Should City Manager Jim Hock be fired?

That’s the question the Park Ridge City Council is currently pondering, which is a more substantial issue that some of the ones that recently have consumed too much of the Council’s deliberations – like how many pets can be kept in any one residence. 

A couple of weeks ago, Ald. Dan Knight (5th Ward) opined that Hock’s performance didn’t seem worthy of the $200,000+ in annual compensation he’s been paid since arriving here in 2008.  For those who haven’t been paying attention, Hock’s compensation package includes a $350,000 interest free loan, a $5,000/year pay-down on that loan principal, the use of a City-owned car (along with gas and insurance), and pension benefits that we suspect exceed those of most of the Park Ridge residents paying the bill for Hock’s services.  

And it’s all guaranteed through May 2013, by a $117,000 severance package unless he’s terminated for “cause,” thanks to a new contract given him by the former City Council members as they were heading for the exits, after Hock had gone almost a year and a half without a contract since his original one-year deal expired.

From just the information that has become public, it looks to us like Hock has botched a number of significant responsibilities in just the last year or so that, cumulatively, have cost the City (a/k/a, the taxpayers) some significant money: 

— During the 2010-11 budget process, he disregarded the Council’s decision to eliminate the position of Deputy City Manager and reinstate the Hock-terminated Economic Development Director position – instead, retaining the former and sacking the latter.  He compounded that bit of what sounds like insubordination by then bestowing unauthorized severance payments on the Economic Development Director and the Director of Community Development, which cost the taxpayers an extra $45,000.   

— He unilaterally decided to have City absorb unbudgeted increases in employee benefits expense without informing or consulting with Council, costing another $141,000.   In a similar vein, he improperly attempted to pay the police chief $19,000 in “deferred compensation” in order to evade the City’s cap on police chief salary – a cost that was avoided only because Mayor Dave Schmidt vetoed it; and, after initially approving that deferred comp payment, the Council finally woke up and sustained the veto. 

— He irresponsibly handed the firefighters union negotiations to Chief Mike Zywanski (who doesn’t live or pay property taxes here), who promptly agreed – without even telling the mayor or the Council – to negotiation “Ground Rules” that required the negotiations to be kept secret from the public.  When Mayor Dave Schmidt finally discovered those “Ground Rules” and called Hock on them at the May 2, 2011, Council meeting, Hock failed to “man up” and, instead, continued to obfuscate for the next two weeks – presumably until he could persuade Chief Z to “wear the jacket” for that gaffe without Hock’s having to assume any responsibility.     

— He left the Finance and Budget Director position, the second most important City Staff position, vacant for almost a full year after receiving the application of the candidate he ended up hiring.   

— Most recently, the discovery that collection of at least $600,000 in City tickets and fines has been neglected since Hock took over as City Mgr., something for which Ald. Rich DiPietro (2nd) said there was “no excuse.”  

Yet DiPietro and five other aldermen have decided Hock deserves an evaluation process with some performance objectives and a period of time to achieve them – even though, according to an article in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Park Ridge aldermen favor evaluation, improvement over firing,” Nov. 17), DiPietro claims to be only “fairly satisfied” with Hock’s performance, Ald. Jim Smith is “negatively impressed,” Ald. Sal Raspanti (4th) doesn’t “know if [he’s] satisfied…but there’s a lot of room for improvement,” and Ald. Marty Maloney is merely “satisfied.” 

Hardly a ringing endorsement.

Notably, none of those aldermen who want to give Hock more time to shape up have identified, much less elaborated upon, exactly what it is that Hock is actually doing well.  The best thing that a Council member has said about his performance comes from Ald. Tom Bernick (6th), who considers him “a valuable source” of information. 

We’re not sure about “valuable,” although we certainly would concede expensive.

We’d expect that even blind squirrel theory would account for at least one or two “very good”s or “excellent”s on something or other over the course of three years.  So, in the interest of magnanimity, we’ll offer one: Hock’s hiring of Finance Director Allison Stutts, who so far has been an all-star in the position – including being the one who was responsible for bringing to light the neglected ticket collection mess. 

But that seems to be it.  And therein lies the problem.

Is this kind of performance from the City’s top operating officer really all the taxpayers deserve for $200,000+ a year?  Or, put another way, is this all that any of the aldermen who represent those taxpayers expect from someone  in that position and at that price?  Or, put yet another way, is this all any of those aldermen would accept from one of their own employees making that kind of dough?  

But apparently that kind of reasoning doesn’t automatically come with a seat around The Horseshoe, so we will eagerly await what we expect to be a lot of warm-and-fuzzy goals and objectives that nobody will be able to objectively measure.  Look for “goals” like “Improve communication with elected officials” and “Enhance staff morale,” along with related objectives like “No less than five e-mails per week on topics related to the upcoming week’s meeting” and “Encourage independent action by subordinates.”

Which, in turn, will likely provoke comments from aldermen like: “Jim’s e-mails are a must-read – I couldn’t put them down!” and “I’ve never seen so many smiles at 505 Butler Place.”  And that will be more than enough for those among our elected officials who seemingly expect nothing and, therefore, can never be disappointed.

Meanwhile, no substantial improvement will occur other than what the mayor or the aldermen themselves specifically direct, even as Hock begins his search for a similar position in some other community and the remaining term of his sinecure here in Pleasantville winds down.

And for City government, the beat goes on.

Update (11/18/11): Yesterday the H-A reported (“Report reveals another half-million dollars in upaid debts to city of Park Ridge,” Nov. 17) that City Finance Director Allison Stutts had discovered that there are over $550,000 in additional uncollected debts owed the City, including $301,940 in unpaid ambulance bills and another $208,779 owed for fines for things like false alarms, cutting overgrown grass, damage caused to City property, sidewalk-replacement cost sharing, and unpaid rent for City-owned property.  And $36,000 is owed for red-light camera fines that have accumulated just since July of last year.

Worse yet, it appears that there’s another $124,078 in unpaid utility bills (water and sewer) that haven’t even gone to collection because – get this! – the City apparently hasn’t sent unpaid utility bills to collection since 2005.  For what it’s worth, that would have started on the watch of the previous inept city manager, Tim Schuenke. 

But don’t worry about all this uncollected revenue, folks:  all this incompetence will be eliminated just as soon as the City Council designs and implements its Hock Performance Improvement program, the theme song of which is rumored to be: “Nearer My God To Thee.

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