At this past Saturday’s City Council budget workshop, the Chief of Police and the acting Fire Chief presented their explanations of the budget cuts which, as we understand it, they themselves suggested – however reluctantly – for their respective departments when told to cut their budgets to reflect the City’s shaky financial condition.

If true, that’s an important fact because it means that those chiefs – drawing on their years of professional experience and their knowledge of the needs of this community – evaluated their departments’ services and personnel and came up with the best ways to meet the across-the-board expense reductions required to break the cycle of multi-million dollar deficits that are imperiling the future of Park Ridge.

That’s also an important fact because it makes questions like Ald. Don Bach’s “So the elimination of the traffic division could conceivably make the streets of Park Ridge less safe?” just another example of the cheap, disingenuous pandering we have come to expect from Bach and certain of his Council allies.  Anything that reduces the services provided by the police department “conceivably” could make our community less safe, albeit by an insignificant degree, just like adding several more police officers “conceivably” could make our community more safe, albeit by a similarly insignificant degree.

So when we hear Bach ask a loaded question like that, we want to ask him what alternative cut(s) is he proposing in lieu of cutting the police and fire departments?  And that’s the same question we want to ask Ald. Robert Ryan when he insists that the $200,000+ of contributions to private community groups be reinstated because those groups “really help people in need in our community.”

We deserve specific alternatives from those aldermen because, now that a draft budget has been proposed by City Staff that still shows a $227,000 deficit, just sending the matter back to Staff with the simple demand for something different is both governmentally and politically gutless – and an abdication by those elected officials of their aldermanic duties, not the least of which is to guard the public purse.

And to show we’re not just picking on our elected officials, we put that very same challenge to those residents who publicly complain, with hyperbole instead of hard evidence, that cuts in police and fire “will affect my way of life and my family’s way of life” (Tony Amelio) by “reducing the safety of this community” (Gene Spanos); or who, on behalf of School District 64, demand crossing guards for the elementary schools with the disclaimer that the District is unlikely to shoulder even a portion of those costs (Dist. 64 Board president John Heyde). 

In the context of that kind of irresponsibility, Dick Von Metre’s was a welcome voice of reason Saturday morning.   Von Metre, a member of the Library Board, noted that 10 years ago Park Ridge’s population was pretty close to what it is today, yet it was adequately policed by only 55 sworn officers.  Consequently, the cuts currently being proposed for the police department would still leave that department with more officers than we had back then.

That’s a variation on one of the arguments that successfully persuaded the voters to overwhelmingly reject the big and expensive new police station in last April’s referendum: “How has the current police station made us unsafe, or allowed criminals to go free?”

Of course, those who want to convince themselves that we were unsafe a decade ago, or that Park Ridge is decidedly more dangerous today than it was back then, will have no problem doing so.  Panic peddling is always an easy sale, especially in up-scale communities like ours where “real” crime, fortunately, is mostly something we read about as occurring elsewhere.

Almost 80 years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  For our local panic peddlers, “fear itself” seems to be more than enough.

Tomorrow morning beginning at 8:30 a.m., the Park Ridge City Council will take on another phase of the 2010-11 budget during a “workshop” (in the Council chambers, 505 Butler Place) dealing specifically with revenues.

In years past, the “revenues” portion of the budget was where former city mgr. “The Amazing” Tim Schuenke used to perform his most wondrous magic tricks – making revenue figures appear out of thin air, or making them multiply two and three times over without his even having to say “Alakazam!” – to create what appeared to be a “balanced budget.”  By year’s end, however, the City would be looking at a significant deficit; Schuenke would gin up some semi-plausible explanations; and the flummoxed City Council would promise to do better “next year.”

When “next year” came, however, the same thing would occur…with the exception of budget year 2006-07, when the City posted a $200,000+ surplus even without counting the additional $6.1 million it got for the one-time sale of the Target Area 2 property to PRC for the Uptown project.

Ironically, in another example of “no good deed goes unpunished,” that Council was rewarded for its efforts with then-mayor Howard Frimark’s cut-the-Council referendum, which sent all but three of them (Alds. Rich DiPietro, Jim Allegretti and Frank Wsol) packing, but not before they passed a balanced budget – which was promptly spent into a 2007-08 year-end deficit of $1,716,767 by those three survivors and new Alds. Dave Schmidt, Don Bach, Robert Ryan and Tom Carey.

Since then, those same seven have bestowed on us taxpayers additional deficits of $2,368,724 in budget year 2008-09, and a currently estimated $3.3 million for budget year 2009-10.

As Chevy Chase’s “Ty Webb” character would say: “Thank you very little” – although, since then, at least now-Mayor Schmidt has found “religion,” confessed error, and vowed to veto any non-balanced budget.  That’s a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, our first read through of the proposed 2010-11 budget reveals some revenue numbers that seem to be, for lack of a better term, more than a tad “optimistic.”  And that’s troubling because, even with those optimistic revenue numbers, the proposed budget still shows a $200,000+ deficit.  So any Schuenke-style shenanigans with the “revenues” side of the budget could put us taxpayers in a nasty trick bag.

If last week’s workshop was any indication, we can expect another good-sized turnout of police and fire department personnel, especially because two of the other items on tomorrow’s workshop agenda [pdf] are police and fire.  With the proposed budget already calling for the cutting of 4 police officers and 3 firefighters, expect some significant audience pressure on those politicians sitting around The Horseshoe to find other cuts so that those 7 salaries and benefits can be salvaged.

But these aldermen are already balking at the existing cuts, which makes the fabrication of some magical new revenues an attractive alternative for pandering politicians and duck-and-cover bureaucrats.

Somewhere up in Wisconsin, The Amazing Schuenke is smiling.

As more and more Park Ridge residents are now realizing, our community is in big financial trouble.  In that respect it may be like a lot of other Illinois communities, but that shouldn’t provide us any consolation.

As the City Council stumbles around trying to figure out whether to spit or go blind, it appears to us that some of the City’s financial issues are easier to address than others.

Take the Park Ridge Library, for example. 

According to yesterday’s article in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“Library looking to cut $300K from its budget,” March 2), the Library’s executive director, Janet Van De Carr, is troubled by the cuts required from the Library’s budget.  The source of her consternation and woe: circulation and visits that are expected to reach an all-time high this year, allegedly because of the bad economy.

“At a time when we are having more and more need for our services, we have to look at cutting back,” said Van De Carr.

While we’re big fans of libraries generally, the bottom line – literally and figuratively – is that library services are an amenity, especially in this day and age when so much information is readily available over the Internet.  Although the Library’s services may be desirable to certain segments of our community who are regular users, there is little-to-no actual “need” for them.  Or at least not anywhere close to the degree that water, sewers, police and fire protection are needed.

But if Janet and The Librarians don’t want to cut their budget by that full $300,000, they should try raising some additional revenues.

They can start by charging for all those free programs they run – programs for which attendance also appears to help inflate the Library’s usage numbers.  Judging from just the Library’s most recent four-color glossy mailing (that’s a cost that can be saved right off the bat), a reasonable charge for all of those programs might generate some decent revenue; e.g., 30 program attendees at $10 apiece = $300.  Do that 20 times per month and you have $72,000 a year – not a king’s ransom, to be sure, but a lot better than a sharp stick in the eye.

Of course, we expect this suggestion to create howls of outrage from the freeloaders who flock to such programs so long as somebody else (a/k/a, the non-user taxpayers) is paying the lion’s share of the costs.  That usually includes parents of young children for whom these programs – along with many of the programs offered by the Park Ridge Park District – effectively serve as no-cost/low-cost babysitting.

Sorry, folks, but it’s way past time you learned that our taxes pay for the Library building, basic operations and basic staffing.  Entertainment should cost extra, just like it does for cable television, at the movie theater, etc.

In addition to looking at ways to increase revenues, we suggest that the Library staff try finding a less expensive alternative to the $96,000 that is being allocated for “improvements” to the outdoor seating area and lawns south of the Library’s main entrance.  They should make do for the time being with a grand or two worth of topsoil and sod.

In only a few paragraphs we just took care of more than half of what the Library is expected to cut out of its 2010-11 budget, and we didn’t even break a sweat.  But that’s because the Library budget isn’t that big a challenge; and because we took the essential first step of distinguishing true “needs” from mere “wants.”

Until the City Council is willing to do the same, Park Ridge will continue to slide down the increasingly slippery financial slope.

The Park Ridge City Council chambers was packed for Saturday’s budget workshop, which was a big change from the little interest residents paid to budget workshops in years past.

But depending on whom you talk to, “many” or “most” of those in attendance were City employees who were there to oppose rather than applaud the expense-cutting austerity budget that City Mgr. Jim Hock unveiled – one which calls for the reduction of 17 full-time city employees, including police and firefighters, to produce savings of approximately $700,000.

[You can find the budget document on Mayor Dave Schmidt’s website – www.electdaveschmidt.com – until City Staff gets around to posting it on the City’s own site]

Two things you need to know before we go any further, however, are that (a) the City is projecting [pdf] a $3,297,400 deficit for the current 2009-10 fiscal year, with a commensurate reduction in the City’s fund balances to make up that deficit; and (b) Hock’s proposed 2010-11 budget is projecting [pdf] a $227,600 deficit, which means it still isn’t “balanced.”

Oh, yes…and that projected 2010-11 deficit budget already includes a water rate increase, a sewer fee increase, a 1 cent/gallon gasoline tax increase, and a 5% increase in the City’s portion of our property tax bills, which comprises approximately 12% of the total bill when the Library is included.

If that’s not discouraging enough, the initial comments coming from the five aldermen present at Saturday’s workshop – Alds. Jim Allegretti and Frank Wsol were missing – sent a pretty clear signal that this City Council doesn’t have the collective will to change the financial practices of the past several years which have bled the City’s treasury even as they neglected vital maintenance of the City’s infrastructure.

The first sign of more “business as usual” on spending came early in the meeting when Ald. Joe Sweeney (1st Ward), facing his first budget as an alderman, proclaimed that he would not vote for any budget that included cuts to public-safety personnel – a sentiment promptly seconded by Ald. Don Bach (3rd Ward). And to show his support for that position, Ald. Robert Ryan (5th Ward) actually thanked the police department for taming the mean streets of Park Ridge to the point where one can safely “walk across town at 2:00 a.m. blindfolded.”

Note to Ald. Ryan: Park Ridge is not South Austin or Englewood, either at 2:00 a.m. or 2:00 p.m., and whether blindfolded or not.

Curiously, Bach, who has spent the past year demanding cuts to City personnel, criticized Hock’s proposed personnel reductions by claiming they are “the wrong cuts” because they are directed at rank-and-file employees rather than management.

Note to Ald. Bach: the City’s director of economic development and its public information coordinator – both of whom are scheduled to get the axe this coming year – are not “rank-and-file” employees.

What has become painfully obvious is that, after years of irresponsible refusal to face economic reality by various City administrations going back to at least former mayor Ronald Wietecha, the chickens have come home to roost – just as they have for the incompetent and deceitful politicians who have run Cook County and the State of Illinois into the ground.

To his credit, City Mgr. Jim Hock, who inherited this particular mess from the administration of former mayor Howard Frimark and former city mgr. Tim Schuenke, has taken a brave first-step in trying to stop the City’s hemorrhaging of money. But the politicians who sit around The Horseshoe at City Hall far too often sound far too willing to pander to the special interests – those certain residents and some City employees – who see themselves as entitled to a lot more from City government than they pay in taxes.

Although we are decidedly skeptical of the Council’s desire to begin the painful process of becoming fiscally responsible with the taxpayers’ money, tonight’s City Council meeting (7:30 p.m., 505 Butler Place) has two key matters on the agenda [pdf] that could be bellwethers of the Council’s resolve to change the City’s course.

The first test will be the report of the O’Hare Airport Commission [pdf], which is seeking $500,000 of City funds in budget year 2010-11, including $335,000 in legal expenses to fight O’Hare expansion – despite City Attorney Hill’s report at the February 15, 2010 City Council meeting [pdf] that one of the country’s pre-eminent anti-airport expansion law firms could not offer any encouragement for combating O’Hare through litigation.

The second test will be the first reading of the ordinance to raise water rates to reflect the increased cost to the City of water purchased from Chicago. That ordinance barely got out of the Committee of the Whole, with Alds. Allegretti, Bach and Ryan voting against it. Its passage, however, is crucial to generating the revenues needed to balance the budget this coming year.

Thomas Jefferson encouraged “(a) wise and frugal government.” Unfortunately, City government has been neither; and, as a result, we now face a lot of unpleasant decisions.

And most of them will require the word No.