Approximately 20 years ago, then-Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar earned the derisive nickname “Gov. No” from then-Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley because of Edgar’s semi-regular rejections of Daley’s demands for more State funding to cover for Daley’s then-nascent mismanagement that would ultimately grow into the financial disaster he recently bequeathed to Rahm Emanuel. 

Edgar had to be the “adult” governor after 14 years of irresponsible wheeling-and-dealing by his predecessor, James “Big Jim” Thompson, who left Illinois in almost as bad financial shape as it’s in today.  

Interestingly enough, some disgruntled local big-government, tax-and-spenders have started referring to Park Ridge Mayor Dave Schmidt as “Mayor No” because of his budget hawk policies and practices over the past two years. 

Schmidt was in office less than two months before he issued what appears to have been the first-ever Park Ridge mayoral veto, of excessive community group expenses in the 2009-10 budget.  That veto was over-ridden, as were his vetoes of the 2010-11 and the 2011-12 budgets, by a hostile City Council dominated by coat-holders/campaign contributors of Schmidt’s predecessor, Howard Frimark, whose mayoral legacy currently stands at one cut-down, 7-man City Council that spent the past four years running up millions of dollars in deficits while depleting the City’s fund balances to dangerous levels, even as City services and personnel were trimmed.    

Schmidt also vetoed several spending appropriations, most notably the ridiculous $200,000+/year, multi-year sweetheart contract for City Mgr. Jim Hock – vetoes which also were over-ridden by those same aldermen who seem never to have seen a taxpayer’s dollar they couldn’t spend.   

Schmidt earned his “Mayor No” reputation again this past Monday (June 6) night when he line-item vetoed approximately $275,000 of expenditures in the 2011-12 amended budget that was passed by the recently-seated City Council.  Schmidt asked this “new” Council to re-visit the 2011-12 budget after the previous Council summarily over-rode Schmidt’s line-item veto of approximately $650,000 of expenditures in the original 2011-12 budget, shortly before Jim Allegretti, Don Bach, Tom Carey, Robert Ryan and Frank Wsol fled City Hall without seeking re-election.

Schmidt’s latest veto message speaks for itself, and we encourage you to read it and think about it – because the principles and practices it advocates represent a new philosophy of City government that portends a dramatic departure from the irresponsible and profligate management of prior mayors and Councils. 

We hope at least three members of the new Council will exhibit the common sense and fiscal responsibility necessary to vote to sustain Schmidt’s veto at the Council meeting on June 20th, even though only Ald. Dan Knight (5th) displayed those qualities in casting the sole dissenting vote when this amended budget was passed two weeks ago.    

But no matter which way that vote goes, Park Ridge’s business as usual, big-government, tax-borrow-and-spend types now have a new nickname for their political adversary: 

“Mayor No.”

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