At last night's City Council meeting, 1st ward Alderman Dave Schmidtzkrieg took the oath of office and became Mayor Schmidtzkrieg of the City of Park Ridge!
Welcome to gavel management, Mayor Dave!
The PRU Crew saw that Cecil B. DeMelidosian had his trusty video camera at hand last night, and we hope to be able to embed another YouTube offering here on our blog.
After the swearing in of the City Cluck, Betty Henneman, and our new Mayor, the Council did discuss some matters of actual city business.
Mayor Dave was tasked with breaking a couple of tie votes, and under the Mayor's report portion of the agenda, Mayor Dave told the Council he believes they must again review and amend the city budget -- passing an unbalanced budget is not a responsible action.
The future is looking brighter already!
May 5, 2009
Mayor Schmidtzkrieg!
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15 comments:
How did James This-city-is-going-into-Hock and other city staffers conduct themselves and react to the budget demand?
I am looking forward to us moving forward from all the negativity and getting stuff done for the improvement of the ENTIRE community.
Lovely picture.
lovin that, UEO?? really?!
Cecil B. should be done walking the dog by now! I want to see the video! Come on already!
I would liketo commend Mr Hock. It is unknow nto most of you that he is attempting to solve the labor problems by presenting City Council with soulutions. It is unfortuante the Council refuses to acknowaldge the Employee's of Park Ridge.
Police, Fire and Public Works are necessary resources and what makes them valuable resources is the worker. We take them for granted until we are a victim of a crime, our house is on fire, our loved one has a heart attack or those water and tree issues go unresolved.
I hope the council takes note and invests in the City best resources... its workers.
Just becuase I won't run into a burning building or a bank robbery or want to dig a hole for somebody else and feel the constant threat of losing my "private sector" job... it is not an excuse to reufse wages to those workers that show up at midnight when I have an emergency.
Pay them, pay the contract bills and lets find other ways to minimise the city budget.
2million in the hole...
Chief Caudills' package ?
retireing City Manager's package?
Terry Ekle?
Federal suit from the Ekle Report?
(the Ekle repor is the gift that keeps taking)
The library has the largest training budget???
Duey decimil vs firemen and policemen training (what are we thinking)
Not to mention the community programing subsidising.
Must be the water in PR?
Well said anon 8:36
Anon@8:36 & 8:41 --
Your support for the City's staff is admirable, and I and the Crew agree with your statement that "Police, Fire and Public Works are necessary resources and what makes them valuable resources is the worker." (sic)
However, your following remark that "We take them for granted until we are a victim of a crime, our house is on fire, our loved one has a heart attack or those water and tree issues go unresolved" begs some attention.
These workers, City resources if you will, are not provided to Park Ridge residents through the benevolence of someone's god.
Rather, the taxpayers of Park Ridge have every right to expect these resources are available, when needed, without having to continually dwell on the existence of these resources because the taxpayers are the ones footing the rather hefty bills for the provision of these resources -- even when those resources are called upon to act in the wee hours -- something they are well aware of when accepting the job and most of whom are acting during their regular wee hour shifts.
In less personal terms and simply for the sake of demonstrating the argument, we pay our utility bills and expect that when we turn on our taps or light switches there will be water and electricity. We do this without dwelling on the existence of water towers, mains, sewers, utility poles, or substations.
How conscious are you, Anon@8:36, of all the equipment and people in place when you log onto the internet?
How conscious of are you of the work required by the unseen faces that put together and maintain this blog?
The relationship between City workers and taxpayers is one of mutual benefit. If taxpayers did not foot the bill, City workers would not have their jobs and benefits and pensions. If taxpayers were not willing to foot the bill, then those same taxpayers would also not have the security of being able to expect the help and services undertaken by their City workers.
The Crew believes the majority of our City Council does acknowledge our City employees and has demonstrated appreciation.
What I and the Crew hope is that City employees realize that for many reasons the city budget is now a sink hole with the potential of becoming a black hole. The City Council, this City Council and Mayor, are in a very difficult position. The Crew believes that instead of the view that the Council is unwilling to invest in our City employees, what the majority of the Council seems to prefer to do is save every single job now occupied by a City worker, and still manage not to plunge the City of Park Ridge deeper into that budget black hole.
I and the Crew believe that most of our City employees are not underpaid. We also believe some of our City employees should be paid better.
However, at this time should the City Council ask that City employees accept a wage freeze, I and the Crew hope the City employees are open to that idea in consideration of keeping everyone currently employed, employed. We believe there is nothing worse for everyone and the current economy than lay offs. Losing your job is a major blow.
We also believe without hesitation that the City Council, Mayor, and City Manager must undertake every effort to cut every ounce of fat that can possibly be found in the City budget while asking for such a sacrifice from City workers.
As we have previously stated, for the coming year we would begin those cuts with most of the community groups now being reconsidered for previous funding levels. We also won't hesitate to say that judgements should be made about individual City departments, programs, and cuts. Across the board cuts are foolish and imply an inability to tell the difference between what is necessary and what is desired.
I agree with most of the comments - here.
We also now....know that we must add the $ 350,000.00 to the negative column as City Mgr Mr.Hock has..
We know the problem(s) - lets find the solutions - together.
Go team!
Thank you.
If the new mayor is serious about wanting to fix the budget he should start with eliminating the free cars to the city manager assistant city manager head of public Works extra cars at pump stations any nonessential employees. And no free gas for weekend trips to Wisconsin the past city manager did this every weekend. If you make $100,000 a year you can drive yourself to work.In your own car. If they don't like it let them look for a new job this would probably save the city about $300,000 per year.Just the savings in gas along would save the layoffs of the real workers.
Appreciation... Who out in the private sector will get some percentage of their salary for the remainder of their retired lives? Not me. Who IS paying for that legacy cost? We the taxpayers. Agreed, public sector employment is difficult at times but lets face it they are paid a decent wage, they get good benefits and a salary for the rest of their lives. It's the trade off for keeping us safe and fixing our infrastructure.
anon @6:30AM:
I agree with the part of your post that suggests that cars should be under review. They should review everything, see what the math is, and make some difficult decisions.
Having said that, you statement, "just the savings in gas alone would save the layoffs of the real workers", has me scratching my head. It reminds me of the ear marks argument. There are ear marks that flat out suck, but when you look at them as a % of the total, the do not solve the problem. So it is with gas for the 3 cars you mention. It is great at generating some out rage..."we pay these people 100K AND they get a car????" Again, by all means look at the cars (look at all compensation packages), but don't pretend that reducing gas on these 3 cars will save the workers.
For the sake of easy math, lets say that the cars are driven 10,000 miles per year and get 20 miles per gallon. That is 500 gallons of gas. At 2.25 per gallon that equates to 1125.00 per car. Little things add up but the savings in gas alone will not save layoffs of the real workers.
Cut the budget, cut the payroll, get rid of the cars, this isn't Chicago. Most people I know in town have moved here to get away from the black hole of city buerocracy. Dave said he’d do that for us. Let's see.
Some good comments here about cutting expenditures. The reality is that roughly 70-80% of all public sector budgets are personnel (salary & benefits). The significant impact will be through a reduction in employees. You can cut your supplies, commodities, contractual services all you want...but if you have a reoccuring deficit, then you have a structural flaw in your budget that needs to be addressed.
The other issue that needs serious attention is what the lawmakers in Springfield continue to do (both "D" and "R") regarding public safety pensions. They keep sweeting these pensions on the backs of the local taxpayers. For example, HB 923 is a bill that would provide a special risk disability benefit increase for fire fighters, EMTs and paramedics to 65% of salary for any injury that occurs while a fire fighter is on duty including routine tasks such as housekeeping chores, cooking, clerical duties, etc. Those types of injuries are already covered at the 50% level which is standard across most public pensions. The bill has already passed out of the house and is in Senate Committee as we speak. Each year, more and more of these bills appear and will require more tax dollars. Here's a question - how much money in PR property taxes is dedicated towards public safety pension obligatons? I'm sure it's in the millions and will continue to grow if your state leaders allow this to continue.
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