There’s a style of business management called “management by walking around.”
Among its notable proponents is management consultant Tom Peters, who wrote about it in his 1982 book “In Search of Excellence.” Its premise is that a manager can learn many of the things he needs to know about his/her business simply by walking around and informally observing.
After strolling along Summit Avenue this morning from near St. Paul of the Cross School to the METRA station, we observed a few things that suggest our City is not being managed in the way it should be, as to matters both large and small. And that suggests new Acting City Manager Shawn Hamilton and whoever becomes the permanent city manager may be inheriting more of a mess than they, or we taxpayers, have been led to believe.
The first observation we made in our stroll concerns what is commonly called “infrastructure.” In this case, we’re talking about the condition of that 3-block long strip of 100+ perpendicular parking spaces on the South side of Summit along the railroad tracks, which could be considered of “Third-World quality” only if one stretches the meaning of the term “quality”…and doesn’t mind insulting the Third World.
We don’t know how many years (decades?) it has been since that expanse of asphalt was last repaved, but judging by its overall appearance we’d be willing to bet it hasn’t been since at least Bill Clinton’s first term (i.e., 1992-96). That stretch of pavement contains so many dangerous elevation changes, depressions, pockmarks and holes that we’re surprised some enterprising personal injury lawyer hasn’t set up shop out of the trunk of his BMW to sign up prospective plaintiffs near the pay-box at Summit and Euclid.
And speaking of that pay-box, does anybody on City staff realize that there’s no sign posted on that box to inform parkers about how much the daily parking fee is? Just this morning we saw two consecutive parkers appear to stick only a single $1 bill in the slot, even though the charge has been $1.50 for quite awhile now. How tough is it for one of our City employees – how about whoever collects the money from that pay-box? – to note the absence of a daily fee sign and report back to whoever’s job it is to post one?
On the other hand, parkers might very well be discouraged from putting any money in those pay-box slots if they are already filled because nobody is showing up to collect that money. This morning we saw bills and coins already filling the slots for many of the higher-numbered spaces beyond the 40 or so cars actually parked there at the time – suggesting that nobody emptied the box yesterday.
How many parkers see their coin slot already filled and thank their lucky stars that “good enough for government work” just saved them $1.50?
With Park Ridge’s city-manager form of government, the “buck” for all of this supposedly stops at the city manager’s desk. We realize that the firing of Jim Hock by a 6-0 vote of the Council this past May might represent a partial explanation for that kind of neglect over the past four years Hock was putatively at the helm.
But the abysmal condition of the pavement along Summit predates Hock by a number of years, which raises a legitimate concern about how efficiently and well the City’s Public Works Dept. is functioning, especially given that we don’t recall anybody from that department pushing to give this Summit paving problem any kind of priority.
That, in turn, makes us wonder how much money is being spent by the City to do “just enough” infrastructure maintenance, repair and replacement to create a kind of Potemkin village – or, if biblical references are more to your liking, “whited sepulchers” (Matthew 23:27) – that lead the taxpayers to believe things are a lot better than they really are?
Despite Mayor Dave Schmidt’s incessant calls for cutting expenses for everything other than infrastructure and essential City services, and even after years of annual property tax increases that have exceeded the rate of inflation, is the City effectively playing a shell-game to conceal or disguise infrastructure deficiencies that arose while Ron Wietecha devoted his 12-year mayoralty to jousting with former Chicago mayor Richie Daley over all things O’Hare, and that were compounded by the subsequent neglect of later mayors and aldermen preoccupied with TIFs, Uptown redevelopment, and other frolics and detours?
We already have heard rumblings about a 10-11% City property tax hike this November, and about the possibility of similar tax hikes needing to be repeated for several more years thereafter in order to pull the City’s finances out of the power dive they were in when Schmidt took over as mayor in May 2009. We also get the sense that there are more than enough infrastruture and other “essential” projects to soak up that extra revenue if the City Council goes in that direction.
With that in mind, maybe new ACM Hamilton, Council Public Works Committee chair Ald. Marty Maloney, and Public Works Director Wayne Zingsheim should try some of management by walking around. And we encourage Mayor Schmidt to join them, if only to point out the things that many inhabitants of City Hall apparently have trouble seeing.
They can start with a stroll along Summit.
To read or post comments, click on title.
8 comments so far
It’s true that many aspects of this city are not up to date and/or suffering from neglect. I have to believe it’s the same “head in the sand” mentality I mentioned yesterday when I thought City Council was dragging its feet on looking for a Hock replacement, at least in part. That mentality just keeps kicking the proverbial can down the road, hoping the problem(s) will become someone else’s to solve.
But I blame residents in part, too. I think no one wants to pay a penny more than necessary in taxes, so services continue to be cut and improvements are stalled indefinitely. It doesn’t help when revenue that can offset costs, such as unpaid tickets and that ancient pay box, is left uncollected. Sort of a chicken-and-egg situation as to the origin of this decline.
I am always the first to talk up Park Ridge to friends and family members. I was at a party this weekend and once again I found myself defending us in comparison to a couple North Shore suburbs. It seems the mentality there, at least among the residents I was chatting with, is that they recognize their taxes are higher than many towns –and they accept that as “the price of admission,” so to speak, because they appreciate the quality of their resources, services and infrastructure.
As the old cliche goes, “you get what you pay for.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Putting off finding “a Hock replacement” wasn’t “kicking the proverbial can down the road” – it was an attempt to try to recoup as much of the stupid and irresponsible severance payment the old Council – including current Alds. Sweeney and DiPietro (thanks, guys) – gave Hock in December 2010, over Schmidt’s veto.
Taxpayers ARE paying more than a “penny more”: the City’s portion of our RE taxes has been going up (as we understand it) for a decade or more at the rate of 3-plus%/year, but previous Councils didn’t have the integrity or the “stones” to tell the public what now appears to have been an inconvenient truth: that the City was neglecting maintenance and repair of infrastructure while paying for other less-essential things, including higher compensation and benefits for its employees; and the Uptown TIF rat-hole that already has sucked around $6 million out of the General Fund, with more to come. And that’s not even counting the boneheaded neglect of fines and tickets.
What we object to is NOT getting what we pay for.
I’m gonna bet the parking lot asphalt if more like 45 years old.
Being a PR resident for 38 years don’t recall any repaving done and before the previous train station was torn down in 1995, a large sign sue to hang on the wall there of bran new commuter parking spots, including the Summit Ave. location, which was dated Nov. 1967.
Also are you referring to the pay boxes for the train?
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you’re right, Mike, it’s even worse than we suspected. If the things that are so visible are this neglected, we hate to think about what condition the below-ground infrastructure might be in.
We’re referring to those yellow pay-boxes, 2 of which are on Summit.
A couple of years ago my street was repaved. As soon as the repaving was done and we had a decent rain, I noticed pools in places by the curbs where the repaving had left gulleys that hadn’t been there before and where the water collected, rather than the paving creating an even pitch toward the sewer/manhole areas. Not a big thing, but aggravating becasue I doubt that’s what the city had specified.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve noticed that same thing over the years. Whether or not that’s something that can’t be avoided, however, is above our pay grade.
Great point about what we see that’s wrong versus what we don’t see. That worries me, and I hate to say it but I’m not very confident that we are even now being told the whole story about our sewer and water systems.
EDITOR’S NOTE: As we recall, in 2006 then-1st Ward. Ald. Don Crampton proposed a $40 million infrastructure – sewer, water, streets & sidewalks – upgrade that went nowhere, even though he had some reasonable-sounding data that suggested those systems had been ignored and were in problematic condition. We don’t believe all that much has been done since then to overhaul even significant portions of that infrastructure – so you are probably right to be worried.
Speaking of infrastructure…..it is now 4:27 CST and the storms they are a comin!!!! I would bet that the majority of PR is sitting by their generators waiting for the streets to flood and hoping (or is that praying??) it is only the streets that flood.
There is your measurement of PR infrastructure. It sucks and everyone, including our elected officials, know it!!!
Good luck to those without generators or flood control systems!!
EDITOR’S NOTE: You need to get yourself on CDT.
Anybody with chronic flooding problems should have installed their own flood control system well before now, especially when even the experts hired by the City – and the City’s Flood Control Task Force – have acknowledged that the various City-wide remediation plans they are proposing will not “flood-proof” the City. And Com Ed remains Com Ed.
In response to my previous post, you probably have to take that up with Metra though I’m suprise that they would of neglected the boxs.
Very rarly do I ride the train and when I do it’s most for recreation puposes and most have gotten on in Edison Pk. and have never experienced bad payboxes.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The pay-boxes are for parking, which is City-owned – so it’s the City that is responsible for no price information and missed collections.
PW: Check out this article. This sentence is an example either of bad government or of bad journalism: “The hearing should last only a couple of minutes.”
http://www.journal-topics.com/news/park_ridge/article_a85d27ea-dc23-11e1-97d3-001a4bcf6878.html
EDITOR’S NOTE: Bad government, although there’s enough blame to go around – including on the taxpayers/votes who don’t seem to pay attention to the schools despite their taking the lion’s share of our property tax dollars.
Folks, it’s not impossible to hope that under professional (i.e. “results-dependent”) management, the City can clean up its act. When the award-winning Ray Ochromowicz took over the moribund Park District a few years ago, all the messes and shabby care of our facilities that had been justified, ignored, and declared verboten to discuss came to light. Ray brought “management by walking around” to the Park District, and the results were electrifying. Residents comment daily on the improvements they can see — and that doesn’t even include the infrastructure basics now in work that they can’t see and shouldn’t have to see. Gayle Mountcastle appears to be continuing Ray’s work, so getting our money’s worth is no longer a total joke over there. The City can do likewise with the right guy or gal at the helm.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We suspect the Senior Center crowd might not share those sentiments, but that would be an indication that what you’re saying is generally true – even if “electrifying” might be just a tad hyperbolic.
And we hope Acting City Mgr. Shawn Hamilton proves to be the “right guy” at the helm of 505 Butler Place, because we’ve had over a decade of the wrong guys at that helm.
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>