Last week we wrote about how lame-duck City Mgr. Tim Schuenke was aiding and abetting Alderpuppets Robert Ryan and Tom Carey in their proposed giveaway of as much as $2.4 Million of our money to Napleton Cadillac and PRC LLC, even as he was proposing a $600,000 deficit budget for 2008-09 and warning of future financial problems. (“Another Done Deal?”)

But Schuenke apparently isn’t content simply to throw away our money – he and his allies, including Mayor Howard Frimark, also want to keep us in the dark about how it’s being done.

Let’s start with the Napleton/PRC fiasco.  Even though the agenda for tonight’s City Council meeting shows that the Sales Tax Rebate Agreement is scheduled for a vote, the City/Schuenke have deprived the public of the ability to read and consider for themselves the terms of that agreement by not posting it on the City’s website (as of 12:01 a.m. today).  Although PublicWatchdog published that agreement [pdf] on January 11 (“The Napleton $2 Million Secret”), that’s no substitute or excuse for the City Manager leaving it off the City’s website of materials related to tonight’s meeting – unless, of course, his goal is to keep the public in the dark.

And that’s not the only thing on tonight’s agenda that Schuenke, et al. seems intent on concealing from us.

The Council is scheduled to adjourn to closed session “to Discuss Land Acquisition” without even identifying the City’s purpose for acquiring the land, or the land it is considering acquiring.  We have reason to believe, however, that the concealed purpose is to discuss a site for the latest big-spending project, the new cop shop; and the site in question is 720 Garden Street, allegedly owned by American Eagle Insurance.

As best as we can determine from our own independent recollection and a review of selected Council meeting minutes, the Council has never formally established a set of criteria for any potential cop shop site in order to determine whether that site is “ideal,” “preferred,“ or merely “suitable.”  Consequently, the Council has not even publicly discussed, much less reached an agreement on, whether the 720 Garden Street site is the best one for the new cop shop.

The mere fact that the owner of that site might be willing to sell it shouldn’t be the – or even a – dispositive factor when we’re looking for the best location for a facility that is supposed to serve our community for the next 30-50 years and cost us $20 Million or more.  Until the qualities and suitability of 720 Garden Street, or any other site under consideration, have been measured against a set of agreed-upon criteria that have been publicly debated, the Council’s running into closed session to hide this process from us citizens is nothing short of cowardly, irresponsible and outrageous.

Schuenke and the aldercowards are also scheduled to retreat into closed session for another discussion of which of the seven big and expensive law firms they’ve been interviewing to conduct an “investigation” into the Park Ridge Police Department should get the job.  Why discussing the qualifications of law firms for such a purpose keeps on occurring in closed session is a question Schuenke and the Council has not answered, other than with the typically bureaucratic and juvenile “the law permits us to do it.”  You can almost hear the “Nyah, nyah, nyah nyah, nyah” in the background.

But we have acquired a copy of a memo from Schuenke [pdf] in which he proposes a cheaper alternative to the full-blown law firm investigation: an unidentified consulting firm – the only consulting firm interviewed – “that does management audits of Police [sic] departments in order to determine where improvements can be made in terms of management of the department.”  And guess what?  Schuenke says it would “be much less costly” than the big law firm investigation, although the real kicker is that it “would probably involve some sort of separation agreement with Chief Caudill.”

Bingo!  How convenient for our on-his-way-out-the-door-and-heading-back-to-Wisconsin City Manager to hand Mayor Frimark a way to get rid of yet another senior City staffer so that Frimark can install one of his own lackeys in that position.  And at the same time claiming that such an option would save the taxpayers the money that Frimark, Schuenke and the Council have devoted the past couple of months to interviewing for the “right” law firm to spend it on!

Given how Frimark’s alderpuppets control a majority of the City Council, the only question that appears unsettled is whether Des Plaines Deputy Chief of Police Angela Burton – a/k/a Mrs. Mike Rozovics, wife of the head of a local accounting firm and yet another of the $1,000-and-up contributors [pdf] to Friends for Frimark – will get the job now, or will they let Deputy Chief Tom Swoboda be a place-holder just long enough to boost his pension?   

Yes, it all smells rotten.  And as the saying goes: “A fish stinks from the head down.”