According to the rules, the Mayor votes to break a tie or when a super majority is needed to pass some item of council business. Rules are rules. Even in Park Ridge, Mayor Howard sometimes decides to follow the rules -- and Mayor Howard has cast tie-breaking votes at council meetings.
Like the time Mayor Howard cast the tie-breaking vote that would have given his friend and campaign contributor, Bill Napleton of Napleton Cadillac, $2,000,000.00 in tax benefits and an additional payment of $400,000.00 to clean up any contamination of the old Napleton Cadillac dealership.
Mayors casting tie-breaking votes happens in many other towns too. Mayor Howard's good buddy, Mayor Tony Arredia (R-We got the casino license!) of Des Plaines, has cast tie-breaking votes too. And at least one resident of Des Plaines was inspired to thank Mayor Arredia for his tie-breaking vote in the Journal and Topics' Speak Out! section: Thanks mayor for tie-breaking vote
Mayor breaks 4-4 tie in favor of 1% property tax levy for 2009. Congratulations to Mayor Tony Arredia for breaking this most contested vote in the city council in all these weeks of discussion. I'm sure he was under a lot of pressure to do otherwise. My hat goes off to you mayor for siding with all of the taxpaying citizens of Des Plaines. Frank from Des Plaines.
We wonder if anyone besides Bill Napeton thanked Howard Frimark for his tie-breaking vote.
The PRU Crew is also wondering if the City Council, busy changing the way city business is discussed and managed, would consider changing the rules for when tie-votes need to be broken.
We feel the taxpayers of Park Ridge would have a better chance if the City Council were to consider the following option --
January 15, 2009
By The Rules!
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6 comments:
I was in the audience and was amazed to hear Howard disclose the campaign contributions he received from Bill Napelton and then Napelton Cadillac. However, I was absolutely stunned that he did not recuse himself from the vote!
The Napelton deal was cut way...back before anything came to the surface
about selling.
The other former site was too a fiasco with Howie's finger prints all over it.
I'm concern about the EPA clean up and the gue still in those pits
at both sites ! Who's going to foot that bill to clean it up ?
Isn't there a law that would make people responsible for land they are leaving vacant?
You can check the property maintenance code.
Sorry -- didn't have the url immediately handy.
Copy and paste it into your browser window.
http://www.parkridge.us/assets/art22.pdf
I'm sure Howie figured he would be able to sit there while his minions voted to give Napleton the $2.4 million, but Carey got confused and abstained so Howie got to do the dirty deed.
And let's not forget that the $400,000 of that $2.4 million was for cleaning up the soil contamination on the site, so the $400,000 was also for the benefit of Frimark pal Andy Coglin of PRC, our friendly Uptown developers. Call it a "two-fer" for Frimark.
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