Those who remember the original “Dragnet” television series will certainly remember L.A. police Sgt. Joe Friday’s request for “just the facts, ma’am.”  And fans of the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan may remember his: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Both of those messages are becoming increasingly important as more and more people confuse opinion with fact, or just plain get their facts wrong.  This seems to occur most often among people who are trying to influence public opinion, whether they be politicians, reporters in the conventional media, bloggers, or ordinary citizens. 

That problem was recently illustrated by Park Ridge resident Ken Balaskovits’ letter in last week’s Park Ridge Journal (“City Officials Had Opportunity To Learn New Runway Details,” Dec. 17). 

In his letter, Balaskovits claims that it was the “purple ribbon” City Council that, back in 2003, had Park Ridge withdraw from the Suburban O’Hare Commission (“SOC”) even as then-mayor Ron Wietcha was expressing his concern about the adverse impact the new east-west runway would have on Park Ridge.

Balaskovits gets a 50% and, hence, a failing grade, on those points.  Although Wietecha did warn about the dangers to Park Ridge of O’Hare expansion back in 2003, the purple ribbons didn’t appear until May of 2005 – part of the orchestrated campaign by supporters of newly-elected Mayor Howard “Let’s Make A Deal” Frimark in response to Frimark’s whining about how that newly-elected Council “stole his powers” by exercising its legal authority to organize its own Council committees instead of letting Frimark make them up as he chose.

But Balaskovits, an ardent Frimark supporter, appears disingenuous when he carefully shapes his indictment of the City’s withdrawal from SOC so as to avoid mentioning that one of the 7 aldermen whose vote helped carry the City Council’s decision not to renew Park Ridge’s SOC membership – by payment of the annual dues of $64,000 and a $300,000 deposit on future litigation costs – was none other than then-4th Ward Ald. Howard Frimark, a fact reported in the Park Ridge Herald Advocate’s July 24, 2003, edition [pdf].

And as we pointed out in last week’s post (“‘Citizens Take Control’ Because Mayor and Council Don’t” Dec. 17, 2008),since becoming mayor, Frimark appears to have been so disinterested in O’Hare expansion – until the planes started buzzing the southern half of Park Ridge and his phone started ringing off the hook, that is – that he attended only one meeting of the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (“ONCC”), and that was only after then-Ald. Jeannie Markech, at the December 5, 2003, City Council meeting, directly (and publicly) suggested that he and the other aldermen begin doing so.

We don’t expect Frimark to admit that he was asleep at the wheel on O’Hare Expansion.  When it comes to accountability, Frimark believes that the buck stops anywhere and everywhere but on his desk. 

But we wonder whether any of the citizens who are, with Frimark’s encouragement, scrambling to find some way to get the City of Chicago and the FAA to reduce the use of their new $500 million runway will even think of asking Frimark why, while Park Ridge slept, he did nothing either to wake us up or to lobby Chicago and the FAA for ways to reduce the adverse consequences of that new runway. 

As we’ve noted in previous posts, we still think that pulling out of SOC was a smart move, as borne out by SOC’s (now comprised only of Bensenville and Elk Grove Village) consistent and expensive failures to halt Richie Daley’s O’Hare expansion juggernaut.  So we have to give Frimark a gold star for doing at least that one thing right.

But we can’t condone his ignorance and outright neglect of the problems posed by the new O’Hare runway during the past five years while it was being planned and built.  

How about you, Mr. Balaskovits?