As we noted in Monday’s post, While Park Ridge Slept, Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark and the rest of our City officials must have been been hitting the Ambien CR for the past few years while the City of Chicago was busy constructing the new runway known as 9L/27R at O’Hare.  What else could explain their virtually total silence on the subject for all that time?

But now the runway is open and attracting a steady stream of noisy planes buzzing the southern half of Park Ridge like Baron von Richtofen’s Flying Circus and irritating a lot of residents in the process.  And the newly-awakened Frimark and his unofficial air marshall, 3rd Ward Alderpuppet Don Bach, are going hyper-active trying to make up for all that lost time.

So they hastily scheduled a “town hall” meeting for tomorrow (December 13) at 9:30 a.m. at City Hall, apparently as a tune-up for the main event next Thursday (December 18, 7:30 p.m.) at the Maine South High School auditorium, where O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (“ONCC”) executive director Brian Gilligan, ONCC chair (and Arlington Hts. mayor) Arlene Mulder, and an FAA player to be named later are scheduled to show up to say and do…we’re not sure what. 

Could it be another meaningless song and dance like we got from the Com Ed representatives who showed up for Frimark’s last dog-and-pony show, following the power outage of August 2007?  Come to Maine South next Thursday and find out.

But really, folks, what can we realistically expect to do about a new runway that has cost in excess of $500 million and is touted as being necessary to cutting the delays at O’Hare that purportedly trickle down to the rest of the country?

Well, if you’re Air Marshall Bach, you make foolish public comments about Park Ridge possibly rejoining what’s left of the Suburban O’Hare Commission (“SOC”), before recanting less than a week later and claiming that your original comment was merely “intended to put pressure on the [ONCC]” – as was reported in an article in yesterday’s Herald-Advocate (“Join SOC again? Bach doesn’t support idea,” Dec. 11).

Yes indeed, that’s sure a great way to win friends and influence people on the ONCC: Tell the organization with 28 member communities that you’re going to quit it and join the dynamic duo of Bensenville and Elk Grove Village in their unending crusade to spend jillions of dollars on their litigation to nowhere. 

You may remember those two erstwhile Park Ridge “allies” as the sharpies who nicked O’Hare-obsessed former mayor Ron Wietecha and his City Council (2nd Ward Alderpuppet Rich DiPietro being the sole surviving dupe from that Council) for $650,000 of our tax dollars on a half-baked scheme to build a third Chicago airport near Peotone.  Back then, Wietecha (with DiPietro’s backing) heralded that giveaway as an “investment” – which it turned out to be, but of the Enron variety.

But back to Bach, who despite recanting his interest in rejoining SOC is nevertheless now questioning Park Ridge’s continued membership in the ONCC and the quality of information it provides its members.  He’s also claiming that Park Ridge and the other ONCC communities were advised that 9L/27R would only be used in poor weather and by smaller aircraft.

From whom exactly did you hear that, Air Marshall Bach?  Was there a memo?  How about even some handwritten notes scribbled on a cocktail napkin by somebody who used to work for the FAA?  Anything?  Anybody?  Bueller?

The bottom line, folks, is that while 9L27R was being built our current mayor was too busy with other things – like cutting the size of the Council and working out deals for his buddies/campaign contributors on such things as zoning variances for the dormant Executive Office Plaza project, $2.4 million of concessions for Napleton, and trying to buy some land for a new cop shop. 

You might want to remember that each time another jet roars over your house.