Once again this year, approximately 100 volunteers from an assortment of Park Ridge organizations have ensured that the City’s Uptown area will be lit up for the holidays.

This past Saturday members of the Park Ridge Indian Scouts/Indian Princesses, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Pistols Girls Softball program, and their parents – fueled by food provided by All on the Road Catering, Applauz Catering, D’Agostino’s Pizza, Houlihan’s, Jersey Mike’s Subs, Lisa’s Italian Ice and Noodles & Co., and using lights provided by an anonymous donor  – decorated the trees throughout the Uptown business district.

Prior to 2009, the City would spend thousands of dollars each year to hire private companies to decorate the trees.  But Mayor Dave Schmidt and the City Council decided that those costs could not be justified when the City was in the midst of cutting other expenses in order to reduce annual $1 million-plus deficits, much of which were caused by the disastrous Uptown TIF financing.

That’s when the private citizens stepped up to the plate, creating the Holiday Lights Coalition

The Park Ridge Herald-Advocate, however, is reporting that the lights aren’t quite as numerous or as bright as in past years– because the volunteers did not have access to a bucket lift to string the higher branches of the larger trees.

That’s a shame.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.

There’s got to be somebody with ties to Park Ridge who has access to a bucket lift and who can donate a few hours of its use this Saturday or Sunday.  How about the AT&T folks, who are in the process of polluting our parkways with their U-verse cable boxes?  The cost of providing a bucket lift for several hours this weekend shouldn’t cause even a fraction of a penny drop in the dividends AT&T will be paying its shareholders.

But if no such donation is forthcoming, why don’t the Uptown merchants and the Chamber of Commerce chip in to cover the cost?  After all, it’s those merchants who are the principal beneficiaries of a bright and inviting shopping and dining area.

Volunteers with no financial stake in the matter have marched the lighting effort 95 yards down the field.  Now it’s time for one more private donor, or the Chamber and the Uptown merchants, to take the ball and punch it over the goal line.

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