Over a year and one-half ago the Police Chief’s Advisory Task Force (the “PCATF”), in an obvious attempt to stampede the then-City Council into approving a $1 million-plus three-phase police station “improvement” project, issued a 75-page PowerPoint presentation – titled “Cost Effective Strategies to Address Risk Factors at the Police Facility.”
That presentation described the police station as an unhealthy and unsafe facility buried in the basement of City Hall. And mold was portrayed as the most demonstrable of those health and safety problems – so hazardous that a discussion of it comprised Pages 33 through 38 of the presentation.
Yet remediation of that mold problem was put off until the final year of the proposed three-year improvement program, even though Chief Frank Kaminski publicly acknowledged the possibility that the Council could choose not to fund the second and/or third years of the program.
Guess what?
At its November 25 COW meeting, the City Council voted to postpone the $389,500 Phase II of the project for budgetary reasons. That postponement helps the City hold its property tax levy increase to 2.2%.
And guess what else?
According to an article in this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate (“City Council postpones Park Ridge police station improvements,” 11.29.13), in response to Mayor Dave Schmidt’s recent request that City Staff re-assess the air quality of the police station and formulate a cost-effective proposal for addressing the mold problem, Chief K said that problem might be remedied by hiring a cleaning company to clean the cop shop at least twice a year.
Golly, who would have figured that this hazardous mold problem that supposedly needed more than one-half million dollars of preliminary work – via the first two phases of the three-year project – before it could be addressed can now be remedied after just one phase by…wait for it…cleaning? Okay, cleaning at least twice a year.
Why wasn’t “cleaning” – even four times a year – the FIRST solution that occurred to Chief K and the PCATF? Could it be that mold was just the most convenient scare tactic available to people who cared more about the ends – one million dollars-plus of non-essential wants rather than needs – than about the honesty and transparency of the means?
We sure hope not. But we find it hard to believe that Chief K and the PCATF members could be so clueless.
Ald. Nick Milissis (2nd) proposed the postponement, suggesting that Phases II and III of the cop shop project might be reconsidered after the City decides whether and when it will sell two City-owned buildings: the old public works garage at Greenwood and Elm, and the Fire Dept. house/office next to the Devon Avenue fire house. That’s the kind of fiscally-sound thinking the taxpayers need to see more of from aldermen other than Milissis and Ald. Dan Knight (5th).
Our concern, however, is that now that sale of those two properties has been identified as a possible source of revenue for Phases II and III of the cop shop project, there will be a new single-minded push to get those properties sold without any thought given to the City’s future property needs. According to the H-A article, Chief K already is talking about selling the old public works building “as soon as we can”; and a property needs analysis is underway, with completion scheduled for February-March 2014.
That raises our suspicions even further. Hopefully, this Council won’t allow itself to be sold the same lame bill of goods that so easily bamboozled a majority of the previous Council back in 2012.
Ronald Reagan is known for his “trust, but verify” admonition. When it comes to anything involving the Park Ridge police station, however, the Council should drop the “trust” part and just go with “verify.”
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