We’re already several days into 2014 and nothing all that significant has happened in local government.

Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is purely in the eye of the beholder, as we saw from several comments to our January 1 post which ripped Mayor Schmidt and the City Council for not moving fast enough to turn Park Ridge into a retail mecca, replace its antiquated sewer system, completely solve the flooding problem, and find Waldo, generally without raising taxes.  All those failings notwithstanding, however, let’s look ahead at some of the things that arguably are teed up for 2014 and consider whether they should remain that way, or whether they should be teed down.

Let’s start with EMB signs.  Frankly, we don’t care whether they’re legalized or not.  But we think the “distracted driver” argument raised by some opponents of EMBs is bogus.  Any driver who hasn’t already bounced off the median on 294 while passing that Barnum & Bailey community commonly known as Rosemont likely is immune to the more modest distractions that might be presented if The Sandlot gets an EMB and advertises “buy-one-beef-get-one-free,” or Joseph A. Banks rocks its own EMB with a “We’ll PAY YOU to buy our clothes!” invitation.

A tougher task is predicting the effect on the City’s sales tax revenues – direct and indirect – from Whole Foods and the new Mariano’s.  Will the new stores cannibalize Jewel and Trader Joe’s?  Or will they draw in enough customers from outside Park Ridge to simply grow the total retail grocery pie?  Whatever the outcome, that’s the competition that “capitalism” is supposed to provide.  And, best of all, this City Council hasn’t given subsidies to any of them.

In a sick and twisted way, we can’t wait to see the results of the community health survey created and administered under the auspices of Lutheran General Hospital.  Judging by the few results that have leaked out – and by how long LGH is delaying the release of the results, a reliable signal that a seamless propaganda message is still being woven – we expect “results” that will be used to argue (or should we say “Advocate”) for the creation of a City mental health department.  Or, at the very least, a push for City-funding for mental health care provided by LGH personnel.

Over at School District 64, the most important task will be choosing the new superintendent from two announced finalists – Laurie Heinz from Skokie Dist. 68 and Robert Machak from Evergreen Park Dist. 124 – which is scheduled to occur within the next couple of weeks.  Machak will be at Emerson Middle School to meet with the public tomorrow, Jan. 9, from 10:30 to 11:00 a.m.; and at Lincoln Middle School from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m.  Heinz will do the same drill at the same places and times on Friday, Jan. 10.  Don’t blink, or you might miss them.

While this process is somewhat more transparent than was the selection of current supt. Phil Bender four years ago, it remains far less than what taxpayers deserve – especially considering that, according to Board President Anthony Borrelli (as reported in a Jan. 6 Park Ridge Herald-Advocate story), the D-64 Board will have its “serious heart-to-heart [interview] with these candidates and find out what makes them tick, so to speak” in a closed session, hidden from public view.

C’mon, Tony, that’s a fake punt right out of former pres. John Heyde’s playbook!  Sad to say, but when it comes to transparency, this looks like one step forward, two steps back

Over at D-207, the most important goal should be halting the academic ranking slide that has seen Maine South drop from its historical top-ten spot to a slot in the 20s, even as costs have continued to rise and D-207 has some of the highest-paid teachers and administrators in the state.   But we’re not holding our collective breath waiting for that discussion to take place.

The Park Ridge Park District’s main event for 2014 should be the grand opening of the new Centennial water park this summer.  Despite our vigorous opposition to that almost $8 million project’s being approved without a referendum, we hope it will be successful and not another drain on the taxpayers, especially since those taxpayers were denied a vote on such a major Park District expenditure and debt for the first time since 1992.

2014 will likely bring a first for the Park Ridge Library – or, at least, a “first” in quite a while – as the recently-passed 2014-15 budget calls for the Library’s closure every Sunday from Memorial Day through Labor Day.  Closing on those Sundays will enable the Library to give employees a 1% pay increase, and to continue to provide patrons with free use of the Library’s computers, CDs, DVDs, and free attendance at its many programs.  DISCLOSURE:  The editor of this blog is a Library trustee; and he voted against the Sunday closure as an individual budget item, and against the budget that contained that closure.

The City will also continue to grapple with that economic black hole called the Uptown TIF, which is expected to swallow another million of our tax dollars on its way to what the City’s TIF consultants are projecting could be a $27 million hole by the TIF’s expiration in 2026. Discussion will again likely focus on advance refunding, which could save the City some signficant money but which is a one-time deal and timing-sensitive.

But the toughest question any local governmental body is likely to face this coming year is flood control.  We hope there will be an insightful and vigorous debate over whether or not to bond and spend tens of millions of dollars on flood control projects that carry the promise of protecting most affected areas from only those so-called “10-year” floods.

Having already committed hundreds (thousands?) of man hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultant fees to come up with the Burke recommendations, and having already undertaken 7 relief sewer projects costing $5.3 million primarily for flood control purposes, we can see how the path of least resistance might be for the Council to issue a boatload of long-term, low-interest bonds to provide a little flood control for everybody – because most of the carping about flood control to date has been in the nature of what the late, great Mike Royko called the unofficial City of Chicago motto: “Ubi est mea?” (“Where’s mine?”).

That would be the worst kind of pandering, especially since 10-year floods seem to be virtually insignificant to the vast majority of residents and not worth the $100 million or so investment that would be required to implement all those remediation projects.

But if the Council decides it wants to go in that direction, we suggest it seriously consider creating a number of special service areas (“SSA”s) where the costs could be better targeted to those most directly benefitting from such low ROI remedies.  And if it decides on proceeding with any flood control plan that requires more than $10 million of cumulative expenditures or long-term debt, the final decision should be submitted to the taxpayers via referendum in November.

The forgoing are not intended to form a comprehensive list.  We expect other issues to pop up, and one  or more of them could take on major significance.  We invite our readers to submit any that we may have left off.

But whether good, bad or downright ugly, 2014 has the makings of an “interesting” year.

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