In a letter in the July 7, 2005 edition of the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate, Judy Barclay of C.U.R.R.B. made another sales pitch for the purple ribbons she claims “denote the loss of ethical, responsive, open government in Park Ridge.”

That kind of hyperbole demands closer scrutiny.

The objects of her discontent are the nine members of the City Council who took an action at the May 3rd meeting- they organized the Council’s four committees – which she concedes they had the legal right to take. They simply reclaimed one of the powers that previous Homeowners Party-dominated Councils had handed over to their Homeowners Party mayors; and they did it in an open meeting in plain view of the public.

Ms. Barclay also complained that the majority “ignored the pleadings of residents who turned out in record numbers” to argue for Mayor Frimark’s committee choices.  The majority, however, ignored nobody. To the contrary, its members sat and listened for well over an hour as they were denounced by Frimark supporters in a demonstration as spontaneous as the balloon drop at a political convention.

Not surprisingly, at least a dozen of the most vocal critics were former Homeowners Party aldermen who themselves, while in office, had allowed the sitting mayors to make committee appointments; and another was Mayor Frimark’s soon-to-be handpicked successor as 4th Ward alderman.

But despite attempts to depict this as a popularity contest between the mayor and the Council majority, the truth is that the mayor received 4,889 votes for mayor while the nine aldermen comprising the Council majority cumulatively received 5,906 votes. So the popularity question remains a toss-up at best.  

Instead of grousing about the Council committees, Ms. Barclay and her Ribbon Brigade should tell us how the majority’s action has adversely affected the doing of the City’s business. Other than picking the four committees, what else has the mayor tried to do that the Council majority has prevented?

While purple ribbon sales may continue to make the Innisbrook folks happy, the Council should continue moving toward a new independent, transparent and accountable style of government – and away from the old lemming-like politics and abuses that led to the Homeowners Party’s loss of its dominance of City Hall.