Four different perspectives on City government and its finances were on display at Monday night’s City Council meeting, during the discussion of the Council’s over-ride votes on Mayor Dave Schmidt’s vetoes of $190,000 in donations of public funds to 13 private community organizations.

In asking the Council to sustain his veto of those community group donations, Schmidt stated that he supports private contributions to those groups but does not believe in giving them public funds, especially when essential City services are being cut.

Ald. Jim Allegretti (4th Ward), on the other hand, supported all the donations on the grounds that the organizations might dissolve without these public funds; and because that $190,000 is virtually “meaningless” due to its being only 19/4000s of the City budget.

Ald. Robert Ryan (5th Ward) also supported all the donations, pointing out that the Council already had cut those contributions indiscriminately by 12% “across the board” because he, for one, didn’t want to have to make the tough decisions of choosing one group over another.  To Ryan, apparently, Meals on Wheels is no more essential a service than Brickton Art Center.

And Ald. Rich DiPietro (5th Ward) claimed to be listening to his heart instead of his head when he voted to over-ride Schmidt’s vetoes as to the Center of Concern ($55,000), Maine Center for Mental Health ($6,600) and Meals on Wheels ($7,040).  In other words, his own “heart” is more important than both the “hearts” and the “heads” of his constituents, who appear to have chosen not to donate enough to these organizations to keep them from trying to feed at the public trough.

It should come as no surprise to readers of this blog that we support Schmidt’s view.  Both the Illinois Constitution (Article VIII) and the City’s Policy No. 6 state the general principle that public funds should be used only for “public purposes,” with exceptions permitted only upon express findings of a “public purpose” for the specific appropriations to private entities.

But it looks like neither the Illinois Constitution nor the City’s own policy means much to Alds. Allegretti, Bach, Carey, DiPietro and Ryan, as we could find no mention of any express findings having been made by the Council of a specific “public purpose” for each of these donations that justifies the appropriation of these public funds.  In fact, we can find no evidence that any “public purpose”-justification information was even requested from these organizations by this spendthrift Council. 

Just call it this Council’s version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

We question the credibility and/or the sanity of any public official of this community who considers $190,000 “meaningless.”  More than a few Park Ridge households live on half that for an entire year.  Others are spending (or borrowing) that much for four years of college education for their children.  And two of our police officers were fired because this Council didn’t want to budget that much for their retention.

We also have to question the judgment of any public official who seems to equate art classes with meals for the underprivileged – even if we believe Meals on Wheels should be contracting with, and accounting to, the City for each meal it provides to a Park Ridge resident on the City’s dime.

But the real crux of this matter is the view of City government these 5 aldermen seem to share with the folks running these private community organizations: that “government” somehow has become synonymous with “charity” – or with “private non-profit organizations.” 

It’s not synonymous, nor should it be – unless, of course, these private organizations are willing to be as transparent and accountable to the taxpayers as the City of Park Ridge is supposed to be. 

Everything we’ve seen from these organizations so far, however, indicates just the opposite: most of them don’t even post their IRS Form 990s on their websites, and none of them (to our knowledge) has yet to explain to the Council (or the taxpayers) exactly how many Park Ridge residents they serve, what specific service(s) they provide, and at what cost per unit of service. 

That might explain why they also aren’t interested in providing their services under performance-for-pay contracts, like just about every other private, third-party vendor of goods or services to the City signs.

But if the five aldermen who voted to over-ride any of the mayor’s vetoes really want to act as the consciences (or, the “hearts”) of their constituents, we think it’s only fitting that they prove that their own “hearts” are where they want our’s to be.  Let them produce the cancelled checks or other receipts showing all of their personal contributions to each of these 13 private organizations whose appropriations they endorsed.

If you want to walk your talk with our money, fellas, how about first proving that you’ve already done so with your own?