Council Rodeo Recap!

Last night's council meeting was another exciting display of representative democracy in action! Here's a quick recap of the highlights of what your council did to...er...did for...you.

After the cursory adoption of the consent agenda items, Mayor Howard announced that the city has received a letter from IDOT (Illinois Department of Transportation) promising that bad stretches of Cumberland and Higgins will be repaved, contingent upon Springfield's passing a budget. Our sources report that a good laugh was had by all.

The council then moved to the City Manager's report portion of the agenda. The first item of business was the adoption of an agreement with Ekl Williams for the Park Ridge police department audit.

We are told Alderman Wsoooool man (7th ward) lead the charge by asking several questions of Mr. Terry A. Ekl, who was in attendance. Alderman Schmidtzkrieg (1st ward) moved to amend the agreement to 1) not provide immunity for disciplinary action against police officers interviewed by Ekl Williams, 2) release the final report to the public, and 3) have Ekl Williams keep and manage a list of people to be interviewed.

That amendment was divided into its respective parts and treated independently for discussion and vote. Procedurally (under Roberts Rule of Order) that's known as "dividing the question".

Most of the discussion among the council and with Mr. Ekl centered around the question of providing immunity from discipline for police officers who will be interviewed by Mr. Ekl, while allowing that criminal prosecution would still be available, and the release of the final report to the public. It seems Mr. Ekl had asked to be able to grant immunity, as well as asking the council if the final report is intended to be released to the public so that his firm would know whether or not they were operating under the guidance of confidential attorney-client privilege; something Mr. Ekl would seem to have preferred.

During the discussion, Ald. Schmidtzkrieg mentioned that a letter of recommendation for Mr. Terry Ekl was received by the city from DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett. Ald. Schmidtzkrieg also noted that Mr. Terry Ekl was, at one time, Mr. Birkett's campaign manager and that over the years Mr. Ekl has donated nearly $20,000.00 to Mr. Birkett's election efforts.

In answer to the question of whether or not Mr. Ekl had any affiliation with the mayor or any member of the council, Mr. Ekl responded that he did meet Alderman Allspaghetti (4th ward) a number of years ago, but that he did not have any affiliation with any other members of the council.

After much discussion, the council did finally vote on the amended main motion to adopt the contract with Elk Williams. The result is that immunity from disciplinary action will not be given to officers being interviewed, the final report will be released to the public in some form, and Ekl Williams will keep and manage any list of interviewees.

Next, the council then moved to ratify the notice given to Napleton Cadillac that the city position on the previously adopted deal with Napleton was now kaput, with Alderman DreadBach (3rd ward) stressing that this notice means Napleton will not get a cent from the city. We can only imagine how very disappointing all this is to those 30 constituents whom Ald. DreadBach previously said he was representing.

The third item under the City Manager's report was a discussion of the process under which the proposed PADS shelter at St. Mary's Episcopal Church would be allowed to proceed. The city attorney, Everett "Buzz" Hill, asked the council for direction; stating that normally staff would make such a determination but that case law in this area was conflicting and that this was a very unusual circumstance.

Again it was Ald. Schmidtzkrieg who moved to refer the matter to the council's Procedures and Regulations committee for further discussion and recommendation.

Mayor Howard then informed all present that the city council will be conducting a PADS workshop at 6:30 pm on May 5th, 2008 with St. Mary's, people from PADS and selected members of a "community group".

With those items of business done, the council then moved to the portion of the agenda that allows members of the public to comment on non-agenda issues. And again, many many members of the public spoke both for and against the PADS shelter at St. Mary's with pastor Amity Carruba providing the council with 343 signatures from various church congregants in support of the PADS shelter at St. Mary's.

We hate to burst Amity's bubble, but the last time signatures were submitted to the council it was a final count of 400 residents opposed to granting zoning variances to Norwood Builders for the condo project at Executive Office Plaza, and the council wasn't persuaded. We can only guess that none among those 400, and likely none among the 343 submitted by Amity, are the "magical 30" DreadBach needs to vote to represent his constituency.

The rest of the council's business was conducted with much less citizen participation, and your water rates are going up, your sewer surcharge is going up, ambulance fees are going up, the parking tax at Lutheran General Hospital is going up, and your city government will undoubtedly be finding new and exciting ways to spend it all.

Have a great day.