After several false starts and outright delays, tonight looks like the night the City Council finally makes those “charitable” donations for us taxpayers that we have chosen not to make for ourselves.

The $190,000 [pdf] of giveaways is the main event of tonight’s “special” Council meeting (at 9:00 p.m. tonight – to discourage attendance?), but it looks like Finance Committee Chair Rich DiPietro (2nd Ward) is likely to seek separate votes on each of the 13 specific handouts.  That’s a typically DiPietro-an way to create the appearance of fiscal responsibility while still acting fiscally-irresponsibly.  DiPietro must think he can get some political mileage for himself or his fellow aldermen by distinguishing free-loading “social service” organizations (e.g., the Center of Concern, Maine Center for Mental Health, Meals on Wheels) from those free-loading civic/cultural groups (e.g., Park Ridge Fine Arts Society, the Cultural Arts Council).

Of course, that’s just a lot of eyewash intended for consumption by a gullible public.  How gullible that public will be, and for how long, remains to be seen.

For the politicians on the City Council, this isn’t about economic or governmental policy.  It’s about those public officials making certain favored special interests happy using taxpayer money instead of their own.  The fact that the Illinois constitution requires that public monies be used only for clearly “public” purposes – and not for donations to private organizations – seems lost on most of the folks sitting around The Horseshoe. 

As we pointed out in a previous post (“Mayor Once Again Sounds Financial Alarm,” 08.09.10), those aldermen don’t even follow the City’s own extremely un-demanding “policy” for providing public funds to private organizations – which requires the aldermen to specifically consider:

· the community’s need for the services;
· the community’s benefit from the services;
· the degree of private financial support for the services; and
· the community’s volunteer support for the services.

We are not aware of serious consideration being given to any of those factors by this or previous Councils, nor have we heard of this or any previous Council demanding an accounting from these private organizations as to how they actually used the public funds for the specific benefit of Park Ridge residents, and what concrete results were achieved.

We’re also betting that these aldermen have never looked at the Form 990s filed by some of these organizations.  If they did, they would find some things that might be interesting to anybody who truly cared about how our tax dollars are spent.

Like how the most recent Form 990 (EZ) [pdf] filed by the Center of Concern shows that a measly $73,763 of its $900,000+ of gross receipts last year came from its 3 fundraising events, netting less than the $55,000 it wants from the City.  That’s just downright pathetic for an organization that claims broadbased support from the Park Ridge community.  

Or like how well Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. (“Seniors Inc.”) is doing financially.  Seniors Inc. is the private not-for-profit (naturally) corporation which we understand quasi-runs the Senior Center for the Park District, and which we understand is the actual recipient of City funding.  From its most recent From 990 (EZ) [pdf], Seniors Inc. looks to be sitting on $114,122, so why exactly is it in line for $35,200 of City funding?    

If these organizations want money from Park Ridge residents, they should earn it through effectively soliciting private donations from the individual residents themselves – not by putting the arm on feckless politicians who can’t say “no” to spending the taxpayers’ money.  But if these organizations don’t want to earn their private donations, then they should earn their public funding through the performance of their services under written contracts which identify specifically what services they will provide for exactly how much of City funding.
 
Frankly, if this was being done according to Hoyle, our aldermen would already know: (a) exactly how many meals (and what kind of wheels) Park Ridge residents will be getting for the $7,040 that Meals on Wheels expects from the City treasury; (b) exactly how many hours of service Park Ridge residents will be getting (and at what cost per hour) for the $55,000 going to the CofC; (c) exactly what “public” benefits the City’s taxpayers will get for that $35,200 Seniors Inc. wants to add to its $114,000 stockpile; and (d) on exactly what things organizations like Brickton Art Center, the Park Ridge Historical Society, and the Kalo Foundation intend to spend the public funds they’re looking for.

But don’t expect to hear these kinds of questions from the Council this evening…or ever.  The current crop of aldermen, not unlike their predecessors, act like they don’t want to know any of this information, presumably because they don’t care about it.  

It looks like they just want the fun and political capital that comes from recklessly giving away money that mostly isn’t their own.

UPDATE (08.24.10):  Richie D did move to divide the question so that each of the 13 giveaways got voted on separately; Richie D voted “yes” on all of them even though he claims he didn’t support the non-social services ones, giving as his “reasoning” that he wanted to ensure they passed so that the mayor could veto them (once again, politics over policy for Richie D); DiPietro, Bach, Ryan and Carey voted for all of the appropriations; Wsol voted against all of them; and Sweeney voted against all but Center of Concern ($55,000) and Meals on Wheels ($7,040) for no disclosed reason.  Oh yes, Allegretti was absent.

Not surprisingly, nobody – neither the aldermen nor the mayor – inquired as to what exactly the citizens of Park Ridge were going to be getting for their $190,000.  And, of course, none of the groups represented in the audience (notably, the Center of Concern and the Senior Center, who combined will be pulling in $90,000 of that $190,000) offered any explanation.