Now that the details of Park Ridge Chief of Police Jeff Caudill’s “Voluntary Separation Agreement And Release Of All Claims” (“The Fix”) are finally being released by the City, we’re left to scratch our heads and wonder even more about the honesty and the judgment of the folks running City Hall.

As best as we can recall, Caudill received annual raises that exceeded the cost of living ever since his promotion to chief in 2000, which we assume were at least in part a reward for his performance.  Those raises were presumably endorsed by then-Alderman now-Mayor Howard Frimark (since 2003), Ald. Rich DiPietro (since 2000), Ald. Jim Allegretti and Ald. Frank Wsol (since 2005), and former City Mgr. Tim Schuenke (since 2000).

So with all those years of performance-based rewards, why was Caudill suddenly shown the door? 

The most common rumor – and we’re stuck with rumor because nobody in a position to know is talking – is that he wouldn’t kow-tow to the mayor and was put in the ejector seat, ready to be launched the moment his boss and protector, Schuenke, left the building.  A variation on that same theme was that he was being booted to make room for a Frimark crony.  And a third version had him voluntarily departing before the Police Dept. was audited and he was sacked for cause.

If Caudill wasn’t getting the job done, why was he getting rewarded year after year with pay raises that not only put more money in his pocket but also drove up the benefits – and the costs – of his pension?  And whether or not Caudill has been getting the job done, the taxpayers still deserve a thorough explanation of why he got pushed out (and by whom), especially with The Fix that will pay him:

• A lump sum of $70,259;
• A salary increase of 4% “in recognition of his performance of Fiscal Year 2007/08;
• An “additional four percent (4%) in exchange for his voluntary separation prior to the commencement of the next fiscal year”; and
• Two (2) years of medical coverage for Caudill and his eligible dependents, under the same terms as when he was employed.

More troubling than the money, however, is the timing of The Fix – just as the City is planning to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an outside “audit” of the Police Department to investigate, among other things, a variety of allegations about mismanagement and the mistreatment of our residents that has resulted in more than one lawsuit against the City.  Putting The Fix in now, prior to the investigation, seems at best like putting the cart before the horse.

But more troubling still is the prospect that The Fix will result in a whitewash – at least as to “public” knowledge of any misconduct or incompetence by Caudill, which could effectively deprive the public of key audit information about the Police Department as a whole, as well as the auditors’ opinions and conclusions related to Caudill and his operation of the Department.  That’s because Paragraph 7 of The Fix provides that “Mr. Caudill and City management officials agree to refrain from making statements to the general public or news media disparaging one another.” [Emphasis added]

While non-disparagement language in such agreements is not unusual, its use in The Fix could be a huge mistake in view of the upcoming audit – something City Attorney Everette “Buzz” Hill already started tap-dancing around with his comments at Monday night’s Council meeting that the release of audit information would need to be “managed” so that the non-disparagement provision is not breached.  As Hill admitted about the wording of The Fix, “it is the release of the information to the public that is governed by that non-disparagement clause.”  

So what the City may have done, via The Fix, is contractually bind itself to a level of secrecy (at least about those parts of the audit related to Caudill being disclosed to the public) that exceeds anything it could enforce under the Illinois Open Meetings Act! 

Not surprisingly, the City’s negotiator of The Fix was now-former City Mgr. Tim Schuenke, which shows how Schuenke was able to dis-serve us one last time even as he was walking out the door.  But we also have to question why City Attorney Hill, who we assume is not so dumb that he didn’t realize the cover-up potential of that language, gave it his stamp of approval.  If he wasn’t asleep at the wheel, whose order was he marching to?  And instead of quietly tap-dancing around this issue Monday night, why wasn’t he loudly blowing the whistle on it?

Since the City obviously dropped the ball on this matter but isn’t legally entitled to a do-over, we are left to call on Chief Caudill to do the right thing and agree to amend The Fix to expressly exempt from the non-disparagement provision any fact-finding, conclusions, opinions and recommendations of the auditors.  The public deserves to know those things, and we think that’s the least Chief Caudill can do for his fellow taxpayers in return for the generous benefits he’s getting because The Fix is in.

They can’t keep our streets paved or fill the potholes.  They can’t stop the flooding of our basements.  They can’t get us dependable electric power.  They can’t stop hiring consultants to tell them only what they want to hear.  They can’t stop raising our taxes.  They can’t even stop giving away our money and special favors to political contributors. 

But one thing Mayor Howard Frimark and his Alderpuppets Jim Allegretti, Don Bach, Tom Carey, Rich DiPietro and Robert Ryan can do is run a witch hunt…or a snipe hunt, depending on your point of view.

At the City Council meeting this past Monday night (March 3), Frimark used his regular “Mayor’s Report” to read a prepared statement in which he, City Clerk Betty Henneman and the Alderpuppets publicly “condemned” the release of closed session information and materials by 1st Ward Warlock…er, Alderman…Dave Schmidt, apparently for Schmidt’s having the temerity to actually tell Park Ridge taxpayers how the City was going to spend more than a million dollars of their money on a police department “audit” and on the acquisition of yet another parcel of private property for a new police station.

As reported in today’s Park Ridge Journal (“Mayor Condemns Alderman’s Release Of Documents,” March 5), Frimark and Friends once again displayed their terminal ignorance of the Illinois Open Meetings Act (IOMA), with Frimark wrongly insisting that the Illinois legislature recognized that “certain matters…should not be discussed in open session.”  He then blamed Schmidt’s release of the previously-concealed information for having “laid waste to the confidence and trust that are necessary for deliberative bodies to carry out their duties.”

Bunk.

As we’ve said before, and as is clear from the discussion of IOMA on the Illinois Attorney General’s website, IOMA merely permits – but does not require – certain limited subjects to be discussed in closed session.  Moreover, nowhere in IOMA does the state legislature require that any of the information discussed or disseminated in, or in connection with, such closed sessions be treated as “confidential” or entitled to secrecy. 

Of course, given the wheeling and dealing that Frimark and the Alderpuppets have been concealing from their constituents in all those closed sessions, they need to trust each other to keep secrets – not unlike the Mafia with its “omerta” (code of silence). So a guy like Schmidt is their worst nightmare – an informant.  That’s bad for those conspirators, but great for us taxpayers.

Which would explain why Frimark snuck the “Council Decorum” item into the existing agenda over the weekend and then apparently circulated his condemnation statement among the Alderpuppets in classic “hub-and-spoke” conspiracy style, ostensibly to avoid violating IOMA.  And in classic Frimark style, he didn’t even have the decency to offer Schmidt the courtesy of a preview.  

From the account in The Journal and from reports of citizens in attendance Monday night, it almost sounds as if Frimark was flirting with McCarthyism in his attack on Schmidt.  The only question is whether Frimark’s McCarthyism is of the paranoid Sen. Joe McCarthy variety, or of the petulant Charlie McCarthy type. 

And the answer to that question might very well depend on whether Frimark is coming up with this nonsense on his own, or whether he’s just a dummy spouting the views of some behind-the-scenes Edgar Bergen.

Air Bud.  As we’ve said before, we here at PublicWatchdog encourage citizen involvement in local government, including the writing of letters to the editor of the local newspapers – even if the letter writer can usually be counted on to swing and miss on local government issues.  By that standard, Bud Jones’ letter to the editor in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Cut the cameras and balance the budget,” Feb. 28) does not disappoint.

Jones points to the city’s budget problems in denouncing the Park Ridge City Council for considering spending $130,000 to televise its meetings.  Fair enough, Bud…but if spending $130,000 to televise meetings is a “screamingly lamebrained idea that should be vetted via public referendum,” where were you when Mayor Frimark and his City Council alderpuppets recently gave Napleton Cadillac a whopping $400,000 of taxpayer dollars to clean up environmental problems at its old dealership so that Napleton could sell that property to PRC Partners, presumably at a tidy profit?  Or when they committed to giving Napleton up to $2 Million of the City’s sales tax revenue over 15 years – which coincidentally averages out to $130,000, but per year? 

If you aren’t just blowing smoke and really do want a referendum on a $130,000 television set-up, Bud, can we count on you to lead the petition drive for a referendum on the new $20-30 Million cop shop, or the multi-million library addition/entirely new library for which Richard Van Metre and his merry band of edifice-complex Library trustees are still pushing? 

Bud?  Bud?  Bueller?

Stay Free Mini-PADS.  This week’s H-A also features a story on St. Mary’s Episcopal Church’s plan to become a “Public Action to Deliver Shelter” (PADS) facility beginning in October, 2008. (“Park Ridge to join PADS network of shelters,” Feb. 28). 

Whether a PADS shelter is good or bad for Park Ridge is certainly worthy of public debate, but what we find noteworthy at this time is the secretive way St. Mary’s got to this point in the process. Specifically, we wonder why St. Mary’s didn’t go public with its PADS plan earlier this year when the dust-up arose over Christie’s Carousel of Learning relocating to the Park Ridge Presbyterian Church after 25 years at St. Mary’s.  Rev. Carrubba, why didn’t St. Mary’s advise our community at that time that Christie’s was being cut loose to create room for a PADS operation?  

Sad to say, it looks like the Culture of Secrecy practiced by our local governmental bodies might be spreading to our churches and our clergy.

We’ve Got It And We’re Spending It.  Fresh off its recent multi-million dollar referendum victory, Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 isn’t about to let all that new money burn a hole in its pocket.  So at its March 10 meeting, the D-64 Board expects to approve over $700,000 in new staffing positions, which it attempts to justify in classic bureaucrat doublespeak:

“What will happen if we don’t add (these positions)?” District. 64 Superintendent Sally Pryor asked at Tuesday’s board meeting. “That’s something that’s hard to quantify, but I can tell you in our professional opinion, given the resources that we have outlined, we will be able to make great improvements to student learning.” (“District 64 administration asks for more staffing positions,” Herald-Advocate, Feb. 28)

How convenient that Supt. Pryor’s “professional opinion” can assure us that adding those positions will cause “great improvements” in learning, yet that same “professional opinion” can’t seem to quantify the consequences of not getting these extra positions.  Will the extra staffing help our kids learn to spell words like “devious,” “disingenuous,” “duplicitous” and “deceitful”?    

They’ve Got A Secret. Although the local newspapers have reported the financial elements of Police Chief Jeff Caudill’s “separation agreement” with the City, the entire separation agreement has not been released to the City Council or the public because – according to ex-City Mgr. Tim Schuenke – it contains a confidentiality clause. 

Not surprisingly, 3rd Ward alderpuppet Don Bach is more than happy to keep those details quiet, but at least 1st Ward Alderman David Schmidt has once again stood up for the public’s right to know:

“We should explain to the public why [it was created] and the public should also be provided with details of the agreement because it’s their money,” Schmidt said.

Amen.