If any university’s MBA program ever decides to offer a course on “Management by Fear and Aversion,” Park Ridge Mayor Howard “The Coward” Frimark could offer a guest lecture or two on the topic.

After earning the “Coward” moniker for his fear and loathing of Ald. Dave Schmidt’s police station referendum resolution, and his subsequent efforts to frustrate the citizen-initiated referendum that more than 2,800 Park Ridge residents ultimately stuck in his kazoo, Frimark is once again displaying his political cowardice by turning down an invitation to the candidate’s forum sponsored by Citizens United to Retain Residential Balance (“CURRB”).

That CURRB forum has become a regular election-year event for at least the past 8 years.  Frimark himself happily participated in it when he ran for alderman in 2003, and again when he ran for mayor in 2005.

Frimark’s rejection of the CURRB debate comes after his rejection of Schmidt’s offer of 8 debates, with one to be held in each ward for the purpose of addressing primarily each ward’s special issues, and a grand finale city-wide debate to be held a week or two before the election.

So why is Howard “The Coward” kicking CURRB to the curb?  As reported in today’s Park Ridge Journal (“Frimark Declines Forum Participation,” Jan. 28), he has suddenly become disenchanted with CURRB’s format: “I’m only going to debate in structured forums” where “[a]ll the questions will be asked from the moderator.”

Frimark may be a coward, but he (or his political brain, Linda Ski) is no dummy when it comes to politics.  He realizes that our local “structured forums” tend to be much easier for the weak-record or issue-challenged candidate than more free-wheeling debate formats where regular citizens can ask their pointed questions directly, or where opponents can question each other. 

That’s because local “structured forums” tend to have genteel, under-informed moderators asking questions that usually are picked and chosen by the debate sponsor – with complete and total discretion – from among those sent up from the audience on index cards.  And those “structured forums” rarely permit follow-up questions that can highlight and poke holes in a wily politician’s glib and self-serving non-answers.

As further reported in today’s Journal article, Mayor Howard the Coward’s rejection of the CURRB invitation sure has gotten the nose of CURRB’s Judy Barclay out of joint.  She noted that no candidate had ever before turned down a CURRB invitation, and she issued the following challenge in response to Frimark’s slap: “Stand up and be counted like a man.  Answer the questions the residents have.”

Ms. Barclay, we couldn’t have said it any better ourselves.