One of our favorite quotes is: “In a contest between the shameless and the spineless, the shameless always win.”  That might be because it applies to so many situations, especially ones involving local government.

It sure seems to describe the case certain Park Ridge senior citizens have against the Park Ridge Recreation & Park District.  And we do mean “case,” as in lawsuit: Teresa Grodsky, Trustee v. Park Ridge Recreation and Park District, et al., Case No. 12 CH 2032, currently pending before the Hon. Peter Flynn in the Circuit Court of Cook County, involving competing claims to an approx. $330,000 bequest by deceased Park Ridge Senior Center member Betty Kemnitz to “the Park Ridge Senior Center.”

Until now, “Park Ridge Senior Center” was commonly used to describe the Park District-owned building at 100 S. Western Avenue, not its “membership” of between 800 and 1,000 “seniors” at least 55 years of age.  Presumably because of a relationship Grodsky developed with Kemnitz through Grodsky’s many years as the Park District’s manager of the Senior Center – until she resigned at the end of last year, under pressure – Kemnitz named Grodsky the trustee of the trust from which the bequest is to be made.

We suspect it is due to competing claims to the money (as can be seen from the Park District’s “Answer” to the Complaint) that Grodsky is asking the court to tell her who to give it to – although we understand that Grodsky already may have distributed a good chunk of that cash to one or more entities other than the Park District.

So who are the shameless and who are the spineless?

The “shameless” undoubtedly are that vocal minority of Senior Center members who want to retain the Park District’s (a/k/a the taxpayers’) building as their semi-private clubhouse while continuing to pay their paltry annual dues of only $45 – even as annual Community Center memberships are several times that, and Park District-affiliated kids sports programs are double that price for only a 3-4 month season. 

Depending on the day and the circumstance, those seniors might claim to be members of Park Ridge Senior Services, Inc., a private 501(c)(3) corporation (“Seniors Inc.”) that isn’t even legally affiliated with the Park District.  Or they might claim to be members of something called the “Senior Senate” (the “SS”), to which the Park District seems to have given an unofficial advisory voice in Senior Center affairs even though, as Helen Roppel insisted in last week’s Park Ridge Journal, “we are not part of the Park District.” 

And now, seemingly in order to gain extra leverage in the lawsuit, the Senior Inc/SS folks reportedly are claiming to be an unincorporated association called…wait for it…“Park Ridge Senior Center” (the “Association”), which has hired its own attorneys (using Kemnitz funds?) and will reportedly ask Judge Flynn to declare that the Kemnitz bequest belongs to…wait for it…Seniors Inc.  

Irrespective of whatever they choose to call themselves, however, what these seniors appear to be is just plain greedy.  And decidedly ungrateful to the taxpayers.

As we’ve written in many previous posts, these seniors seem to share the mindset that because they are older and have been paying taxes for years, they somehow have accrued an entitlement to taxpayer subsidization of their semi-private clubhouse free from interference by the very Park District which owns the building and squeezes those subsidies out of the taxpayers.  Again, quoth Roppel (per the Journal): “We set the dues, we set the programs, we enter into lease agreements and any kind of contracts.”  Or, in case that isn’t clear enough:

“It’s not their place,” says Roppel, referring to the Park District. “[T]hey are not the Park Ridge Senior Center.”

Which, by process of elimination, makes the folks at the Park District the “spineless” ones for having allowed this ridiculous charade to continue for the past 18 months – if not for the past several years that the Senior Center has been booking $150,000-plus annual operating deficits that the Park District taxpayers have subsidized.  We have tracked those deficits back to at least 2005, and since then they total approx. $1 million.  Since those deficits first became publicized a couple years ago, the Senior Center dues have been raised from $22 to the current $45, generating as much as an additional $23,000 annually, or approx. $127,000 less than the average annual Senior Center deficit.

Big whoop.

For the past 18 months Park District management – both Board and Staff – has diddled itself silly while responding fecklessly to Seniors Inc./SS/Association demands, as it once again demonstrated just last Wednesday night at a “special” meeting called for the purpose of….well…um…er…making a motion to make another motion at this coming Thursday night’s “regular” meeting to create a Senior Center Advisory Committee to replace the SS as the District’s advisory body for the Senior Center.

Feel free to laugh in lieu of crying.  

Worse yet, that feckless Park District management has begun throwing good tax dollars after bad in litigating with Grodsky, Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan (who, by law, must be named in suits involving charitable trusts), Seniors Inc. and perhaps the Association over the diminishing Kemnitz bequest.  Sad to say, there’s no reason to believe that the shameless won’t defeat the spineless in that litigation, either, even if the shameless’ “victory” does nothing more than consume a substantial portion of the Kemnitz bequest in legal fees.

So here’s an idea, Park District: throw in the towel now rather than later.

Let the greedy seniors have the Kemnitz dough, irrespective of what Betty K may have wanted.  No need to spend tens of thousands of additional tax dollars litigating when you know Grodsky is going to testify against the Park District’s getting it, and this situation is sufficiently bollixed, both factually and legally, that there’s no telling how the judge may ultimately rule.   

Instead of litigating, do what should have been done at least 7 years ago: figure out the fully-loaded cost to operate the Senior Center and start charging annual membership dues that can be expected to cover that cost.  If the greedy seniors don’t want to pay those higher dues, let them join one of those neighboring communities’ senior centers they’ve been bragging about as being so much cheaper and better than this one.

Or let them start their own “Senior Center.”  As Roppel was quoted in last week’s Herald-Advocate story: “We can take our Senior Center and move it any place we want.”

Vaya con Dios, Helen.

But while you’re at it, Park District, you also might want to re-visit the rules and regulations for your “affiliated” organizations – at least some of which are private 501(c)(3) corporations like Seniors Inc. – to make sure those organizations are paying their fully-loaded costs; and to prevent what happened with the Kemnitz bequest from happening with any future bequest to one of those affiliates.

Because when it comes to taking advantage of government, the “shameless” come in a variety of packages besides “seniors.”

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