State of The City Address 02/03/2010
An advance copy of the text of the address is here, if you choose not to spend the 22 minutes it would take to view the video.
February 4, 2010
Mayor Schmidt State of the City Address 2010
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28 comments:
Refreshing to hear an elected official call a spade a spade, and admit that he was wrong for voting for the deficit budgets.
I share the mayor's view that we have been "misled for years" about city finances, and that the budget process has been a "shell game." Tim Schuenke's budgeting was pretty much a fraud, and Hock didn't do much better last year.
Let's see of the clowncil can deliver, or if they will continue to do budget as usual.
I can't wait to see if any of Schmidt's aldermanic enemies comes up with a rebuttal. My money's on Wsol or Bach.
I know this won't be a popular opinion here but all I heard was alot of blaming and finger pointing with a little mea culpa thrown in for balance. I wasn't impressed.
11:53:
Interesting post. While I voted for Schmidt, I did not drink the kool aide it would appear that some did. That being said, and with all due respect, you are going to have to better than what you wrote!!!
You were not impressed - good for you!!!! Now, tell me what it is you were looking for. What did you want to hear him say???
Of course there was finger pointing...and there damn well should be when the only person on the Council or Staff willing to accept any responsibility for the deficit budgets and mismanagement is Schmidt.
So we've honest guy out of the whole bunch of gutless weasels. Watch the weasels come out whining about Schmidt being confrontational and not wanting to work with them, as if any of them have had any ideas on the budget other than how to do more deficit spending.
We should all remember this was the same bunch that signed Frimark's "condemnatoin" of Schmidt for telling the people the truth about what was going on in secret closed session meetings.
I knew my opinion would not be popular here. I don't know what I wanted to hear him say. I only know I didn't hear him say it. I don't know that pointing fingers and placing blame is all that honest as it is. I didn't hear any great ideas from the mayor who had the microphone to himself and so I don't think it's fair to accuse the aldermen of not having any ideas when they weren't the ones speaking.
1:54:
My point was not to beat you up. I was just asking what you wanted to hear or what your issue was. I think it is only fair that you offer some examples rather than just saying "it was not what I wanted to hear". There are plenty of examples you could have given. Let me help!!
You could have talked about the flooding issue. You could have said that the flood task force has taken entirely too long to come up with things that had been on the radar for a long time. You could have talked about here we are a year later and nothing tangable has been done to make any progress on the flood issue. You could have pointed out the irony of his statement about incentives for residents. The idea that he would hand pick a task force and complement them on their hard work and final report (when were we supposed to have that??) and completely ignore one of their bigger recommendations. You could have talked about a referendum on a bond issue to address the problem and how he wants it ready to present by this November. That will mean that it will be 2 years just to the point that we make a decision to do something or, possibly, not do something. We have yet to see what the dollar amounts and time frames are (I can't wait for that) but if you think a referendum for XXX million over XXX years is gonna pass - good luck. If it passes it will be years before any meaningful progress is made. Meanwhile, this spring and summer when the big storms come anyone in my neighborhood with out a flood control system will flood.
Just an example!!
I thought that the mayor a good speech but what he failed to point out was that these committees especially the flood control is headed up by a person who was the head of public Works for probably 15 years what did he do and why all of a sudden is he a professional now?
For 15 years was he putting superglue on the pipes??? and keeping the money. And now we have to pay for his lack of expertise. It's like letting the fox in the henhouse.
My opinion is the Mayor gave an honest speech. It wasn't very inspirational but I think it wasn't supposed to be.
I am bothered by all the task forces he talked about and how happy he said he is about them.
Why do we need so many of them all of a sudden?
I thought the Aldermen are supposed to research all these problems in their committees and city employees.
All the new task forces must be costing us something for all the new meetings taking place. I was thinking the Mayor should say he would not be adding any more buracracy layers and costs to the taxpayers.
At the risk of repeating myself......."I will support accelerating the program for building relief sewers and modernizing and repairing our existing sewer lines in an effort to prevent potential catastrophic flooding problems in the future. I will also ask the Public Works Department to investigate using a new type of porous asphalt which allows water to percolate through the pavement instead of pooling or creating run-off and contributing to flooding".......that comes directly from the Mayors website. What the hell is the definition of the word accelerating?!?!?! In his speach he basically said that nothing will be done until November referendum?!?!?! That is accelerating?????
I keep chanting to myself, Schmidt's better than Frimark, Schmidt's better than Frimark, ohmmmmmmmm
3:58 PM
What you should have been hearing through that speech is that WE'VE GOT NO MONEY. You can't accelerate what you can't pay for.
Which is why Schmidt's first order of business is to get us a truly balanced budget...which the alderdopes will fight him on.
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/parkridge/news/2030101,pr-policeseize-021110-s1.article
Anon@5:06 --
We were wondering when the local rags would get their act together on this.
It's a kicker of a story, isn't it? Good old Hoopty Lou being the spokesman for the PRPD and keeping his promises to our favorite reporterette.
Now retired Deputy Chief Tom Swoboda's computer was taken and Mr. Swoboda was present while the searche and seizure took place, which means the department had notice and so did Mr. Swoboda.
An officer assigned to the night shift and named in the police brutality suit which was settled was also present.
Now, while Hoopty Lou claims the department doesn't know the focus of the investigation, we sure do find it interesting that he chose to highlight a certain single file seizure and incident among the files claimed to have been seized.
Welcome again to the PRPD, Chiefski.
5:00:
That is all well and good except for a few things. First, he knew the financial path the city was on as an alderman and yet still made these claims about what he would do about flooding. There is nothing that has dramatically changed the financial postion of the city since he made those statements so that suddenly, to use your words, WE'VE GOT NO MONEY.
Second of all, he makes matters worse by continuing to perpeutate the "myth". Again to use your words related to flooding, you can't accelerate what you can't pay for. Well are you right or aren't you? The Mayor seems to be saying that there will be this magic referendum that will somehow make PR ble to float a god knows how large bond.
The FBI????????
When did this happen??????
Anon@5:27 --
Last Thursday.
Geeeeez, considering the crowded conditions and storage issues I am surprised they could even locate the document(s) in question!!
Speaking of the FBI raiding the PD,
if you go back to the H-A article you'll find and very interesting reply to it.
Mike:
I am curious what you find so interesting about that reply and what your thoughts are on the subject.
I see them as two seperate issues. I do not discount what the person replying says about some parents although I do not know enough about this particular case to know how they apply. I do know that if there was "brutality" then it needs to be investigated and, if necessary, prosecuted regardlas of what the kid did. Also, if there was some sort of a procedural cover up or hiding of documents (I think that is perhaps why the FBI is involved) that needs to be investigated as well.
While one could say that none of this would have happened if the child had not been out that evening to blame all subsequent events on the kid is just plain stupid.
Anonymous February 4, 2010 5:18 PM:
As I recall, Schmidt didn't promise that he would SOLVE the flooding problem, only that he would make addressing it a priority. He has done that by creating the flood task force, something no previous mayor or city council did.
Now that we have that task force's report and we know that any reasonable flood control will cost multi-millions of dollars that the city doesn't have, Schmidt wants the questions of how much flood control to do and how much in bonds should be issued to pay for it to go to referendum in the very next election in November.
I think that's the only reasonable and responsible way to do it, and that seems pretty "accelerated" to me compared to how long things normally take to get decided.
Hoover:
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I do not have the patience to look at the moment, but I know that I posted on one of the blogs way before the campaigning even began that this will cost millions and that people will not want to pay for it - I am a glorified salesman!! I am not an engineer or a flooding expert!!!
I have read your posts and you are s pretty smart guy. Are you telling me that you did not know that this would cost multi-millions prior to this??? Come on!!! Beyond that, are you happy that after all this time, we cannot get any closer than "multi-millions"? What exactly does that mean?? 10? 20? 30? 100?
We all know that the sewer system have been ignored for ever. We know that the prior administration did nothing to change that. All I am doing is trying to look at what he said versus what has happened. I look at almost a year of the flood task force and there is nothing that blows me away. I look at the next 10 months of nothing until we have a vote on if we do anything. I am sorry but that does not match my definition of accelerated.
Anonymous February 5, 2010 12:09 PM:
If a majority of referendum voters won't be willing to pay for flood relief, so be it. At least they will have been given the choice.
The Burke report contains recommendations for just six areas that will cost $15-17 million if private home flood control systems are not included. Obviously, going beyond those six areas would cost multi-millions more.
The task force's preliminary report shows annual expenses of about $1.5 million, separate and apart from whatever costs the Burke report contains.
To my knowledge the city currently has no ability to fund either the debt service on the Burke recommendations or the annual charges from the task force. So to do the Burke recommendations will require bonds, which Schmidt wants to put to referendum in November, 18 months after he took office.
If that doesn't match your definition of accelerated, what would you have done differently that could have also been done quicker?
Anon 3:53, this is the kind of thinking that Frimark sold da peeples when he killed the full-sized Council: Get rid of da bureaucracy! All of the members of all of the task forces we have are UNPAID, VOLUNTEER positions. And they're needed because the current aldermen don't know jack and even if they did, the 7 of them would never get home if they had to attend all the task force meetings where all of the minutae/details that go into preparing halfway useful reports on complex issues such as flood abatement. So don't worry; there may be a couple of clerical hours for preparing what passes for minutes, but the task forcers work for nothing -- for you. What's really sad, contemptible, etc. is that even when we have had very interested, some might say militantly interested, aldermen, the city manager du jour and the so-called finance people provided bogus data, skewed analyses, and the result was GIGO. Alegretti may be a lousy alderman, but you can bet he tries to give his clients the most responsible, useful advice based on his legal expertise. Now, if only we could HIRE city employees who had the decency to give US, the taxpayers, at least as much professional guidance as the DUI-ster does his stumblebums. Alderman should not have to be CPAs in order to navigate through the murk they are fed by the employees who serve, with fabulous benefits, at the public's pleasure! I'd be ashamed to give the crappy, self-serving advice to my clients that our employee "managers" give us. Wouldn't you?
Mike:
In our judicial system, the police are not allowed to serve as judge, jury, and executioner.
If the kid did something illegal, arrest him and put him in front of a judge. Then find him guilty and punish him.
There is no excuse for the police to beat a handcuffed kid (or adult). Even if that person is guilty.
As taxpayers, we all lose because of the behavior of these officers.
Anon@6:50 --
We remind you and everyone else that the officers named in the lawsuit were not found guilty by either a judge or a jury.
PRU:
I stand corrected. I should have worded my post more carefully.
Regardless, the taxpayers lost $185,000 in this particular incident.
Anon 6:50
What gave you the crazy idea that I thought the cops are J.&J. and they have the right to beat up arrestees.
Go tell that to the person who commented on the article.
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