It’s hard to imagine how something like the introduction of new City Manager Jim Hock at Monday night’s City Council meeting could be botched so badly that the new official would end up being insulted by the mayor even before he signed his employment contract.  But that’s only because it’s hard to imagine Mayor Howard Frimark’s capacity for petty and boorish behavior.

With Hock and his wife looking on, Frimark prefaced his announcement of Hock’s hiring with the observation that he had wanted somebody else for the position.  That probably took a good bit of luster off the old Welcome Wagon for our newest city employee, but at least it gave Hock an early look at what he can expect from the mayor in the future.  

Not surprisingly, Frimark’s first choice for city manager – Chris Clark – was the least experienced of the three finalists, but he possessed the qualification our mayor most highly prizes: he was connected.  Not only is Clark a long-time insurance client of Frimark’s but so are his parents, who are also personal friends of the mayor’s.  Frimark indignantly claims that those relationships didn’t influence his choice of Clark and that they shouldn’t even be an issue.  But those kinds of relationships reek of conflict of interest and are exactly the things that should be publicly disclosed, early and often.

Not content merely to insult our new city manager, Frimark used the occasion to take another gratuitous swipe at his principal Council adversary, Ald. Dave Schmidt (1st Ward), for Schmidt’s completely lawful and honorable disclosure of the City’s process for hiring attorneys to audit the Park Ridge Police Department, and of the City’s attempt to purchase 720 Garden for a new police station – two matters that Frimark and his alderpuppets were concealing from the taxpayers.

But the most telling part of Frimark’s diatribe may have been his slap at “the ugly blogs” and certain un-named members of the public for “attacking [him] for sport” and creating a “toxic” political atmosphere in Park Ridge.  That’s because those objects of Frimark’s ire are the ones holding him accountable for his arrogant, crass and ham-handed abuse of City government – and the taxpayers who have to pay for it.

In the three years he has been mayor most of Frimark’s achievements have been of the dubious variety, including his leading role in ending decades of local government tradition by cutting the City Council in half, his driving most of the City’s senior staff to resignation or early retirement, and his creating the appearance of “pay to play” with his sweetheart deals for his political contributors – such as the Executive Office Plaza zoning variances and the Napleton land clean-up giveaway.

Calling out Mayor Frimark for the many ways he has been dis-serving his constituents is not “sport” because, frankly, it’s far too easy and unpleasant to be considered a sporting endeavor.  But it is our duty, one that we will continue to do until he either straightens up and flies right or he leaves the office to someone who understands that public service isn’t the same as self-service, someone who will fairly represent all the people of our community rather than a handful of special interests, and someone who appreciates Park Ridge for both what it is and what it is not. 

Until that time comes, the most “toxic” element of Park Ridge government will remain the man who sits in the big office at 505 Butler Place.