This past Monday night the Park Ridge City Council did something unusual.  It actually struck a blow for good government. 

Not that superficial, namby-pamby, lowest common denominator, compromise-your-principles-away-and-then-lie-about-it, kumbaya “good government” that most politicians practice, the kind that has put our local, state and federal government finances in iron lungs with no hope of exiting any time soon. 

We’re talking honest-to-goodness, principled government – the kind that looks out for the long-term well-being of the entire community instead of jumping at quick-fixes that grease the skids for some special interest or other. 

And they did it unanimously, with all six current aldermen voting to reject the tax-sharing proposal by the developer of the proposed Whole Foods site at Touhy and Washington.  Given the discordance usually displayed by this crew, that in itself is a minor miracle – although we’ll give a big assist to former ald. Tom Bernick, whose absence once again likely contributed more than his presence.

Our aldermen turned a deaf ear to the duet sung by Park Ridge 2004 LLC principal Lance Chody and his high-powered lawyer, about how they couldn’t close the “economic gap” between what they need to get out of the development deal and what Whole Foods wants to pay to lease the developed property from them.  They warned that, without some serious money from the City, Whole Foods would have to accept more of the “burden” of the deal.

Boo hoo.

Remember “gap” and “burden.”  Those were the two watchwords of Monday evening, and you can expect to hear them again and again as this Whole Foods deal continues to unfold.  Also expect to hear them if/when Mariano’s Fresh Market and its developer decide to make their move on their favored Touhy and Cumberland location.

Chody and Whole Foods want their money “gap” bridged by dumping the “burden” on the backs of Park Ridge taxpayers, while blowing smoke up the City’s kilt about all the money the propsed sales tax-sharing might/could/should/will provide in return.

As Gomer Pyle used to say: “Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise.”

Letting business shift its risk and economic burdens onto the taxpayers is what’s become known as “corporate welfare,” “crony capitalism,” or “crap-italism,” and it’s increasingly the rule rather than the exception whenever superficial bureaucrats conspire with gutless and unprincipled politicians to throw scarce tax dollars at any and every shameless business that threatens to go elsewhere unless it gets greased.

In the most polite or clueless quarters, that’s called “bargaining.”  In others, it’s a game of “chicken” or “blink first.”  In still others, “bribery” or “extortion.”  But whatever you choose to call it, it has worked like a charm for all those businesses that have gone on the public dole under the guise of “sales tax sharing” or “property tax abatements.”

Not surprisingly (at least to us), the Council’s decision immediately caught flak from the City’s new Economic Development Task Force, which reportedly barbecued Alds. Jim Smith and Sal Raspanti at its meeting Tuesday night (5/15/12).  At least one of the ED-ers reportedly demanded that Mayor Dave Schmidt make a pilgrimage to Chody and/or Whole Foods and seal a deal – even though none of those ED-ers were willing to say exactly how much of an “incentive” is enough and how much would be too much.

That would actually take some serious thinking, and thinking is hard.  Worse yet, someone might even try to hold them accountable for their opinion if it turned out to be wrong. 

The ED-ers and their Whole Foods sycophants want the City to figuratively grab its ankles, damn the cost.  No thought about the public policy consequences of giving Whole Foods a clear economic advantage over Jewel, Dominick’s and Trader Joe’s.  No thought about what these kinds of concessions will lock us into for new businesses considering Park Ridge (e.g., Mariano’s).  No thought to first establishing some type of benchmark or guideline to replace the worthless Council Policy No. 31 for objectively determining the kinds and amounts of incentives, if any, that would be acceptable; and under what specific circumstances.

And no thought whatsoever to why Whole Foods or developer Park Ridge 2004 LLC is deserving of what could end up being millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies that other businesses – like the new locally-owned Garden on the Run – aren’t getting.  Or why City government should be using our tax dollars to effectively help pick and choose winners and losers in this marketplace.

Other than the idiotic: “That’s what everybody else is doing.”

We would like to see a Whole Foods in Park Ridge.  We’d also like to see it at the proposed site, even if other sites in town might be preferable.  But we think concessions like Chody and Whole Foods are demanding are a Pandora’s Box that, once opened, will not be able to be closed.

The City Council so far has gotten this nettlesome issue right.  Here’s hoping that it doesn’t get bull-rushed into selling out fundamental fairness and a level playing-field for thirty pieces of silver.

Or 20 years of sales tax revenue-sharing.

UPDATE:  One of the things we hope this blog does is cause people – including the folks over at 505 Butler Place – to actually think about the issues our community faces rather than just react in knee-jerk fashion, often based on minimal and incorrect information.  A good example of that is the number of comments this particular post already has received critical of the City Council’s vote on the Whole Foods sales tax revenue sharing proposal and its failure to “negotiate” or “compromise” with Whole Foods – but without offering any suggestion for what the “compromise” deal should look like, and how much “bribe” money should the City throw at these “crap-italists”…and all those who may follow with their hands out. 

That goes in spades for members of the City’s Economic Development Task Force who have come on like gangbusters in ripping the Council for saying “No” to Chody’s/Whole Foods proposal.  Yet none of these self-styled business people have, to our knowledge, offered any alternative to the Council’s “no” – other than just saying “yes” to whatever the crap-italists demand. 

Former British prime minister Tony Blair nailed it with: “The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes.  It is very easy to say yes.”

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About five years ago the owner/developer of what was then known as “Executive Office Plaza” (“EOP”) sought a map amendment to the City’s Zoning Code to change that property’s classification from B-1 to R-5, in order to construct 168 residential condominium units there.

The neighbors mobilized to oppose that effort, objecting to the height and density of those structures.  We here at PublicWatchdog joined in those objections.  But the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission recommended that change, and then-mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and his City Council alderpuppet majority approved that recommendation for reasons that remain suspect to this day.

The recession, however, turned the condo market sour; and the developer – Park Ridge 2004, LLC – abandoned its EOP condo plan.

Now that same developer is back, this time with a plan for a Whole Foods grocery instead of 168 condos.  For this project, however, it needs to reverse the zoning back from R-5 to B-1.

And guess what?  Many of those very same folks who beefed about the residential development five years ago are beefing about this retail development.  This time, however, their main complaints are increased vehicle traffic and “grave concerns” about safety – primarily for the children who walk to St. Paul of the Cross school.

We’re grateful for these complaints.  You should be, too: that’s how this re-zoning process is supposed to work, protecting the community as a whole from willy-nilly land development deals intended primarily to put money in the pockets of profiteers with little concern for the long-term health of the community. 

But after listening to all the arguments raised against this zoning change, we think the objectors need to regain their credibility in opposing a project that we get a sense the vast majority of Park Ridge residents want.  To that end, we offer the following suggestions: 

1.  If you’re going to beef about the Traffic Impact Study done by the developer’s consultants, (KLOA, Inc.), you had better have a competing study of your own.  Because just scoffing at KLOA’s findings and conclusions isn’t going to get you very far.

2.  In that same vein, where is your data proving that the traffic-light regulated intersections of Washington & Touhy and Washington & NW Hwy already are unreasonably hazardous?  The IDOT records cited in the KLOA report identify a cumulative total of 19 accidents at those two intersections in the past 5 years, only 1 involving a pedestrian – and none of which produced a fatality or incapacitating injury.  It seems like you’ve got a better chance of being hit in the Jewel or Dominick’s parking lot than at those intersections, so how “scary” and “deadly” – two terms we’ve heard used to describe those intersections – can they really be?

3.  Don’t try to tell Whole Foods or the developer that the former Napleton car dealership site at Greenwood and Busse (across from the Jewel), or any other site in town, would be a “better” location.  If either of them actually believed it, and if those alternate properties actually were available at a comparable price, you can be certain that’s where they’d already be looking.

4.  Don’t argue for new office buildings at Touhy and Washington.  Seven years of vacant office buildings on that site is Exhibit A for the folly of believing a high demand for office space on that site currently exists. 

5.  Don’t buy into the argument that Whole Foods will either fail or cause one of our other existing grocery stores to fail.  That very well may be true, but City government has no business substituting its bureaucratic judgment for that of the marketplace when it comes to things like retail competition.  And a self-proclaimed Libertarian like Ald. Jim Smith (3rd) should know better than to suggest otherwise.

So if you NIMBYs want to make this process as good as it can be, you’ve got to raise your game a couple of notches as this issue enters its stretch drive.

And talking about raising one’s game, the City Council and Staff had better raise their own games several notches when it comes to the rumored request/demand by the developer and/or Whole Foods for tax breaks as a condition of the development moving forward. 

Let’s start by calling those kinds of requests/demands what they are: legalized extortion.

Before the City Council even begins to considers bribing this particular developer and this particular retailer with already-scarce tax dollars, it had better also figure out how it’s going to do the same for all the other developers and retailers already here, or who may come here in the future.  Because one thing this City owes everybody – businesses and residents alike – is a fair shake and a level playing field.

Neither the developer nor the retailer need or deserve corporate welfare from the City’s taxpayers when their City government, despite wisely cutting expenses and non-essential services to an unprecedented degree, still faces million dollar deficits in the coming years because of its latest corporate welfare boondoggle: the Uptown TIF.  That lesson should already have been learned, in spades.

And we don’t need to do business with bait-and-switch artists.  If Park Ridge 2004 LLC really wants to develop that property, and if Whole Foods really wants to be in Park Ridge, then the economics of the deal are what they are – take ‘em or leave ‘em.  And if they are going to leave ‘em, then they should do so now, before the City squanders any more time, money, effort and resident good-will walking down a dead-end street.

As a community, we definitely have our challenges – which makes it all that much more important that we also have our principles.

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If you’re some entitlement-addicted special interest or a mindless disciple of tax-borrow-and-spend economists like Paul Krugman, Park Ridge City Hall was not the place to be last night.

That’s because the Park Ridge City Council saved the taxpayers another $120,620 by sustaining 3 of 4 line-item budget vetoes issued by Mayor Dave Schmidt, whom we dubbed “Mayor No” in our 06.08.11 post for his wielding of the previously-moribund mayoral veto to lead a sometimes fractious and unfocused Council further down the road to fiscal sanity and stability.  

The only one of Schmidt’s vetoes not sustained was the biggest one: $361,500 budgeted for “Phase I” of what has been labeled the “police facility project” – a project seemingly designed, in significant part, to remedy years (if not a decade or more) of what appears to be gross neglect in basic cleaning, maintenance and repair of the police station.  That veto was over-ridden by 5 votes (Alds. Rich DiPietro, Jim Smith, Sal Raspanti, Marty Maloney and Joe Sweeney) to 1 (Ald. Dan Knight), with 1 vote MIA as 6th Ward Ald. Tom Bernick’s previously-reported resignation became official moments before the meeting was convened.

Notwithstanding the inability of any of that project’s supporters to refute Schmidt’s assertion that the City has plenty of available storage and other types of usable space at the old Public Works complex at Elm and Greenwood, the aldermanic majority couldn’t seem to resist Police Chief Task Force member Paul Sheehan’s apples-and-oranges comparison of the project’s $1.2 million cost to the tens of millions spent by Skokie, Glenview and other suburbs on brand new cop shops; or Task Force member Ralph Cincinelli’s fear of losing a $40,000 state grant as justification for spending $1.2 million on the project.

If neither one of those arguments sounds all that convincing, join the club.  We’re chalking it up as further proof that, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. 

From that point on, however, the rest of Schmidt’s vetoes were sustained, starting with the $69,375 line item for across-the-board raises for non-union employee payable out of the General Fund (with Knight, Maloney and Smith voting to sustain v. Sweeney, DiPietro and Raspanti voting to over-ride) and continuing with the $1,745 line item for across-the-board raises for non-union employees payable out of the Water Fund (with only Raspanti voting to over-ride).

The Council’s rejection of these raises is significant on two levels.  First, as noted by Ald. Knight, they are the product of “lazy” management because they are virtually indiscriminate and fail to reward performance or productivity.  Second, they effectively serve as a gold-plated invitation to demands by unionized employees for similar, non-merit based raises – while at the same time undercutting the City’s ability to credibly argue that it can’t afford such raises for union employees.

The third and final veto-sustaining vote was for the $49,500 line-item donation to private corporation Center of Concern (with Knight, Maloney, Raspanti and Smith voting to sustain v. DiPietro and Sweeney voting to over-ride).

As has become S.O.P whenever Center of Concern makes a trip to the public trough, it was well-represented at last night’s meeting.  Both its current and former directors, John McNabola and Mary Schurder, spoke in favor of continuing the annual handout CofC has enjoyed for as long as anyone can remember, even though it never has provided any meaningful accounting of exactly how many of those tax dollars go for what particular services to which particular Park Ridge residents.   

Additional turns at the podium were taken by CofC Board members Rudy Smolka and former ald. Sue Beaumont, while former alds. John Kerin (also a CofC Board member) and Dawn Disher (CofC Finance & Development Dir.) lent moral support from their seats until getting up and leaving in barely-concealed disgust after the Council majority rejected their requests and sustained Schmidt’s veto.

Even former Park Ridge mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark added his faux-eminence to the CofC cause, although his remarks were limited to some stage-whispered aspersions cast on Schmidt’s character as he departed the Council chambers with the rest of the CofC migration – once again displaying the classless-act he’s always been.

But the most notable element of the CofC funding debate was provided by Ald. Maloney, whose succinct and pointed analysis of the policy and procedural shortcomings in the way the current and previous Councils have been funding CofC and other private community groups over the years was nothing less than a tour de force, deserving of a viewing whenever the meeting video is posted on the City’s website. 

Maloney’s comments seemed to confirm that Schmidt’s veto of the CofC funding would be sustained, which moved CofC’s premier apologist and cheerleader on the Council, DiPietro, to suddenly claim that CofC was willing to sign a contract with the City for the provision of its services – something we’ve been advocating for some time and which Maloney cited in his comments.  DiPietro’s credibility on this point, however, was compromised by the fact that none of the pro-CofC speakers, including its current and former directors, said one word about any such “contract” when they had addressed the Council earlier.

So that portion of the meeting ended with the total savings to the taxpayers, compliments of the Council-sustained Schmidt vetoes, being a tidy $120,620.  Not bad for government work.

Frankly, we would much prefer if basic fiscal responsibility didn’t have to be imposed by mayoral veto.  Unfortunately, a lack of fiscal discipline and foresight by past Councils, combined with some unsound and costly decisions like the Uptown TIF, has left the City behind the financial 8-ball despite all the recent expense-cutting and improved management efficiencies.  And this current Council, although decidedly better than its predecessors, still can’t be counted on for a consistent approach to the City’s continuing and prospective financial challenges – as evidenced by its original budget votes that necessitated Schmidt’s vetoes, and by its over-ride of the cop shop project veto.

Whether the City will be able to turn the corner on those challenges just by cutting expenses further, without significant tax increases, appears unlikely due to that Uptown TIF albatross, whose debt service requirements are scheduled to hang even heavier around the City’s neck for the next several years.

But by aggressively reducing existing non-essential services and foregoing the implementation of new ones, this City administration is building a bond of credibility and trust with taxpayers whose goodwill and pocketbooks have been taken for granted far too long.

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Last night the Park Ridge City Council – in a special session with Ald. Tom Bernick (6th) MIA and reportedly resigned – voted 6-0 to terminate City Mgr. Jim Hock.

When Hock arrived four years ago from Oak Park, Michigan, we were duly skeptical of what the taxpayers would get for the excessive compensation package negotiated by then-mayor Howard Frimark.  We ended our 05.30.08 post with the following: 

“So while we welcome Mr. Hock and hope that he earns all our hard-earned money he’s being paid, we have to wonder if this is yet another ‘sweetheart deal’ by Mayor Howard and his Alderpuppets?”

Unfortunately, despite some legitimate potential, Hock never really did earn his $200,000+, all-in, compensation. 

Presented at the outset with a choice of working at good government or playing at politics, Hock chose the latter.  He promptly hopped into the bad-government bed of Frimark and his Alderpuppets (Jim Allegretti, Don Bach, Tom Carey and Robert Ryan), serving as a willing accomplice to Frimark’s efforts to build a big new police station, finagle special deals for buddies like Bill Napleton, Bruce Adreani and the owner of 720 Garden, and spend the City into million dollar-plus deficits from which it is only now beginning to recover.

Even after Frimark was defeated by current Mayor Dave Schmidt in April 2009, Hock remained firmly tucked under the covers with the Alderpuppets.  And he was rewarded for his “loyalty” when they, along with current Alds. Joe Sweeney and Rich DiPietro, inexcusably gave him an even sweeter contract that included a ridiculous $120,000+ severance benefit that will now pay Hock more for not working than most Park Ridge taxpayers can earn in a given year.

Ironically, Frimark made a brief appearance at last night’s meeting and reportedly bent the ear of a couple of reporters before scooting away while the Council was in closed session debating Hock’s fate.  Rumor has it that ol’ “Let’s Make A Deal” has been talking about a rematch with Schmidt, claiming the support not only of old backers like DiPietro and the folks who run Taste of Park Ridge NFP, but also some old adversaries like Center of Concern treasurer (and 1/2-term 4th Ward Ald.) Jim Radermacher.

Frankly, we’d love to see Howard try to resurrect his what’s-in-it-for-me style of government and see whether the voters are gullible enough to buy into it a second time.  But until a formal announcement is forthcoming, it’s just rumor and idle speculation from the master of rumor and speculation himself.

Meanwhile, long-time Deputy City Mgr. Juliana Maller will take over as acting City Mgr. while the search is commenced for Hock’s replacement.  Although the temptation will be great to search for another public-sector bureaucrat to replace Hock, we hope the Council invites applications from people with private-sector experience as well.

And after two successive non-resident carpetbaggers (Michigander Hock and his predecessor, Wisconsinite Tim Schuenke), maybe it wouldn’t hurt to look for somebody who has a long-term stake in, and commitment to, this community, or at least this general area.

Oh yeah…and someone who’s more concerned about running honest, transparent, accountable, cost-effective government than with playing politics and pandering to the special interests.

To read or post comments, click on title.

The political “thermometer” at City Hall during Monday night’s special Council meeting indicated that the temperature was just about right for firing City Mgr. Jim Hock.

With five aldermen (Sweeney, Smith, Raspanti, Knight and Maloney) expressing significant dissatisfaction with Hock’s performance, only a procedural technicality – the posted meeting agenda described a discussion of Hock’s performance but no vote – appears to have kept Hock on the job for another few days, presumably until tomorrow night (7:00 p.m.) when the Council is supposed to reconvene with a properly descriptive agenda item.

Two members of the public in attendance addressed the Council in connection with Hock’s job performance.  One, a member of the City’s Zoning Board of Appeals, gave a scathing indictment of City’s staff’s performance (implicitly under Hock’s non-leadership) in connection with ZBA matters.  She branded certain staff work product as “trash” that reflected poorly on Hock.

But in our book the more damning indictment came from Cliff Kowalski, who lives next door to the mini-mansion at 322 Vine which has been the subject of an ongoing City regulatory process for the past few years that would give a Kafka novel a run for its money.

Kowalski could have criticized Hock and staff for being indecisive and ineffective in dealing with the building code violations and the resulting flooding attributed to that 322 Vine property.  But, instead, the heart of his complaint was that Hock and staff actively misled him and other affected neighbors into believing the City was actually going to take some action to remedy the problems with 322 Vine when it subsequently became clear they never had any intention of doing so.

Which points out a big problem with City government: getting a straight answer out of City Hall with Hock at the helm.

Just trying to get an accurate and complete understanding of this continuing 322 Vine saga is almost impossible because of the conflicting accounts of it – at least two or three of which seem to be coming from City Hall.  And almost all of this has gone on behind the scenes because Hock, like so many bureaucrats, acts like nothing good can come from telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to the ordinary citizens – even about something as straightforward as the building code.

Nevetheless, there seems to be a consensus that the grade of the 322 Vine property was raised more than a foot above its neighboring properties during the construction of the mini-mansion.  Not only was that heightened elevation contrary to the plans for the construction approved by the City when it issued the building permit but, standing alone, it likely was a building code violation that could have earned the property owner a fine of between $50 and $2,500.  Per day.

When construction was substantially complete and the owner sought a Certificate of Occupancy (“CO”), we understand it was determined that the property’s drainage system built to accommodate the water that would be running of the substantial structure and its extensive paved areas did not conform to the engineering plans on for which the City issued the building permit.  At that time, however, a regulation on the books let the City accept an engineer’s opinion that the drainage system actually constructed was the effective equivalent of what had been approved on the plans that received the permit.

And here’s where the real intrigue begins and things start to get funky, if not a little kinky.   

If we understand it correctly, the City hired private engineer Bernie Bono, who opined that 322 Vine’s drainage system, as built, was the effective equivalent of the system provided for in the permitted plans.  On the basis of Bono’s certification, the City issued the CO and the owners moved in.  A question, however, has been raised about whether Bono may have had a conflict of interest because of services he allegedly performed for the property owner before undertaking his review of the situation for the City.

Frankly, we don’t have the space or the inclination to go into all the remaining details of what has happened since then, except to say that there are a lot of them and they involve an alternative drainage plan requiring swales whose locations and depths were both un-mapped and un-measured.  They also prominently feature Bono, Steve Cutaia (the City’s Building Administrator), Hock, and even the City Attorney – who is stuck trying to sort through the mess these others have made and then advise the City on whether, how, and at what cost the City might try to enforce its building code requirements against 322 Vine four years after the fact.

But the bottom line is that four years have gone by and Kowalski and the 322 Vine neighbors still don’t have a definitive answer from the City on what, if anything, can or will be done about this situation.

But it might not be Hock’s problem much longer.

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Center of Concern Could Learn A Lesson From Misericordia:  If you were out and about Park Ridge today you likely saw a number of people in red and white pull-over vests collecting donations in front of Starbucks and various other local establishments for Misericordia/Heart of Mercy.  Obviously, the supporters of that institution are willing to walk their fundraising talk – unlike, for example, our community’s Center of Concern, whose primary fundraising seems to consist of coming to the City of Park Ridge for its annual $49,500 handout.

In a letter to the editor in this week’s edition of the Park Ridge Journal, CofC Finance Chair (and former 4th Ward Park Ridge alderman) Jim Radermacher ripped into Mayor Dave Schmidt for vetoing CofC’s 2012-13 line item budget handout, and branded as “shameful” Schmidt’s call for CofC to “increase its efforts” at fundraising directly from the taxpayers rather than through the City.  

But a look at Schedule G to CofC’s latest IRS Form 990 tax return for the fiscal year ending 06/30/11 reveals a measly $59,873 in gross receipts from its “Fundraising Events” (a “Dinner/Auction,” a “Holiday Party” and an event identified only as “2”) that produced…a $9,186 loss!  Unless that’s the product of lackadaisical effort or incompetent execution, such a pathetic showing belies CofC’s claim to widespread community support.

Perhaps Mr. Radermacher and all the other current and former local politicians that fill CofC’s board of directors and advisory board might want to consider taking a page from Misericordia’s fundraising playbook and hit the streets of Park Ridge with their own vests and contribution cans.  Whether they could collect enough to make up for the loss of the City annual handout is hard to say, but at least they wouldn’t lose $9 grand.

Fallico Puts Sleeper Hold On Truth:  This week’s Journal also contains a letter from Maine South’s outstanding wrestling coach, Craig Fallico, bemoaning what he calls “teacher bashing” and its discouraging effect on “good teachers and, in turn, good teaching.”

Fallico notes as “fact” that Maine South’s average ACT score is 25 (which he rightfully applauds as “excellent!”) but then inexplicably follows it with the “fact” that a recent NY Times article pegs the average starting salary for a U.S. teacher at $39,000, going up to “a whopping $67,000” for a U.S. teacher after 25 years of service. 

Speaking about Maine South ACT scores in the context of national average teacher salaries, however, is kind of like comparing Dan Gable to Hulk Hogan.  On the other hand, maybe Fallico figured that the point he was trying to make would suffer if he used actual District 207 teacher salaries. 

That’s because, as reported on the “Illinois Interactive Report Card” published by Northern Illinois University, in 2011 the salary for the average Maine Twp. H.S. teacher with 15.1 years of experience was a whopping $108,336.  And according to the teacher salary database of the Family Taxpayers Foundation website, Fallico himself makes a $123,242 salary after 20 years of service – without even getting into the wonderful pension benefits of as much as 75% of salary that can kick in as early as age 55.

That’s enough to make Park Ridge taxpayers feel like they’ve been put in a Full Nelson.

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Once upon a time public sector employment in the State of Illinois was generally – with certain notable exceptions – less coveted than private sector employment. 

The private sector generally paid better.  It generally offered better pension and health benefits.  And it usually provided more stability than the public sector, where the political whims of certain elected or appointed officials could derail the careers of the competent-but-unconnected because “who you knew” usually meant more in the public sector than what you knew.

But public-sector employment has become the place to go if you want good pay, great benefits, plenty of time off, early retirement, minimal accountability, and job security.  One reason is because, while private-sector employment has become increasingly susceptible to the vagaries of competition and a world labor market, public employment is effectively insulated from those same vagaries. 

Just as significantly, many of our politicians – especially those who aspire to become career politicians – figured out that pandering to public employees and the unions that represent them could facilitate those aspirations. That has created a political-legal landscape which places the taxpayers at risk of being fleeced every time one of their governmental bodies enters into negotiations with a public employee union. 

As we’ve seen even in our sleepy little burg, public-sector unions seem to consistently outfox the City’s well-paid negotiators and their even better-paid outside labor lawyers who “specialize” in public-sector matters and have learned from years of experience what kind of wage and benefit increases they can give away while keeping the politicians sedated, the public somnolent, and the legal fees rolling in.

That’s one big reason why public employee wages have continued to increase by percentages that often exceed both the cost of living and what their private-sector peers get.  Public-sector pension and health benefits have become the envy of those very private-sector folks who are footing the bill for those benefits while trying to figure out how to keep their own 401(k)s from becoming 41(k)s.  And let’s not forget all those holidays and other days off (MLK’s Birthday, Casimir Pulaski Day…) that most private-sector employees haven’t enjoyed since grammar school.

As if that weren’t enough, the chances that our teachers and our police and fire personnel might get fired, or see their jobs moved to another state or outsourced to Mexico, are virtually non-existent.

All of which is an admittedly longish lead-in to our question: What’s going on with the teacher negotiations over at Park Ridge-Niles Elementary School District 64?

D-64 gets a full one-third, and then some, of our property tax payments, but it may be the most adept of all our local governmental bodies in avoiding serious scrutiny and keeping meaningful information under wraps.  Heck, it didn’t even start videotaping its meetings until last summer, 3 years after the City started and more than a decade after the Park District initiated that practice.

As we understand it, the current contract between D-64 and the teachers union – benignly calling itself the “Park Ridge Education Association” (“PREA”) because, presumably, something with “education” in it is much more marketable than “teachers union” – expires this summer.  Yet from what we hear the negotiations haven’t even begun.

From the perspective of bargaining strategy and tactics, that already gives a 15-love advantage to the PREA – because the closer it can drag out the negotiations to the beginning of the next school year, the better the odds of its being able to stampede D-64 parents and the lightweight D-64 School Board majority into wage and benefit concessions so as to ensure that the schools open on time; or, in other words, to avoid any teacher strike that might play havoc with the work and social schedules of so many D-64 parents.

And that delay also earns PREA a 30-love advantage by eliminating lay-offs (or “RIF”s, in school district parlance) as a D-64 bargaining tool.  That’s because, as we understand it, staffing decisions for next school year effectively became locked in as of April 1 – meaning that every teacher staffing position provided for at that time is guaranteed for next school year.

Although lay-offs have more power in negotiations with police and fire employees whose statutory collective bargaining process includes mandatory binding arbitration if agreement can’t be reached, the threat of layoffs can still be a powerful reality check when employee demands become unreasonable or onerous.  The PREA’s ability to delay the negotiations beyond the lay-off deadline, however, took that tool out of D-64’s toolbox.

But where the PREA takes game, set and match is the provision it was able to finagle into the current contract (and possibly previous ones) that requires secrecy about the negotiations until the parties reach a tentative agreement or formal impasse – the same kind of bargaining arrangement that Park Ridge City Mgr. Jim Hock and both the City’s regular and labor attorneys tried to sucker the City Council into adopting as Hock’s ridiculous Council Policy No. 8. 

Being able to insist on “secret” collective bargaining not only enables but actually emboldens the unions to make outrageous demands, knowing that the public won’t hear about those demands until after the deal is done, if ever.  In closed sessions, union negotiators can be uncompromising, dismissive and even belligerent with impunity, and then put on their very best “Eddie Haskell” persona when they finally emerge into public view.

For teachers, that persona is the well-burnished “for the kids” trope; for police and fire personnel, it’s the heroic “first responders” image.  Either way, those personae have been crafted to appeal to, and to exploit, the ignorance, the naivete, and the goodwill of the average taxpaying citizen.  And it’s those personae that have greased the way for the growth in public-sector wages and benefits to where they have become unsustainable.

But don’t expect the public employees, their unions, or most of our politicians to do anything about it…other than to continue to hide what they’re doing from the taxpayers until the deals are done.

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We first professed our appreciation of NIMBYs (“Not In My Back Yard”) four years ago, in our post of 04.21.08 addressing an attempt to open a PADS homeless shelter.

Back then a group of local church officials and some City politicians, led by then-mayor Howard Frimark, wanted to ignore the City’s Zoning Code and stick the shelter in the basement of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.  But a group of NIMBYs loudly challenged that plan (and a subsequent one for St. Paul of the Cross school) on a variety of grounds, including zoning considerations; and their efforts quickly captured the attention and support of residents throughout the City for enforcement of the zoning requirements that ultimately kept the PADS shelter out of Park Ridge.

Now a new NIMBY cause celebre has arisen in response to the Whole Foods store planned for the corner of Touhy and Washington. 

The NIMBYs oppose the zoning change known as a “map amendment” – from R-5 (multi-family residential) to B-1 (retail and office) – that passed through the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission last Tuesday night by a vote of 9-0, and which now moves to the City Council for final approval.  The site is currently occupied by: (a) a long-time vacant, 2-story 76,000 square foot office building at 225 W. Touhy Ave.; (b) a long-time vacant 2-story 30,000 square foot office building at 1 S. Washington Ave.; and (c) 269 parking spaces. 

The proposed Whole Foods store would be a 1.5 story, 38,000 square foot structure.  According to the proposed site plan, the Advocate health care office building immediately east of the site on Touhy and the medical office building immediately south of the site on Washington would remain.

A number of neighborhood residents (i.e., the NIMBYs) and a few residents from outside the neighborhood have sounded the alarm on this project, raising concerns about traffic, congestion and safety – especially of the children who have to cross an already pedestrian un-friendly Touhy Ave. when walking to and from nearby St. Paul of the Cross elementary school.  Ironically, some of the opponents to this new zoning change from R-5 to B-1 opposed the change from B-1 to R-5 for the same site back in 2007, when this same developer, along with Norwood Builders, tried to construct a 4-building, 168-unit condominium complex there. 

But real estate market forces made that project unworkable, and so the developer is coming back to the well with a new concept believed to be better suited to the changed real estate market.

As we wrote in our 02.01.12: “[W]e welcome the idea of a Mariano’s and/or Whole Foods locating in areas that otherwise might prove alluring to yet more multi-family residential developers.”  And, frankly, we see almost all pluses from replacing a total of 106,000 square feet of perennially-vacant office space with 38,000 square feet of retail space, especially the higher-end kind of retail that Whole Foods represents.

In response to NIMBY complaints, the developers claim to have looked at other sites in Park Ridge but that none would accommodate the kind of store Whole Foods wants for Park Ridge.  Assuming the developers are telling the truth, that casts the issue as a simple up-or-down one: Does Park Ridge want a Whole Foods or not?

Assuming the answer to that up-or-down question is “yes,” it should still be incumbent on the City to do whatever it can – notwithstanding the limitations that come from Touhy and Northwest Hwy. being state roads over which IDOT has principal authority – to address any real problems and dangers that arise from turning underperforming property into what we hope will become a thriving retail business.  That means analyzing and balancing all the competing interests in a deliberate, well-reasoned and wise manner, relying on facts rather than anecdotes and mere opinion whenever possible. 

Coping with increased traffic – both vehicular and pedestrian – in that area would appear to be the most significant challenge, one that will require a lot of attention and, perhaps, some innovation.

By raising these issues the Whole Foods NIMBYs already have provided a valuable service to the community.  But that shouldn’t be the end of it.  Should the project be approved by the City Council, we sincerely hope that the NIMBYs will work with the City and the developer to minimize those problems instead of simply taking their ball and going home.

Because, at the end of the day, we’re all in this together.  And the first order of business is to do what’s best for the community as a whole.

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We’ve been trying to figure out Ald. Joe Sweeney (1st) since he took his seat on the City Council as newly-elected Mayor Dave Schmidt’s appointee to fill the Council seat Schmidt was vacating for the big chair at The Horseshoe.

Sweeney has called himself a “conservative.”  That term has become relatively meaningless over the years but, had it not, Sweeney’s brand of conservatism would have rendered it so – as his votes on various issues over the past three years seem about as “conservative” as…oh…a drunken Secret Service agent in a Colombian brothel?

For example, Sweeney seems to favor virtually unfettered spending on anything that smacks of “public safety,” whether it be raises and benefits for police and fire employees, an enlargement and renovation to the current police station, the latest railroad Crossing Cam, or everything in between.  He also has supported raises for non-safety, non-union City employees – perhaps because they provide handy in-house “comparables” that the collective bargaining agents for his favorite unionized public safety employees can use to leverage the same or higher raises from the City or an arbitrator. 

So when it came time Monday night (04/16/12) for the vote to sustain Schmidt’s veto of approx. $6,000 worth of firefighters contract amendments that were ostensibly entered into in order to settle a grievance over paid holidays provided by their new contract, we counted Sweeney as a sure vote – along with Ald. Rich DiPietro (2nd), who rarely has seen tax dollars he can’t find a way to spend – to over-ride that veto.  True to form, Sweeney blubbered about how the vetoed settlement would end up going to “no-win” arbitration and cost the City money. 

But then Sweeney kicked it up a notch with a petty political announcement that he would vote to sustain Schmidt’s veto…if Schmidt would agree to personally reimburse the City for any and all expenses the City incurs if it were to lose the arbitration.

Understandably, Schmidt declined.

But when Sweeney’s name was called first on the sustain/over-ride vote, he oddly invoked Roberts Rules of Order and passed on his vote.  DiPietro predictably voted to over-ride before Ald. Jim Smith (3rd) also passed, explaining later that he “just did it to annoy Joe.”  For reasons neither of them explained, Alds. Sal Raspanti (4th) and Marty Maloney (7th) also voted to over-ride, while Ald. Dan Knight (5th) predictably voted to sustain.

That made it 3-1 for over-ride when Sweeney cast his over-ride vote.

When Smith voted to sustain, however, the over-ride effort failed to get the necessary 5-vote super-majority because Ald Tom Bernick (6th), a certain over-ride vote, was…wait for it…absent yet again.

By our unofficial count, Bernick has been MIA from Council meetings significantly more in his first year in office than the previous record holder, former Ald. Robert Ryan (5th), had been when he was cited for excessive absenteeism by the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate in both an article and an editorial in its June 19, 2008, edition.  Bernick’s absences may leave the Sixth Ward unrepresented, but we happen to think that MIA Tommy contributes more by his absence than by his presence, as Schmidt’s sustained veto demonstrates.

But Sweeney’s crass political grandstanding was not just the mindless buffoonery it appeared at casual glance. 

His comments and his vote sent an unmistakable message to the City’s unionized employees that Sweeney will readily grab his ankles and vote to give those employees whatever they want, rather than risk going to arbitration.  And if Monday night’s veto vote and/or their prior support of a 2% across-the-board salary increase line-item in the new budget are any indication, so will DiPietro, Raspanti and Maloney.

Earlier Monday evening, Schmidt read his budget veto message that properly recognized this year’s budgetary accomplishments while wisely noting the many financial perils which remain.  That’s why, despite the new budget’s projection of the largest “real” surplus in at least a decade, $462,000, Schmidt felt compelled to line-item veto another $480,000 of non-essential spending, and then warned about that still not being enough.

Finance Director Allison Stutts, the diligent architect of this new budget (along with Council Finance & Budget Chair Knight), echoed Schmidt’s concerns, pointing out to TribLocal reporter Jon Davis that Schmidt’s vetoes will only help with one year and “won’t solve…any of the problems we have with the Uptown TIF.”

None of those discouraging words phased DiPietro, however.  After years of irresponsibly rubber-stamping deficits as both an alderman and the previous Finance & Budget chair, he promptly voiced his disagreement with all of Schmidt’s line-item vetoes, singling out that line item belonging to DiPietro’s favorite private charity, Center of Concern: “I think there is a legitimate responsibility for the community to help human-needs services like Center of Concern.”

So do we, Richie D.  Which is why it’s well past time you and your current and former politician buddies who fill the ranks of CofC’s board of directors and advisory board (including the newest addition, former 5th Ward ald. Rich Whalen) started running some real fundraisers instead of putting yet another involuntary and arbitrary CofC “donation” on the taxpayers’ tab.

As for Sweeney odd, we suggest he stop advertising his willingness to give away the store to the City’s employees.  While he’s at it, he should come up with some ways to save the taxpayers’ money instead of more ways to spend it.  And if he wants to prove how serious he was with his idea that City officials guarantee the adverse financial consequences of their erroneous decisions, he should put his own “John Hancock” behind each of the mayor’s line-item budget vetoes Sweeney intends to over-ride on May 7.

Or, if that’s too rich for starters, he can instead guarantee what should have been the City’s half of the first $20,000 of this year’s Taste of Park Ridge profits.

How about it, Sweens?

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One of our favorite quotes is: “In a contest between the shameless and the spineless, the shameless always win.”  That might be because it applies to so many situations, especially ones involving local government.

It sure seems to describe the case certain Park Ridge senior citizens have against the Park Ridge Recreation & Park District.  And we do mean “case,” as in lawsuit: Teresa Grodsky, Trustee v. Park Ridge Recreation and Park District, et al., Case No. 12 CH 2032, currently pending before the Hon. Peter Flynn in the Circuit Court of Cook County, involving competing claims to an approx. $330,000 bequest by deceased Park Ridge Senior Center member Betty Kemnitz to “the Park Ridge Senior Center.”

Until now, “Park Ridge Senior Center” was commonly used to describe the Park District-owned building at 100 S. Western Avenue, not its “membership” of between 800 and 1,000 “seniors” at least 55 years of age.  Presumably because of a relationship Grodsky developed with Kemnitz through Grodsky’s many years as the Park District’s manager of the Senior Center – until she resigned at the end of last year, under pressure – Kemnitz named Grodsky the trustee of the trust from which the bequest is to be made.

We suspect it is due to competing claims to the money (as can be seen from the Park District’s “Answer” to the Complaint) that Grodsky is asking the court to tell her who to give it to – although we understand that Grodsky already may have distributed a good chunk of that cash to one or more entities other than the Park District.

So who are the shameless and who are the spineless?

The “shameless” undoubtedly are that vocal minority of Senior Center members who want to retain the Park District’s (a/k/a the taxpayers’) building as their semi-private clubhouse while continuing to pay their paltry annual dues of only $45 – even as annual Community Center memberships are several times that, and Park District-affiliated kids sports programs are double that price for only a 3-4 month season. 

Depending on the day and the circumstance, those seniors might claim to be members of Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc., a private 501(c)(3) corporation (“Seniors Inc.”) that isn’t even legally affiliated with the Park District.  Or they might claim to be members of something called the “Senior Senate” (the “SS”), to which the Park District seems to have given an unofficial advisory voice in Senior Center affairs even though, as Helen Roppel insisted in last week’s Park Ridge Journal, “we are not part of the Park District.” 

And now, seemingly in order to gain extra leverage in the lawsuit, the Senior Inc/SS folks reportedly are claiming to be an unincorporated association called…wait for it…“Park Ridge Senior Center” (the “Association”), which has hired its own attorneys (using Kemnitz funds?) and will reportedly ask Judge Flynn to declare that the Kemnitz bequest belongs to…wait for it…Seniors Inc.  

Irrespective of whatever they choose to call themselves, however, what these seniors appear to be is just plain greedy.  And decidedly ungrateful to the taxpayers.

As we’ve written in many previous posts, these seniors seem to share the mindset that because they are older and have been paying taxes for years, they somehow have accrued an entitlement to taxpayer subsidization of their semi-private clubhouse free from interference by the very Park District which owns the building and squeezes those subsidies out of the taxpayers.  Again, quoth Roppel (per the Journal): “We set the dues, we set the programs, we enter into lease agreements and any kind of contracts.”  Or, in case that isn’t clear enough:

“It’s not their place,” says Roppel, referring to the Park District. “[T]hey are not the Park Ridge Senior Center.”

Which, by process of elimination, makes the folks at the Park District the “spineless” ones for having allowed this ridiculous charade to continue for the past 18 months – if not for the past several years that the Senior Center has been booking $150,000-plus annual operating deficits that the Park District taxpayers have subsidized.  We have tracked those deficits back to at least 2005, and since then they total approx. $1 million.  Since those deficits first became publicized a couple years ago, the Senior Center dues have been raised from $22 to the current $45, generating as much as an additional $23,000 annually, or approx. $127,000 less than the average annual Senior Center deficit.

Big whoop.

For the past 18 months Park District management – both Board and Staff – has diddled itself silly while responding fecklessly to Seniors Inc./SS/Association demands, as it once again demonstrated just last Wednesday night at a “special” meeting called for the purpose of….well…um…er…making a motion to make another motion at this coming Thursday night’s “regular” meeting to create a Senior Center Advisory Committee to replace the SS as the District’s advisory body for the Senior Center.

Feel free to laugh in lieu of crying.  

Worse yet, that feckless Park District management has begun throwing good tax dollars after bad in litigating with Grodsky, Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan (who, by law, must be named in suits involving charitable trusts), Seniors Inc. and perhaps the Association over the diminishing Kemnitz bequest.  Sad to say, there’s no reason to believe that the shameless won’t defeat the spineless in that litigation, either, even if the shameless’ “victory” does nothing more than consume a substantial portion of the Kemnitz bequest in legal fees.

So here’s an idea, Park District: throw in the towel now rather than later.

Let the greedy seniors have the Kemnitz dough, irrespective of what Betty K may have wanted.  No need to spend tens of thousands of additional tax dollars litigating when you know Grodsky is going to testify against the Park District’s getting it, and this situation is sufficiently bollixed, both factually and legally, that there’s no telling how the judge may ultimately rule.   

Instead of litigating, do what should have been done at least 7 years ago: figure out the fully-loaded cost to operate the Senior Center and start charging annual membership dues that can be expected to cover that cost.  If the greedy seniors don’t want to pay those higher dues, let them join one of those neighboring communities’ senior centers they’ve been bragging about as being so much cheaper and better than this one.

Or let them start their own “Senior Center.”  As Roppel was quoted in last week’s Herald-Advocate story: “We can take our Senior Center and move it any place we want.”

Vaya con Dios, Helen.

But while you’re at it, Park District, you also might want to re-visit the rules and regulations for your “affiliated” organizations – at least some of which are private 501(c)(3) corporations like Seniors Inc. – to make sure those organizations are paying their fully-loaded costs; and to prevent what happened with the Kemnitz bequest from happening with any future bequest to one of those affiliates.

Because when it comes to taking advantage of government, the “shameless” come in a variety of packages besides “seniors.”

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