The title of this post pretty much summarizes what transpired at Monday night’s Park Ridge City Council meeting, where it was disclosed that the firefighters union is trying to renege on the May 1, 2011, effective date of the new contract it had suckered the City Council into approving only a couple of months earlier…just so the firefighters could grab an extra paid holiday this year.

It seems that the new contract took away Veterans Day as a paid holiday but gave the firefighters a replacement: the day after Thanksgiving.  So the wily firefighters tried to change the new contract’s effective date until after Veterans Day, so that they could grab Veterans Day under the old contract and “Black Friday” under the new.

That’s the “renege” part of the title.  And, even more shamelessly, the firefighters have filed a grievance against the City, reportedly for not paying them for the double-dip holidays.

But City Mgr. Jim Hock apparently decided that our elected officials didn’t need to know such things – presumably because it would make him, lead contract negotiator Chief Mike Zywanski, and the City’s special firefighters labor attorney, Dina Kapernekas, look bad.  Given Hock’s and Chief Z’s previous shenanigans with these contract negotiations, we can see how they wouldn’t welcome any more evidence of their ineptitude and deception. 

Worse yet, it sounds like Hock actually agreed to changing that effective date to October 18, but he kept that change his little secret despite questions being asked about the effective date and Kapernekas’ continuing services (and billing) to the City at both the November 21 City Council meeting and the November 28 COW meeting.

That’s the “conceal” part of the title.  Hock did his best to keep that concealment going Monday night, insisting that this wasn’t a “contract” matter but, instead, a “grievance” matter that should be discussed in closed session out of public view. 

Fortunately, Mayor Dave Schmidt was having none of Hock’s dissembling.  Schmidt pressed his questions about Hock’s authority to agree to an effective date different from the one the firefighters had agreed to, the Council had approved, and Schmidt had signed.

After tap dancing around Schmidt’s first three inquiries and being warned by Schmidt that they would stay there all night if need be, Hock finally cracked: “I don’t know what authority I have to change the date of the agreement.”

Hock offered nothing else to explain his extracurricular activity or the firefighters’ renege, other than to renew his request that this matter be discussed further in closed session.  Despite Schmidt’s warning to the Council that going into closed session on this matter would indicate “whether [they] want a transparent and accountable government or not,” however, the aldermen unanimously (Ald. Marty Maloney absent) voted to do so.

That’s the “hide” that this Council seems to have become as fond of as the old Council was, even though the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) doesn’t require any Council business to be discussed in closed session.  Yes, that’s right: IOMA does not require that anything be discussed in closed session.  To the contrary, IOMA encourages the doing of all public business in open sessions, even though it does permit certain exceptions.

So how does this particular stupidity and deception translate into “taxpayers pay”?

One of the main features that proponents of the new firefighters contract touted in approving it over Schmidt’s veto was a purported savings of $22,000 in the first year of that contract’s 3 year term.  But after figuring in an extra paid holiday and some overtime being paid at a higher rate, much of that first year’s savings very well could vanish.  And that’s not even counting the money the City appears pretty much to have wasted on Kapernekas.

The firefighters contract was a bad deal for the taxpayers on several levels, including its no-layoff provision – which likely has now become a fixture in future contracts and takes away layoffs as the only form of City leverage against unreasonable union salary and benefit demands.  The City officials who negotiated it – former firefighters union members led by Chief Z and overseen by Hock – sold out the taxpayers.  And they did so in secret, thanks to Chief Z’s unauthorized “Ground Rules” that imposed a gag order on the mayor and the City Council while those negotiations were going on.

The taxpayers also were sold out by Hock’s (?) hiring and mismanagement of labor attorney Kapernekas, at a cost of upwards of $30,000, to counsel the City on those negotiations and contract drafting – something that seems to have been botched to the point that she reportedly advised the City that it wouldn’t be wise to oppose the union’s demand for a different contract effective date.

And the Council members who approved that contract over Schmidt’s veto also sold out the taxpayers, while at the same time demonstrating to the firefighters union that the City doesn’t have the will to resist the union’s demands.  Those aldermen are charged with, among other things, ensuring that City staff is competently managing the City and earning its keep.  They are not supposed to be rubber stamps, apologists and cheerleaders for staff screw-ups.

But by constantly running into closed sessions on seemingly every controversial matter , the Council continues to demonstrate its contempt for the taxpayers’ right to know how they are being governed and how their City is being managed.

So here’s one simple tip on how to better do your job, aldermen:

NO MORE CLOSED SESSIONS!

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