This week the media reported that Park Ridge Mayor Dave Schmidt called for the resignation of former Arlington Heights mayor Arlene Mulder as chairman of the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission (the “ONCC”).
It’s about time somebody did!
The reviews of Mulder’s performance as AH mayor from May 1993 to 2013 run the gamut from excellent to terrible. More than a few of her critics make comparisons to former Chicago mayor Richard M. “Shortshanks” Daley at the “terrible” end. They cite her expensive TIF projects and how, like Daley, she created an attractive “Potemkin” village with monuments like the village hall her detractors call the “Taj Mahal” and the taxpayer-subsidized Metropolis Performing Arts Center, all of which have cost, and will continue to cost, AH taxpayers bundles in bonded debt repayment and subsidies to developers.
But, frankly, we could care less about what Mulder did while managing AH. The folks who voted to make and keep her as mayor all those years deserved whatever they got, and the tax bills they will continue to get as her legacy.
Schmidt’s beef about Mulder properly goes to what he views as her conflict of interest regarding O’Hare expansion and the resulting increase in airplane noise over ONCC members like Park Ridge while AH’s airplane noise is being reduced. He is quoted in a Chicago Sun-Times article (“Park Ridge mayor wants head of noise commission to resign,” 08.05.14) as saying Mulder “has turned the ONCC into a lap dog for the Chicago Department of Aviation.”
Actually, Schmidt is wrong on the “lap dog” point.
Shortshanks created the ONCC in 1996 for the express purpose of its being his lap dog, and to siphon away membership in what at that time was a thorn in his side: the Suburban O’Hare Commission (“SOC”), of which Park Ridge was a charter member. With Mulder’s help as ONCC chairman beginning in 1997, that strategy worked so well that by May 2003, SOC’s 13-community membership had dwindled to 3: Park Ridge, Bensenville and Elk Grove Village. And by that point the O’Hare expansion had become such a fait accompli that even the bobblehead-dominated Park Ridge City Council voted to exit the SOC, prompting then-mayor Ron Wietecha’s resignation and subsequent emigration to Barrington.
AH never was a SOC member, preferring instead to cut its own deals with Chicago – first under Mulder’s predecessor, William Maki (who resigned in 1992 to become a Cook County Circuit Judge, and is now Presiding Judge at the Rolling Meadows courthouse), and then under Mulder. Not surprisingly, everything Mulder has done since becoming Daley’s puppet at the ONCC has benefited AH first and foremost, with benefits flowing to other ONCC members only if there was no risk to AH.
Apparently rewarded for her ONCC service with an appointment to the METRA Board in 2003, Mulder reportedly finagled a new train station for AH and also got the Union Pacific RR to give up some of its right-of-way land for downtown AH redevelopment. Meanwhile, however, she and the other political hacks on that Board rubber-stamped the continuing deterioration of METRA’s equipment and service under long-time CEO Phil Pagano, even as fares continued to rise.
You might remember the corrupt Pagano, who chose to avoid certain firing and likely indictment for embezzlement and sweetheart deals by taking one last METRA ride back in 2010. Mulder was such an unquestioning Pagano sycophant that even after his death and discrediting, she still referred to him as an expert railroader who built “one of the best transportation organizations in the nation.”
METRA? Seriously?
Although Mulder claimed credit for the hiring of Pagano’s squeaky-clean replacement, Alex Clifford, she appears to have done nothing to stop Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s uber-stooge, Board chairman Brad O’Halloran, and Shortshanks/Rahm lackey Larry Huggins from issuing their quit-or-be-fired ultimatum to Clifford in June 2013 when he balked at playing their corrupt Chicago-style political games.
Actually, Mulder did do something in connection with Clifford’s ouster: she voted to give him an obscene $750,000 “severance” package even though, by resigning, he was not contractually entitled to any severance payment. And she endorsed the confidentiality provision of that deal so that neither side could talk about it publicly, claiming that it was “the most prudent thing to do” in order to avoid potential legal action by Clifford – legal action that likely would have pulled back the curtains and exposed the kind of institutionalized corruption and incompetent Board oversight that Clifford wouldn’t tolerate.
That’s what Illinois government has come to – the payment of big-time hush money considered “prudent” management.
If there’s any reason to doubt Mulder was grossly unqualified to hold such a position of public trust, one need only read her comments to Sun-Times reporter Rosalind Rossi in a July 2013 article (“Metra didn’t have to pay outgoing CEO any severance, experts say,” 07.24.13), in which Mulder admitted that she voted for Clifford’s severance package without even knowing that his contract didn’t entitle him to severance if he resigned. But, true to form, she couldn’t or wouldn’t say whether knowing that fact would have changed her vote.
From everything we already knew or have been able to Google about her, Mulder seems to be the exact kind of career politician – 34+ years holding some public office or other, not counting the years she double-dipped at METRA and/or the ONCC – who has helped turn this state into the almost-bankrupt cesspool of public incompetence and corruption it has become, whether because she is too stupid, too clueless, too pliable, too accommodating, and/or just plain dishonest.
But even more sadly than that is how, here in Illinois, that kind of performance over that many years gets you re-elected and re-appointed; and it gets you retirement testimonials in the Congressional Record by fellow career politicians like Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Mark Kirk, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky.
As the passive-aggressive chair of the ONCC, Mulder appears to have done nothing concrete to help Park Ridge obtain relief from the airplane noise and pollution that have plagued so many of our residents, especially with the opening of the new O’Hare runways that substantially reduce air traffic over AH. Instead she has feathered her AH nest and provided comfort to Chicago while only pretending to look out for her fellow ONCC members.
Schmidt was exactly right to call her out.
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11 comments so far
A couple of years ago Schmidt attended an ONCC and got a lot of nothing from Mulder when he asked for ONCC support for Park Ridge’s request to the FAA for a supplemental environmental impact study.
Former mayor Wietecha and his “bobblehead” council missed the boat by lining SOC attorney Joe Karaganis’ pockets all those years instead of cutting a deal with Chicago when we might have had a chance, like Mulder did for Arlington Heights. Now we’ve got to beg for help from politicos like Mulder, from whom we can expect nothing.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We wrote about Mulder’s previous uselessness in our post of 06.04.12.
You are correct about picking the wrong horse in that race, and Wietecha had such dominance of the Homeowners Party council from 1990 to 2003 that nobody dared challenge him on his commitment to SOC.
Sorry for the OT but today a co-worker of mine went looking at a few homes in “Flood Ridge” with his realtor. One of the homes had major flood damage in the basement. The realtor looked at him and said that Park Ridge floods, and a lot of people are looking elsewhere and unless he had thousands of dollars lying around to install a ‘pricey’ flood control system, he should probably consider a different suburb. Then he told me that he thought of me and my flooding issues in Flood Ridge, and now he’s looking at other towns to live. This is the second person I know in the last 12 months who has considered Flood Ridge but decided elsewhere because of flooding.
Two anecdotal stories don’t make a fact, nor hardly a trend, but the evidence is starting to show that buyers are foregoing Flood Ridge for other towns specifically because of flooding. Not because of planes, or high taxes, or any other various quality of life issue – but specifically because of flooding!
The realtors are even advising people not to buy in this town and everybody knows that realtors always that that it’s good time to buy. Now at least some are actively discouraging buyers from this town.
Toss the planes into the news, along with the negative publicity announcing to the world now much plane traffic we get – these will soon be the nails in the coffin for home prices in this town. Mark my words.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The point of THIS post is that ONCC isn’t doing jack to help or even support Park Ridge and those other communities (and Chicago neighborhoods) most impacted by these new runways.
Park Ridge floods, just like many other communities – including Glenview, Northrbrook, Wilmette, etc. And many people in those communities have spent thousands of dollars installing those very same “pricey” flood control systems to deal with it.
Oh, horse pucky. You’d be the first to applaud if anyone representing Park Ridge or sitting on any body that included us happened to collude, cajole and otherwise wrung special advantages with no regard for whether they helped our fellow northwest communities. But when Mulder does it, it’s not OK?
EDITOR’S NOTE: When ANYBODY does it, it’s not okay – and anybody reading this blog for any length of time knows one of the LAST things we would endorse is collusion. And, that being said, our criticism of Mulder is that she’s a fraud as the chair of ONCC because she has only one loyalty – and it’s not to ALL the ONCC members.
Serf:
Your story would be great except anyone who is involved with or even watches the PR real estate market will tell you that the market has been on the up swing. homes are moving and prices are going up. the market is not back to where it was prior to the crash but you should note that the down turn was NOT caused by flooding.
As to your example, the person who put that house on the market with visible flood damage and without a flood control system is an idiot, unless they were selling the property as a “tear down”.
Flooding issues are common to all of the communities in the area Park Ridge is not alone. As a Realtor living and working in Park Ridge and surrounding communities, I have been in hundreds of homes over the years. One of the first things I look for are water issues disclosed or not. If I find any, my client and I discuss what could be done to fix the problem and its cost. Unless it is overland flooding, most issues can be addressed and we take that that into account when making an offer or when I list a home for sale as often times a seller does not have the money to fix the issue before placing the home up for sale. Real estate in Park Ridge is desired for its location to transportation, shopping, parks but most of all for the schools. My parents moved to Park Ridge 60 year ago for its school systems and today I have clients who are still choosing Park Ridge for its schools.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We agree with all of your comments, but with one qualifier: as best as we can tell, including from talking to several local realtors, the people moving to Park Ridge for “the schools” are coming primarily from the City and from lower income suburbs. We are not getting many immigrants from the North Shore, Glenview, Northbrook, etc.
Are you saying that that there are many PR people who Immigrate to the north shore??
EDITOR’S NOTE: No, only that we’re aware – anecdotally, admittedly – who move from Park Ridge to the North Shore than who move from from the North Shore to Park Ridge. For what that’s worth.
“people moving to Park Ridge for “the schools” are coming primarily from the City and from lower income suburbs. We are not getting many immigrants from the North Shore, Glenview, Northbrook, etc.”
So the people moving into glenview, northbrook etc are moving there from where? Mars? I know plenty of Chicagoans and lower income suburbanites who have and are upgrading to the northshore and park ridge most for the schools.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Why…have you seen any Martians in Wilmette?
You know a person is a political hack and in somebody’s pocket when they get appointed to something like the METRA Board, just another corrupt Illinois public body.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yep.
So simply getting appointed to a board makes you a political hack??…..Interesting!!
EDITOR’S NOTE: No, getting appointed to a board like METRA, which was created by the corrupt Illinois political clique to be a tool of that clique, makes you a political hack – at least until proven otherwise. And Mulder repeatedly failed to prove otherwise, with Pagano and the Clifford fiasco being the proof of that.
It’s not a fair criticism to complain that North Shore or North Shore Lite (Glenview, NB) buyers feel that Park Ridge schools are inferior so they don’t buy here. Park Ridge and the NS attract two fairly different types of buyers. For starters the homes on the NS are more expensive and have a higher cost PSF than Park Ridge – because well, it’s the NS. They have bigger lots, less traffic, more prestige, older family money, and so on and so on.
EDITOR’S NOTE: And in most instances, higher-rated schools.
What is so amazing is that with all people are leaving PR for the north shore, anecdotally, because of the school system (or is it all the other negatives you mention), and yet a person who is as astute as you stayed all these years.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We never said a lot of people (“all people”) are fleeing Park Ridge for the north shore, only that some were and that other non-residents were choosing the north shore (and Glenview, Northbrook, etc.) over PR.
Like any community, Park Ridge has its plus and minus features, but the more that the educational rankings sink the more problematic those other problems become.
This editor would rather stay and fight to improve his home town than cut and run. Hence this blog, among other things.
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