We can’t believe that the City Mgr. would, or even could, micro-manage either of those departments to the point of telling the chiefs which specific personnel to cut.

That’s why what we have heard makes more sense: the City Mgr. told the police and fire chiefs that they had to reduce their respective budgets by X dollars, and they were left to come up with the way to do it.

Think for a moment.

The cuts in police personnel have not been made and yet, as you cite, “4-5 people had their cars broken into along Stewart last night.”

It would seem to me, the current level of staffing was not much of a deterent; and I’m presuming your underlying message is some relationship between staffing levels and deterence.

They cannot help but PANDER to every constituiency… can you say ORD commission?, Community groups looking for handouts?
Hell, Carey was a page turner for Ms. Perry when she couldn’t run her own PowerPoint presentations and Ryan espouses the merits of adding back the +$250,000 of funding to community groups to the proposed budget in the midst of a dissussion about how we can make the revenue projections in the proposed budget. WTF?

Think what you will of the City Manager but they are tying the guy in knots. Do this… don’t do that… exclude this… include this and this and this. Oh, and by the way, let’s balance the budget. With the way these guys talk and act, especially the likes of Bach and Ryan as referred to in this piece, they are either so incredibly stupid it is scary or they are willfully trying to bury the City.

We are in a world of hurt people… this City is approaching some very dire straights and the Council is acting like we have nothing but time. We deserve better from our elected officials.

The Park Ridge Herald-Advocate recently reported on Park Ridge Police Dept. statistics showing that crime in Park Ridge dropped significantly in 2009 (“Annual Report: Crime down 20 percent in Park Ridge,” Feb. 9).

According to the PRPD, the overall crime rate dropped more than 20% from 2008, with arrests falling 6.5 percent (from 826 to 772) even as drug-crime arrests were up 43.8 percent (from 48 to 69). DUI arrests dropped from 86 to 66, consistent with a several year trend.

The police department took 381 fewer calls for service (a 1.7 percent decline) and responded to 779 fewer incidents (a 3.3-percent decline), although it issued 4.6 percent more tickets and written warnings.

Theft decreased 16.5 percent in 2009 (424 incidents reported) whild burglaries decreased nearly 7 percent (from 131 to 122).

Crime rates remained relatively unchanged for motor-vehicle theft, arson, simple assault and battery and domestic battery, although criminal damage to property increased last year by just more than 4 percent.

Police Chief Frank Kaminski believes property crimes have declined, in large part, because our residents have learned “to be more vigilant and follow common-sense tips to avoid becoming a victim.”

So your comments sound like unsubstantiated fear-mongering to us.