The war of attrition over control the Park Ridge Senior Center continued last Thursday night (July 21) at the Park Ridge Recreation & Park District Board meeting, where about a dozen “members” of private corporation Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc. (what some call “SSI,” but we prefer the more corporate “Seniors Inc.”) showed up to excoriate the Park Board for not rolling over and giving Seniors Inc. whatever it wants.

As we wrote about in greater detail in “Time For A Senior Center Reality Check (01.27.11), Seniors Inc. orginally wanted a contract that not only would have locked in Seniors Inc.’s control over the Senior Center building for the next two years, but likely also would have continued the roughly $160,000+ annual operating deficits the Senior Center has been running for at least the past six years, totaling almost $1 million during that time.

So far, the Park Board – now led by President Mary Wynn Ryan – wisely has said “no” to such a ridiculous special-interest proposal, thereby incurring the wrath of Seniors Inc.  We thank those Board members who have stuck to their guns, and we hope they continue to do so.

But we aren’t yet ready to bet the ranch on it.

Why?  Because the Board has let itself be co-opted and/or intimidated by Seniors Inc. into seeking Seniors Inc.’s approval of something called the “Cooperative Guidelines…” (“Guidelines”).  In essence, the Board is asking Seniors Inc.’s permission to assert the Park District’s existing legal rights over the Senior Center, with a few tweaks to acknowledge the neither-fish-nor-fowl operating arrangement between the Park District and Seniors Inc. for that facility that existed for the past 30 years or so until its expiration at year-end 2010. 

So why is the Park Board continuing to abdicate its lawful role as the governing body of the Park District and engaging in this kabuki-like bargaining with special interest Seniors Inc. over how the Senior Center is to be operated?

One explanation – the cynical one, we admit – is that “seniors vote” (as they constantly remind us); and there are some self-styled politicians on the Board who don’t want to risk alienating any group of voters, even a special-interest group that totals less than 800 people and shamelessly sucks $160,000 a year out of the District’s taxpayers to keep its “clubhouse” operating. 

Another equally-plausible explanation, however, is that too many members of that Board – just like too many of their counterparts on the City Council and the local school boards – prefer making people happy to governing by sound public policy principles.  And the easiest way to make people happy is with give-aways of the taxpayers’ money and/or of the governing body’s power, public policy be damned.

Either of those explanations appears to be supported by the following facts about the Seniors Inc./Senior Center/Park District relationship, as we have been able to ascertain them:

1.  Seniors Inc. is not an affiliate of the Park District and, therefore, is unlike those other private corporations that “run” Park Ridge’s baseball, soccer, hockey and football programs on the Park District’s behalf.  Consequently, Seniors Inc. is not currently bound by the District’s affiliate guidelines and requirements.

2.  It’s not clear whether “Senior Center members” are “members” of the Park District’s Senior Center facility (not unlike Community Center members) or are Seniors Inc. members, because Seniors Inc.’s most recent IRS Form 990-EZ tax return (on file with GuideStar) reports “dues” of $27,601 on Part I, Line 3.

3.  While Seniors Inc. acts like it represents all Park Ridge seniors, we understand it has less than 1,000 “members,” more than 200 of those being non-residents/non-taxpayers of the Park District.  That means Seniors Inc.’s Park Ridge membership is less than 11% of Park Ridge’s approx. 7,400 over-65 residents, and just a shade over 6% of Park Ridge’s approx. 13,000 over-55 crowd that is eligible for Seniors Inc. membership.  So the overwhelming majority of Park Ridge “seniors” (by either measure) don’t belong to Seniors Inc. or use the Senior Center  

4.  Senior Inc. claims to have contributed approx. $1 million over the past 30 years towards upgrading the Senior Center building.  We’ve seen no proof of that total but, even if it were so, Seniors Inc. has received reimbursement of that entire amount by Park District taxpayers in covering the Senior Center’s operating deficits over just the past six-seven years.

5.  As of the end of 2009 (per its 2009 Form 990-EZ), Seniors Inc. was sitting on more than $215,000, yet back then it was still charging its “members” a paltry $35/year in “dues” for unlimited use of the Senior Center while letting the taxpayers make up the annual $160,000+ operating shortfall.

6.  Whatever previous contract Seniors Inc. had with the Park District for its use and occupancy of the Senior Center expired and is no longer in force.

Given the foregoing facts, we see absolutely no legitimate public policy reason for the Park District’s ceding any control over any of its public buildings to private corporations, including the Senior Center to Seniors Inc. – irrespective of what kinds of irresponsible giveaways other politicians may have signed onto 30 years ago and their equally irresponsible or clueless successors continued ever since. 

And this is even more true when that private corporation isn’t even a Park District affiliate, serves a very small demographic, yet generates a disproportionately substantial operating deficit for which all taxpayers have to pick up the tab – including the vast majority of “seniors” who aren’t members of Seniors Inc. and have never set foot in the Senior Center.

If the Park Board has a collective spine it will end this nonsense and tell, yes tell, Seniors Inc. under what terms it will permit Seniors Inc. to retain its current level of use of the Senior Center.  And those terms should include Seniors Inc.’s covering of all the seniors-related costs of that facility’s operation – including the cost of the Park District personnel who provide services to that facility’s senior users. 

Whether that’s done by Seniors Inc.’s increasing its “dues” for existing members, or adding a significant number of new members, or by dipping into its treasury, is something that can be left up to Seniors Inc.  But that’s pretty much all that should be left up to Seniors Inc., because the voters elected the Park Board members – not Seniors Inc. or its members – to manage the Park District and its various facilities, including the Senior Center.

Letting the inmates run the asylum is bad enough.  Letting them run it at a $160,000 annual loss is crazy.

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