development proposal for the three residential properties located at 1963 through 1975 W. Touhy – immediately east of the Town of Maine Cemetery (“Commission suggests changes for Touhy condo developer,” Herald-Advocate Sept. 10; “Park Ridge Condo Plan Requires Variances,” Journal Sept. 9).

In case you missed it, Hoffman Homes, Inc. wants a change those parcels from their current R-2 status to R-4, and then construct 32 (per the H-A) or 20 (per the Journal) condominium units where only 12 would normally be allowed.  For the record, the City’s own report for the August 25th P&Z meeting [pdf] references the 32 unit figure, so we’ll go with that – and we wonder where the Journal came up with only 20. 

Which means that Hoffman is looking for 20 units more than the R-4 designation permits for that site!  Absurd?  Not from what we’ve seen from P&Z or our City Council over the years. 

In fact, with the way land is re-zoned and variances handed out over at City Hall, a development that observes the zoning code and doesn’t ask for variances – like the Neri Companies’ Gateway Estates at 315 S. Northwest Hwy. – is the rare exception rather than the rule.

Remember the proposed Heinz development at Greenwood and Northwest Hwy.?  Or Norwood Builders’ Executive Office Plaza development on Northwest Hwy. and Washington?  Each one of those got a significant number of additional units, although it looks like the recession has put both of those developments on the back burner for the time being. But that’s why we aren’t surprised when Hoffman shows up asking for all those extra units.

Oh, we hear Community Development Director Carrie Davis saying that “density is probably the biggest issue.”  No, Ms. Davis, an overage of almost 200% in residential units, or “density,” is DEFINITELY the biggest issue, or at least it should be. 

Because Hoffman Homes has not yet submitted a formal application for a planned development, P&Z considered what is known under our zoning code as a “concept plan review.” 

The City’s Community Preservation and Development Department recommendation was that P&Z should “[p]rovide comments” on the concept plan and ask Hoffman to “provide some indication…as to what public benefits listed in Section 5.5 [of the zoning code] are to be provided in exchange for the exceptions….”

We wonder why they didn’t simply tell Hoffman: “Come back after you have read our zoning code and have a project that conforms to it”? 

Last week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate reports that the Park Ridge Public Library Board recently voted to give the Lakota Group a $5,860 contract to redesign the area south of the Library entrance, in the wake of the destruction of a tree during a June storm. (“Board selects firm to redesign reading area,” September 3)

The redesign is supposed to include the “removal of the bluestone gravel surface” and the addition of more trees “to create more shade in that area for people to sit” – according to Library Director Janet Van De Carr. 

We realize that in the scheme of the Library’s annual budget – which, incidentally, we could not find on the Library’s website – $5,860 might be considered chump change.  But we noticed that the Library Board is spending this money to redesign an area that was designed just two short years ago by…wait for it…the Lakota Group.  

We assume, or at least we would hope, that the original Lakota Group design for the “City Commons” was worth the money spent on it, which we recall as exceeding $1 million, all in.  So unless that Lakota design has somehow become obsolete in the intervening two years, why is the Library Board voting to redesign that entire area?  

C’mon, folks!  If destruction of the tree on that site is what’s driving this effort, then instead of spending almost $6,000 to redesign that area why not put that money toward replacing the fallen tree? 

We subscribe to the theory that when somebody says “It’s not the money, it’s the principle,” it’s usually the money.  But in this case, with the City’s finances in shambles and the recession impacting virtually every revenue source the City has, it should be about both money and principle. 

And if Lakota Group can’t come up with a design that remains viable for more than two years, why is the Library Board giving them yet another design (or “redesign”) contract?   

Labor Day became a national holiday in 1894, thanks to legislation promoted by labor unions and signed by President Grover Cleveland.  But after decades of actually celebrating working people, Labor Day seems to have become more of a generic holiday, in this case marking the unofficial end of summer.

But this year Labor Day may have a more poignant meaning for more Americans than it has had for a generation, because this Labor Day finds more of us unemployed – 9.7% in August – than since the Recession of 1983.  That’s nothing to celebrate.  And if we count those who have settled for part-time work or have entirely given up looking for work, we have an “under-employment” rate of 16.8%.

So we encourage our readers with jobs to “celebrate” Labor Day 2009 by doing something nice for someone you know who is unemployed or under-employed.  Invite them and their families over for a barbecue.  Maybe make an introduction to a friend or acquaintance who can serve as a new networking connection.  Or just drop by with a cold six-pack and shoot the breeze.

Meanwhile, we leave you with the following quotes about work:

• “Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” (Thomas Edison)
• “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” (Theodore Roosevelt)
• “God sells us all things at the price of labor.” (Leonardo da Vinci)
• “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” (Thomas Jefferson)
• “I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with the head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.” (John D. Rockefeller)
• “No great achievement is possible without persistent work.” (Bertrand Russell)
• “There is no labor a person does that is undignified; if they do it right.” (Bill Cosby)
• “What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.” (Samuel Gompers)

And one light-hearted one:

• “I like work: it fascinates me.  I can sit and look at it for hours.” (Jerome K. Jerome)

This week the Herald-Advocate reports that the City of Park Ridge is experiencing an increase in sewer collapses. (“Sewers collapsing more frequently,” Sept. 1)  

Some of the descriptions of this problem are disturbing, like the 21-inch clay-tile sewer in front of 496 N. Northwest Hwy. that “basically disintegrated on one side,” according to Water & Sewer Dept. foreman Ron Brubaker.  He also warned that these older sewers would continue to crumble, and pointed to “the lack of funding in the past several years” as the culprit in the reduction in the number of sewers being replaced or reinforced.

Public Works Director Wayne Zingsheim echoed Brubaker’s concern, noting that a half-million dollars for sewer reinforcement – lining the old clay tile sewers with a stronger material – was cut from this year’s budget by the City Council.  He also advocated for funding to put television cameras throughout the sewer system so that conditions could be regularly monitored.

What these comments suggest is that our elected officials, and City Staff, have neglected these infrastructure problems not just for the past several years but for most of the past decade, if not longer.  Of course, sewer maintenance, repair and replacement isn’t very glamorous, and it certainly isn’t as much “fun” as throwing millions of dollars at the developers of a snazzy residential complex in Uptown, or the landscaping around the Library. 

It also doesn’t give elected officials their political jollies the way pandering to a couple hundred residents looking for $2,500 windfalls in the name of “flood control” does for Aldermen Frank Wsol and Don Bach.  Both of them also wanted to borrow $16 million or more to build a big new cop shop, too, but at least the voters were given the opportunity to tell them to pound sand (at least for the time being), thanks to the citizen-initiated referendum organized by resident Joe Egan – which was so good it couldn’t even be bollixed up by the ridiculous, last-minute referendum question submitted by…wait for it…Ald. Wsol.

And let’s not forget that it was Wsol who led the boneheaded effort to prevent Richie Daley’s water rate increase to be passed through to water users, adding at least $400,000 to this year’s budget deficit.  Bach led the cheers for Wsol on that one, too.

But Bach and Wsol aren’t alone in their financial foolishness.  You haven’t heard Alds. Jim Allegretti, Tom Carey, Rich DiPietro or Robert Ryan worrying publicly about the sewers when they are discussing how to continue and even increase their deficit spending, like by voting to give even more feel-good money to private community groups who just can’t seem to gain the public support needed to fund themselves without going on the taxpayers’ dole.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, it should become painfully obvious soon: The City is in a world of economic hurt, and the officials who are supposed to be solving these problems are whistling past the graveyard – when they’re not throwing gasoline on the fire!

Until the Council and Staff figure out that every $2,500 spent on a back-check valve is $2,500 less for repair or replacement of a crumbling sewer, the quality of our community’s infrastructure is going to continue to disintegrate like those clay tiles running 10 feet under our streets.   

Today’s Park Ridge Journal reports on the chief goals of the “Student Learning Department” of Park Ridge-Niles School Dist. 64 for the new school year (“Dist. 64 Lays Out Goals For School Year,” Sept. 2).  Thirteen bullet-point goals are identified.  

Most of them sound like the specialized “educator” version of that gobbledy-gook known as bureaucrat-speak, compliments of assistant superintendent for student learning Diane Betts: “Continue to develop common professional knowledge…,” “Develop an improved system of learning supports and extensions…,” “Seek opportunities to provide information to parents…,” and our favorite: “Improve knowledge of how assessment data can be used to drive instructional decisions.”  

Blah, blah, blah.  Or, if you prefer: Yada, yada, yada. 

Nowhere in that Journal article did we find any mention of something as mundane as “improving student performance on standardized tests” or “improving the academic rankings of Dist. 64 among comparable school districts.”  

For years the Dist. 64 school board and administration has explained away its lackluster standardized test scores in a variety of ways, the most dependable being: “We don’t teach to the tests.”  In other words, we can’t win at that game so we’re not really going to play.  That’s a slick politician’s answer, but it doesn’t work nearly as well when your competition isn’t another slick politician but, instead, better-performing school districts in equally-affluent, and even less-affluent, suburbs.  

As we pointed out in “Time For Taxpayers To Start Paying Attention To School Dist. 64? (10.31.08), not one District 64 school currently ranks among the “Top 50” in academic achievement as measured by the annual ISAT tests, a situation that has existed since ISAT (and before that, IGAP) performance rankings started being published several years ago.  

If our property values really are as tied to the quality of our schools as our school bureaucrats and their apologists insist – especially when they’re pushing for voter support of a big tax increase referendum, like they did in 2007 – then we should be very concerned about the perception, based on rankings determined by standardized test scores, that Dist. 64 doesn’t come close to measuring up to Northbrook/Glenview Dist. 30, Wilmette Dist. 39, Deerfield Dist. 109, Libertyville Dist. 70, Northbrook Dist. 27, etc., whose schools consistently rank among the “Top 50” in one or both of the “elementary” [pdf] and “middle” [pdf] school categories.  

With increased airport noise, increasing flooding, and a City government that seems to be in a financial death-spiral already adversely impacting Park Ridge’s desirability among similarly-affluent communities, we can no longer rely on our prime location alone to compete favorably with our peers.  And we surely cannot afford an elementary/middle school district that sucks in approximately 33% of our increasingly hefty property tax bills and produces less than first-class results. 

Instead of hearing a lot of indecipherable bureaucrat-speak, when are we going to start hearing clear and understandable goals like: “Consistently place at least one Dist. 64 school among the Top 50”?

After almost five years of stonewalling and secrecy, the private corporation that enjoys a no-bid monopoly on running Taste of Park Ridge finally provided a peek behind the curtain when it recently disclosed a few facts about its operation of that signature civic event. 

As a result, we now know that Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”) claims to have taken in $266,000 over the three days of operating Taste, the event, last month; that its expenses were “$90,000+” (even though we’re not exactly sure what that means, because no actual expense numbers have been furnished); and that it has given $5,200 to “various [unidentified] community groups” this year. 

We also now know for the first time – courtesy of the City, apparently in response to an inquiry from Mayor Schmidt – that Taste, the event, costs the City (i.e., us taxpayers) almost $23,000 in services by our police, fire and public works departments because Taste Inc. doesn’t reimburse the City for those expenses.

Unfortunately, it is still impossible to determine how much “profit” (i.e., revenues over expenses) Taste Inc. generates because its operators are still keeping secret the amount of those costs – disclosing only the rough percentages of how those costs are “allocated.”  

As we’ve said many times before, we think the Taste is a fine event – even if we question why the Taste Inc. folks and a few “friendly” aldermen insist on claiming that Taste, the event, is a “source of pride for our community.”  But that’s only because we think Park Ridge has many more, and better, sources of pride than the mere staging of a three day street festival that seems little different from similar festivals staged by virtually every other neighboring community. 

Just because the people of Park Ridge have finally been given a tiny glimpse of the big bucks involved in Taste, the event, however, doesn’t mean that Taste Inc. is operating with an adequate degree of transparency – especially given its continuing no-bid monopoly on the event and its receipt of that $23,000 in free City services. 

It seems to us that any event that generates $266,000 in revenues over just three days using almost entirely a “volunteer” labor force should be producing enough “profit” to pay the City in full for any and all services the event requires.  So why isn’t such payment being required by the City?  Or, better yet, why aren’t those self-proclaimed altruists who run Taste Inc. offering such reimbursement without having to be asked, especially in view of the City’s annual budget deficits?

We also question why Taste Inc. is so close-mouthed about who its vendors are and how much it pays them.  We’re not buying Taste Inc.’s palaver about its “respecting the confidentiality of the private businesses and organizations that contract with [it]” because disclosing that information “would be disrespectful to all parties involved and actually be detrimental to the success of the event.”

What a bunch of horse hockey.

Most/all of the people with whom Taste Inc. contracts seem delighted to plaster their names and their association with Taste, the event, everywhere they can.  What could possibly be so secret about what Taste’s vendors provide (and at what price) that it would be “disrespectful” to disclose?

Frankly, that sounds like something we have come to expect from Richie Daley whenever he’s asked about sweetheart deals to sell City of Chicago land at bargain prices to his buddies, or when giving out arguably-inflated wrought-iron fence contracts.  While that might be S.O.P. in Daley-ville, that should not be acceptable here in Park Ridge; and we think that kind of “policy” is a lot more “disrespectful” to the taxpayers than full disclosure would be to the vendors who presumably are making a buck or two from Taste, the event.

And it’s also “disrespectful” to the taxpayers for Taste Inc. to dodge transparency by pointing out that “[t]he law allows public access” to Taste Inc.’s federal and state tax filings, as it did in its recent public relations statement [pdf].  The respectful thing for Taste Inc. to do would be to post those tax filing documents on its nifty web site – for every year it has operated its no-bid monopoly.  That way, any interested residents could check it out at their convenience, without having to contact Taste Inc. and make arrangements to get or view those forms.

Of course, when you’re trying to conceal information while appearing to be forthcoming, any obstacle you can throw up – even minor inconveniences, like requiring a specific request for the information – is an ally in obstructionism, something most governmental bodies discovered about the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) years ago.  

But don’t expect the folks who run Taste Inc. to admit to that.  They’re too busy patting themselves on the back, and counting the money.