A few years ago, in 2010 to be exact, Park Ridge Police Chief Frank Kaminski persuaded then mayor Dave Schmidt and the then-city council to create a Police Chief’s Advisory Task Force (the “PCATF”), ostensibly for the purpose of improving the relationship between the Police Department and the citizens it serves in the wake of the Ekl Report.

But mission creep being what it is in government, the PCATF almost immediately became a de facto lobbying group for Chief K and his department. And it soon had a 3-phase plan for improving the physical plant (a/k/a, the Police Station) to the tune of around $1.1 million.

Chief K and the PCATF were able to steamroll through “Phase One” – which was the construction of that ugly, stand-alone, 2,100 square foot building on Courtland just south of City Hall that now serves as an evidence room and corral for stolen bicycles, along with 18 parking slots.  Price: $360,000+ing.  Meanwhile, things like a new locker room for female officers, improving ventilation and remediating the mold problem, and otherwise upgrading the existing police station space was ignored.

So it came as no surprise to us that when the City Council recently voted, at its November 23, 2015 meeting, to remove $100,000 from the 2016-17 budget that had been earmarked for engineering and design services for the main-building improvements and upgrades that could/should have been done a couple of years ago.  Nor did it come as any surprise that Chief K was more than willing to say how “disappointed” he was about the Council’s action.

He worried about the “bad message” being sent to Department employees, and the “employee safety and security” that he claims was being sacrificed.

“These are all basic concerns,” he said. “We need to take care of our employees.”

If they are such “basic concerns,” why did the Chief and his sycophantic PCATF push for a new evidence room and bike corral when that same money could have been used “to take care of employees” in the ways you now claim are vital?

We’re betting they figured that after enough time passed so that people forgot about the Courtland building, they could scare people with stories about the health hazards of black mold that has been neglected for years, and with warnings about how a third-rate women’s locker room that has been neglected for year is now a civil rights violation waiting to happen, and with all the old anecdotes of how a sally port that the cop shop has lacked forever without any adverse effects is now essential.

Fortunately, Chief K’s renewed cry of “Wolf!” – or “Public Safety!” and “Health Hazard!” – is unlikely to stamped this City Council the way that shtick stampeded former councils.

This is a problem of the Chief’s own making. This is what happens when he surrounds himself with a bunch of lemmings who will thoughtlessly jump on command and mouth whatever platitudes are required of them.

They won’t dare tell him that he’s screwing up when he puts the building of a new evidence room and a bike corral ahead of the safety of the employees about whom he now claims to be oh-so-concerned.

Chief K may be the most natural politician in City government, and the most experienced – even though he hasn’t held elective office.  He knows how to leverage that uniform for maximum effect.

But as Abraham Lincoln once noted: “You can’t fool all the people all the time.”

Even with a blue suit and a shiny gold star.

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