Listening to the recent debates about amending the Park Ridge sign code to permit electronic message boards (“EMB”s), the chorus of a well-known R.E.M. song kept running through our mind: “It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

To hear the anti-EMB folks tell it, EMBs are the devil’s tool that will turn quaint Park Ridge into a vulgar Rosemont, increase traffic accidents by distracted drivers, otherwise cause various forms of lesser mischief that erode the “character” of Park Ridge, and may even cause the heartbreak of psoriasis.   The pro-EMB folks, on the other hand, suggest that prohibitions and even significant restrictions on EMBs put local businesses at some form of competitive disadvantage and reinforce the perception of Park Ridge as “unfriendly to business.”

We like the “character” of Park Ridge, and we get the sense we’re not alone in that.  But what exactly is the “character” of Park Ridge, and how will EMBs ruin it?  And if Park Ridge is so “unfriendly” to business, explain Whole Foods and Mariano’s both opening stores here within a six month stretch?

The City’s Sign Task Force had recommended that EMBs be permitted, albeit with a number of restrictions.  That recommendation, however, was over-ruled by the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission at its September 24, 2013 meeting.  At a special meeting on November 19, 2013, and at another one this past Tuesday (12.03.13) night, the City Council entertained public debate on whether EMBs should be banned completely, per the P&Z recommendation.

As best as we can tell from Tuesday’s meeting, EMBs won’t be coming to Park Ridge anytime soon for a very practical reason: there appears to be no good way to permit EMBs with limitations that satisfactorily balances the competing rights and interests of the pro- and anti- factions without subjecting the City to an increased risk of litigation.

City Attorney Everette M. “Buzz” Hill, Jr., in a memorandum, identified a number of legal issues that appear to be irreconcilable – in light of the competing interests and agendas – other than by either a blanket permission or a blanket prohibition.  Many of Hill’s observations echo those articulated by the executive director of the Illinois Sign Association in his letter of August 15, 2013.

Frankly, while we don’t have any strong desire to see EMBs in Park Ridge, we believe that EMBs can be permitted in ways that would be constitutional and yet not be the end of Park Ridge’s “character” as we know it.  Just like allowing and even liberalizing alcohol sales, or eliminating City subsidies to private community groups, haven’t been the end of that “character,” either, despite dire warnings from opponents of those two decisions that they would.  We agree with Alds. Milissis and Knight that EMBs are a significant-enough and growing issue that the City must find ways to accommodate them if at all possible.

That leads us to the real point of this post: what appears to be a lack of efficient management of the time and resources of the City’s committees, commissions and task forces – and, ultimately, of the Council itself.

As best as we can tell, neither the Sign Task Force nor P&Z had the benefit of the analysis and opinions contained in Hill’s memorandum; and the Sign Task Force did not have the Illinois Sign Association’s letter.  That would have put both those bodies at a significant disadvantage in undertaking their tasks relative to EMBs.  It also causes us to wonder whether both bodies’ efforts and outcomes re the EMBs would have been different – or at least less time-consuming – had they had those legal opinions and insights from the beginning.

The members of the Sign Task force and P&Z – like the members of all other City citizens’ committees, commissions and task forces – are volunteers who perform valuable services to the community without compensation.  Similarly, the mayor and the aldermen provide an extraordinary amount of service and undertake substantial responsibility for nominal compensation.

But when a significant portion of the time and effort devoted to a particular task – in this case, to EMBs – by these officials may have been wasted because they lacked significant information that could have been obtained at the beginning of the process rather than at the later stages, we have to wonder why it wasn’t.

For this committee-commission-task force process to work, everybody has to operate at a high level.  It should be City staff’s responsibility to procure and provide those volunteers with the kinds of legal opinions, industry insights, and reasonable foundation of relevant data sufficient to inform those volunteers about the matters they will be addressing.  Otherwise we end up with the classic GIGO situation.

And the Council ends up having to re-invent the wheel.

To read or post comments, click on title.