Over the past 30-40 years Illinois has gone from being one of the most prosperous states in the Union to such a socio-economic failed state that Googling “Illinois failed state” will yield pages of articles explaining just how bad off our state is, and how seemingly hopeless is its future.

Illinois did not get that way by one catastrophic event. Instead, it got there because of thousands upon thousands of individual acts of incompetence, stupidity, dishonesty and/or waste by those people – at all levels of government – whom we have elected to represent us; and by those we employ with our tax dollars to conduct those various governmental units’ day-to-day operations.

Today’s post discusses one of those individual acts of incompetent, stupid and dishonest government that recently was committed here in Park Ridge: Our own City Council’s award of a no-bid, sole-source, 5-year, $282,000 contract for police body cameras that made a mockery of both the City’s procurement ordinance, City Code Section 2-9-9, and its Council Policy Statement No. 18.

That body cam procurement process – totally dominated by Police Chief Frank Kaminski – was so screwed up that, were it an episode of “Friends,” it would be titled: “The one where the Council lets Chief K ignore the City’s procurement rules and give a no-bid, sole-source contract to his favorite vendor.”

And, yes, “Joey” and “Phoebe” would have featured roles.

The express purposes of Policy Statement No. 18 include: to “[p]rovide public confidence in City procurement processes” and to “[e]nsure that procurement activity is more accessible and visible to the public.” That Policy also contains a statement of “Procurement Ethics” emphasizing that any interaction between City officials and suppliers be “fair and transparent” so that suppliers are selected “on the basis of meeting appropriate and fair criteria.”

The principle behind such a procurement process is simple: An honest and transparent process means that taxpayers don’t have to rely on the honesty, integrity and judgement (or worry about the lack thereof) of the public official(s) doing the procurement. They can trust the process because they can see how it’s operating every step of the way.

That’s why Policy No. 18 prohibits sole source procurement for non-emergency purchases – like body cams – except under the four limited circumstances listed on page 5 of the Policy, and at subparagraph (C)(5)(c) of Code Section 2-9-9. Both of those require that “[p]rior to presenting the [sole source] request to the Finance Committee, the Department requesting the sole source procurement shall prepare a fact-based, written justification for the Finance Committee to review that addresses each applicable criteria set forth above.” In this case, that would have required the Park Ridge Police Department to identify all of the Department’s “business needs” for body cams, and then produce a “fact-based, written justification” for why only one particular source satisfies those needs.

But try as we might, we can’t find a shred of evidence that Chief K presented the Council with any list of his Department’s “business needs” for body cams, or with any “fact-based, written justification” that only his vendor of choice (Axon Enterprise, Inc.) met those needs, before the Council’s April 11, 2018 budget workshop – at which Chief K did not ask the Council’s permission to sole source with Axon but, instead, brazenly decreed the fait accompli that “we’re going with Axon” on a no-bid, sole-source basis; and that he would be “piloting” only Axon’s cameras.

Despite the significant concerns about announcing the Axon sole-sourcing expressed by Mayor Marty Maloney and Ald. John Moran (1st) at that workshop, none of the aldermen – including Moran and finance committee chair Ald. Marc Mazzuca (6th) – had the temerity (a/k/a, the spine) to demand that Chief K produce his list of the department’s “business needs” for body cams, or his “fact-based, written request” to do the Axon deal as a no-bid, sole-source one.

But don’t take our word for it: Watch the relevant nine minutes of the April 11, 2018 meeting video (from the 32 minute mark to 41:10) and you will see and hear Kaminski admit that he was solicited by Axon and that he was going to do a 4-month pilot program involving only Axon cameras. You’ll also see and hear City Mgr. Joe Gilmore cover Chief K’s derriere by citing their “research of multiple vendors” – without either Gilmore or Chief K identifying even one of those other vendors, or providing even one page of documentation that such “research” actually was done.

And not one of the aldermen challenged either the Chief’s decision or Gilmore’s apparently non-existent research.

That’s because, as we’ve noted in the past, Kaminski is the most formidable “politician” (a term we consider an epithet rather than a compliment) in City government, if not in all of Park Ridge local government. And he’s not one bit shy about using those superior political skills and his badge to manipulate and even intimidate our aldermen in ways that no self-respecting elected official – especially one who claims to be committed to honestly and competently representing his/her constituents – should ever stand for.

But stand for it the aldermen did, notwithstanding Mazzuca’s toothless “warning” to Chief K at the end of that segment of the budget workshop that “nobody said that we’re going to waive our procurement rules to do this.”

They didn’t have to say it, however, because the Chief knew he already owned the Council on sole-sourcing the body cams from Axon. Which is why, despite no formal vote having been taken at that April 11 workshop, the Axon body cam purchase became a “done deal” that very day– even if some of the folks around The Horseshoe were too clueless to figure that out; and the few who did lacked the spine to do anything more than kick the can down the road, as reflected by Mazucca’s insipid “we’ll take this up at a different COW…and make sure that everything is crystal clear about how to move forward with body cameras.”

The Chief’s no-bid, sole-source Axon deal appears to have remained unofficially done until seven months later when, at the November 26, 2018 COW, the Council unanimously passed the first reading of the resolution approving the contract. In what appears to be Chief K’s first “written justification” of the no-bid, sole-source purchase from Axon, his November 26 “Agenda Cover Memorandum” reads like an advertisement for Axon body cams – presumably because it substantially relies on Axon’s standard-form “Sole Source Letter” attached to it.

We’ll go into the details of the charade by which the April 11 unofficial “done deal” became official in our next post.

To read or post comments, click on title.

Back when this blog’s editor began his eight years (1997-2005) as a member of the Park Ridge Park District board, the District ran every program, activity and facility like a 6 year-old ran a sidewalk lemonade stand

So he attempted to do something considered “revolutionary” at that time: Despite having four sons in all sorts of Park District activities and programs, he lobbied for a fee structure that would actually cover their costs instead of having the taxpayers subsidize him, his family members, and other users of the programs, activities and facilities. And by 2005 the District’s staff had learned the meaning of the term “fully-loaded costs” and actually had started to consider them in its pricing structure.

Since then, subsequent boards and administrations have continued the trend of pricing user fees to more closely reflect the actual costs of the District’s amenities. The result: According to a recent Park Ridge Herald-Advocate article (“Park Ridge Park District budget proposes fee increases…”, November 5), user fees now account for around 50% of the District’s $20 million annual budget, with property taxes contributing only 42.5%.

We think that’s great!

That growth in user fees appears to have enabled a majority of the current Park Board – Commissioners Harmony Harrington, Jim Janak, Rob Leach and Mel Thillens – to reject the administration’s proposed 2.1% increase in the property tax levy while accepting a variety of user fee increases the administration also proposed for the 2019 budget year.

What could be wrong with that?

Plenty, if you’re Kathy (Panattoni) Meade, the poster child for Park Ridge’s freeloader community.

*               *               *

SIDEBAR: We adopted the term “freeloader” 3 years ago – in our 10.21.2015 post – as convenient shorthand for what otherwise would take us 31 words to describe: “Those residents who are always looking to leverage maximum benefits for themselves, their families and their friends by shifting the costs of those benefits onto the backs of their fellow taxpayers.” Ironically, that post highlighted the freeloader mentality of the aforementioned Ms. Meade, who back then was complaining about that year’s increase in Park District user fees. Go figure!

*               *               *

Based on Ms. Meade’s many public comments (made primarily on the Park Ridge Concerned Homeowners Group FB page where she is one of the admins), she and her family are heavy users of Park District programs and activities. That’s likely why she ripped into the Park Board around this time last year for…wait for it…proposing user fee increases, introducing her beef by asking: “ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME!?!?!” That prompted us to publish two posts on the topic, on 11.07.2017 and 0n 11.14.2017.

Not surprisingly, therefore, her post in response to the H-A article and critical of the Park District for raising user fees instead of “raising taxes by $11 per household” – an increase she claims she would “gladly pay” to keep her out-of-pocket user fees from going up – is like deja vu all over again. For people whose goal is to suck more out of government (and fellow taxpayers) than they pay into it, paying an extra $11 of RE taxes to save $20.00 (or $200.00) in user fees is a no-brainer, Freeloading 101.

But replacing user fees with property tax increases appears to work even better for Meade than her comments let on.

That extra $11 of taxes is what the Park District claims the owner of a $458,000 home would pay. But according to Zillow, the median Park Ridge home value is $390,000. And because Zillow values Meade’s house at $339,000 while RE/MAX pegs it at $322,000 – that $11/year of extra taxes would end up being only $8 for her.

Frankly, we don’t begrudge even freeloaders trying to get a bargain so long as they don’t do it on the backs of their fellow taxpayers. But what really torques us is when they try to do so while wrapping themselves in the mantle of faux-altruism – as in “I’d gladly pay $11” more in property taxes – while concealing their unenlightened self-interest in saving 10 or 20 times that amount.

We’ve never been fans of automatic annual tax increases like the ones Illinois Democrats have been running up during the 30-plus years that Speaker Madigan and his stooges have run Illinois into the ground, so we appreciate the Park Board majority’s desire not to raise taxes – so long as they are being responsible stewards of the District’s assets and not compromising the timely maintenance, repair and replacement (“MRR”) of the District’s buildings and grounds merely to pander to certain taxpayers.

That’s why we confess to being a tad uncomfortable with the H-A article’s report of  Commissioner Jim O’Brien concern “based on current projections of excess revenue – that [the District is] not going to have enough money to maintain the stuff we have.” O’Brien didn’t provide the kind of back-up information that might objectively justify such a concern, as you can see from the November 1, 2018 Board meeting video, starting at the 1:51:00 mark. It should also be noted that O’Brien’s concern was immediately challenged by Commissioner Rob Leach at the 1:52:20 of the video.

And we became a tad more uncomfortable upon hearing Commissioner Jim O’Donnell complain (starting at the 1:59:08 mark of the video) that the District was borrowing money “to do the maintenance-type stuff that we have to do” – even though he, too, failed to provide data that would support his argument.

Being penny wise with the levy can be pound foolish if it results in MRR being neglected – as we recently learned from Supt. Ken Wallace’s and his rubber-stamp school boards’ 9 years of irresponsible (and intentional?) neglect of MRR for all 3 Maine Township High School District 207’s school buildings, which will now end up costing taxpayers $345 million, $100 million of which will be wasteful, non-deductible interest payments.

We surely don’t need that kind of irresponsibility and mismanagement at the Park District.

But assuming the Park Board majority is doing its job, we applaud increases in user fees that allocate the fully-loaded operating costs of activities, programs and facility usage to the people whose use causes those operating costs. And if those programs, activities and facilities provide sufficient value (and the market permits it), we wouldn’t mind seeing user fees set at levels where they might even generate a PROFIT to the District that could be used to cover unrelated costs.

If that gets rid of the freeloaders who view Park District programs, activities and facilities as a kind of discount all-you-can-eat buffet, so much the better.

UPDATE 12.06.2018. We are saddened to hear of the sudden death of Park District Commissioner Jim Janak on Tuesday, December 4. Jim was a fine man who was just embarking on his public life and service to our community, having been elected to the Park Ridge Park District Board of Commissioners in April 2017 and having recently joined the  committee of the Park Ridge Holiday Lights Fund.

During his 1-1/2 years on the Park Board he was a dependable voice and vote for honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability. Although we disagree with Mr. Joel that “only the good die young,” we mourn the loss to our community of not only the person Jim was at the time of his death but, also, the person he undoubtedly would have become had he been given more than 38 years.

Our condolences go out to his wife, Stacie, and his children Finnegan and Addison. A fundraiser has been established for the Janak Family, with online contributions being accepted at: https://www.facebook.com/donate/1873636402735337/

Hail and farewell, Jim.

To read or post comments, click on title.