It’s that time of year again – time for the Taste of Park Ridge (“TOPR”), the City of Park Ridge’s premier civic festival run, once again, by private corporation Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”) without any contract with, or accountability to, the City even though it costs the taxpayers almost $23,000 in unreimbursed City services.
Two years ago, in ”Time For A Transparent Taste” (07/07/08), we first questioned the secret way in which TOPR was being run by Taste Inc., at that time an Illinois 501(c)(3) corporation [pdf]. Taste Inc. did not publicize its financial information and also appeared not to have filed any IRS Form 990s [pdf], the federal tax return form required of 501(c) corporations who have annual revenues greater than $25,000, for the first four years of its existence: 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Even though non-profits don’t have to pay taxes, the required Form 990 is an informational return intended to allow the IRS and the public to evaluate non-profits and how they operate. Most, if not all, of the Form 990s filed with the IRS are posted on the GuideStar website, but none were ever listed there for Taste Inc. in any of those first four years, even though it was a certainty that Taste Inc. had revenues exceeding $25,000 in each of those years.
Our questions stirred up a hornets’ nest of comments both challenging and defending Taste Inc’s conduct. We were accused of being conspiracy theorists, axe grinders and worse. But through all that time Taste Inc. produced nothing to account for the money it took in or how it was spent.
So around this time last year, in ”One Year Later: Another Call For Transparency From Taste Of Park Ridge” (06.22.09), we re-raised those same questions, along with a new one: Why did Taste Inc. voluntarily dissolve itself on February 20, 2009 [pdf], and then re-incorporate on March 4, 2009 – but, this time, as a 501(c)(6) corporation with Chicago attorney Leo Aubel replacing Pines’ Dave Iglow as its registered agent?
Yet another question was raised by the way the original Taste Inc. dissolved: we could find no record of it having followed the prescribed procedures for dissolution [pdf], including any record of what it did with whatever assets it had from those first four years of operations. In other words, it looks like the original Taste Inc. was a scofflaw as to both its annual IRS filing requirements and its dissolution – with no accounting of whatever assets it accumulated from four years of operations and what it did with them on dissolution.
As for why Taste Inc. effectively changed from a 501(c)(3) corporation to a 501(c)(6) one, the single biggest difference between the two appears to be that a 501(c)(6) corporation may engage in political activity [pdf] on behalf of, or against, individual candidates for public office, so long as that political activity does not constitute the corporation’s primary activity; and a 501(c)(3) cannot [pdf]. By running the TOPR, therefore, Taste Inc. has the “primary activity” qualification necessary for it to engage in political activity.
What could that mean for Park Ridge government?
Well, judging from Taste Inc.’s first-ever Form 990 [pdf] filing in March of this year, Taste Inc. is sitting on $65,221 in surplus assets just from last year’s TOPR event. If Taste Inc. does that well this coming week, it theoretically could have a $130,000 campaign “war chest” with which to help finance aldermanic candidates in next April’s municipal election.
That’s over $18,000 for each of the seven wards, which as best as we can tell would comfortably exceed what has been spent by any aldermanic candidate in the history of Park Ridge – other than Mark Anderson, who in 2003 spent a shade over $20,000 [pdf] to defeat incumbent Homeowners Party 5th Ward Ald. Steve Huening. And it would far exceed the next biggest aldermanic campaign spender, Howard Frimark, who dropped a little under $13,000 [pdf] that same year to win the open 4th Ward seat [pdf].
Back in 2003, however, the City Council still had 14 aldermen, with only 7 seats at stake in any one election. That made it impossible to win an entire Council majority in any given election.
But with the current 7-person Council, Taste Inc. could commit $20,000 to four individual races to elect a 4-alderman Council majority favorable to any interests or agenda it might wish to advance. And even after that $80,000 expenditure, Taste Inc. would still have $50,000 left over as “seed” money for TOPR 2011.
Was the switch from a 501(c)(3) to a 501(c)(6) part of a plan by Taste Inc. to become a political powerhouse? Or are its motives more benign? We don’t know, and the folks running Taste Inc. remain characteristically closed mouth.
But irrespective of whether they intend to become moneyed power brokers in Park Ridge politics, that $65,000 in operating surplus reflected in Taste Inc.’s initial Form 990 filing makes one thing crystal clear: Taste Inc. can well afford to reimburse the City for the approximately $23,000 in City services it uses.But if past history is any guide, don’t expect that check to be in the mail to City Hall anytime soon.
[To be continued…]