A few random rim-shots and quick-hits for your mid-week edification, in no particular order of importance:
Unaccountable ComEd. At Monday night’s City Council COW meeting, two ComEd reps showed up with a variety of non-explanations of recent power outages throughout the City. Alibis ranged from a “big tree falling in the Forest Preserve” to smaller trees and/or limbs causing local “pocket reliability issues” within and without ComEd’s “tree zone.” They also described one of ComEd’s key diagnostic techniques as “walking the line”; i.e., walking along the ground looking up at the power line for problems. How 21st Century!
A more detailed “report” from ComEd can be found here, and ComEd’s reps are scheduled to be back before the Council on September 17 at 7:00 p.m.
What we’ve concluded – although we hope we’re wrong – is that ComEd’s got so much juice (pun intended) in Springfield that they basically can do whatever they want. So while the City should continue to be as squeaky a wheel as possible re these outages, about all it can do from a practical standpoint is: (a) try to keep our trees trimmed away from power lines; and (b) keep giving an earful to our state legislators (Sen. Dan Kotowski, Rep. Rosemary Mulligan) for letting ComEd continue to get away with being too big to give a rat’s derriere about dependable power for Park Ridge.
City Council Policy No. 6 On Way Out? Council Policy No. 6 is the one that deals with “regulating the use of City funds for the support of private non-governmental organizations. It is the basis for years of arbitrary, unaccountable donations to private community groups – something we’ve been critical of for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it appears to violate Article VIII, Section 1 of the Illinois Constitution: “Public funds, property or credit shall be used only for public purposes.”
From what was said at Monday night’s COW meeting, it looks like Policy No. 6 will either be modified or perhaps eliminated. As Ald. Marty Maloney (7th) correctly noted, for years the City has been “writing blank checks” to community groups without a strong sense of what the City is getting for its money. Ald. Joe Sweeney suggested an advisory referendum on whether the taxpayers want to see $250,000 a year budgeted for handouts to these community groups.
As we’ve said before, if these private community groups want public funding of the services they provide, such funding should be under a contract with the City like every other vendor – with fixed prices for the various identifiable units of services and documentary proof that those services are going to Park Ridge residents. Maybe, just maybe, our City officials finally are getting the message.
New D-64 “Changes” Frivolous? An article in the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“District 64 welcomes new year with changes,” 08.23.12) announces three changes for the new D-64 school year, two of which are more students riding buses, and more students eating lunch at school. Big whoop.
According to the H-A article, the bus-riding results from the borderline bankrupt State of Illinois deciding that D-64 deserves state funding so that Lincoln and Emerson 7th and 8th graders can get free busing through “so-called hazardous crossings that students encounter two [sic] and from school.” No mention in the article of what those “hazardous crossings” are so that the rest of us can be extra careful when we cross there. Also no mention of whether the free busing will be based on economic need, so we’ll assume need is not a criterion unless and until we hear otherwise.
And elementary students will be required to stay at school for lunch, with the elimination of the lunch supervision fee. That begs the question of who pays for the lunch supervision that used to come out of the pockets of the parents whose kids lunched at school rather than went home to eat.
“Free” bus service should require a showing of need – otherwise it just shifts the costs (and the inconvenience) of getting one’s kid to school from the parent to the taxpayers. The same goes for lunch supervision: making stay-at-school lunching mandatory doesn’t magically make the supervision costs disappear, does it?
A Sign. Our post of 08.03.12, “’Management By Walking Around’ Should Start With Stroll Along Summit,” complained about how City government seems to have a hard time making sure that even the little things – like posting a sign on the paybox for Summit parking that actually tells parkers what the daily fee is – are getting done right. Well, somebody finally got around to that: and a new sign is up announcing the $1.50 per diem.
In Neil Armstrong’s honor, we’ll call that “one small step for some bureaucrat, one small leap for City government.”
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