Several weeks ago we asked a simple question about Mayor Dave Schmidt’s veto of both the new ICOPS union contract and the raises for non-union, salaried City employees: “WWRD?” (09.05.12). 

That question was directed to mayoral candidate Larry Ryles, who has been running a stealth-like campaign as the only announced challenger to Schmidt since he established a campaign fund and a website in September.  We offered Mr. Ryles 400-500 words to answer two questions:

“Would Ryles veto the ICOPS contract and/or the non-union employee raises?  And, if not, how would he come up with the money to pay for them?”

We were hoping to encourage Ryles – who claims to have a lot of ideas for running Park Ridge better than it has been run under Schmidt – to share some of them with the City Council and the taxpayers sooner rather than later.

But Ryles’ silence has been deafening.

Which is a curious approach, given that Ryles’ website promises that he “will take the lead on getting annual tax increases down below the annual rate of inflation or CPI” and the City is currently in the process of finalizing its 2012 property tax levy (for 2013) that Finance Director Alison Stutts and Council Finance Committee chairman Ald. Dan Knight (5th) have pared down from an anticipated 11.11% increase to the 2.15% increase that will be debated at tonight’s Council meeting.  That’s the lowest levy increase in memory.

Sadly, this will be Stutts’ curtain call as Finance Director, as she will be leaving the City at the end of December to open her own financial advisory firm.  Ironically, it also will be the first major project she has been able to manage without the inept interference of former city manager Jim Hock.  Until he was sacked in May by a unanimous vote of the Council, Hock’s penchant for facilitating the bad and impeding the good often seemed to force Stutts to choose between what’s best for the taxpayers and insubordination to Hock.

Hopefully, the newly-hired replacement for Ms. Stutts – Kent Oliven, whom Stutts helped select – will be able to fill Stutts’ figuratively “large” shoes, presumably with a distinctly lower and wider heel. 

But this proposed levy increase – which reportedly would raise the City’s property tax revenue by a total of $364,829 for the next fiscal year – provides another fine opportunity to ask the question: “What Would Ryles Do?”

That 2.15% levy increase, however, will still exceed the 1.9% increase in the Consumer Price Index (“CPI”) for the first 10 months of 2012, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  That doesn’t technically satisfy Ryles’ CPI-limited benchmark, so the first question we’d like to hear Ryles answer is: Does he support this 2.15% levy increase?  And if not, what planned spending would he propose the Council cut to bring the new levy in under the CPI? 

That second question becomes even more interesting when considering that Ryles is a member of the Police Chief’s Advisory Task Force which has championed the $1.1 million police station addition/renovation.  Schmidt vetoed the $290,000 first phase of that project at last Monday night’s Council meeting.  But if that $290,000 “Phase I” were deferred/cut, the levy increase could be reduced from the proposed 2.15% to almost zero – actually, an estimated 0.30% – well under Ryles’ tax levy cap.

So does Ryles support deferring/cutting Phase I of the cop shop project?  

Frankly, we suspect Ryles is just blowing smoke with his tax levy promises, and with his other campaign bluster as well.  But, once again, we’re willing to give him 400-500 words to tell the taxpayers of Park Ridge “What Would Ryles Do?” about the ICOPS and non-union salary increases; and about the tax levy increase, including the $290,000 Phase I cop shop project.

It’s time to come out of the political closet, Mr. Ryles.

UPDATE (11.27.12):  For the first time in months, Candidate Ryles was “in the house” last night for the Council’s tax levy discussion.  Unfortunately, Ryles (accompanied by one of his principal handlers, Paul Sheehan) offered nary a question nor comment.  So we still don’t know WWRD about the levy.  Or anything else.

Perhaps he’s just shy.

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