Council Meeting Tonight!

There's a City Council meeting tonight! On the agenda (.pdf) are some interesting items, such as a report on the 2009 Taste of Park Ridge and Council consideration of a text amendment to the City's Zoning Ordinance to allow billboard signs in certain commercial districts.

Does anybody recall hearing about billboards a while back? Oh that's right, former Mayor Howard listed "licensing bill boards" as his first idea for "raising revenue." In fact, former Mayor Howard talked about "licensing bill boards" on his campaign web site -- and the Pub-dogs took note here.

Oddly, we observe the letter (.pdf, pg. 8) written by the law firm of Loss & Pavone, to Procedures and Regulations Committee chairman and loyal Frimark lapdog, 4th ward Alderman James Allspaghetti, is dated June 23, 2009.

And of course Allspaghetti -- along with a majority of the City Council -- thought that the issue of billboards was so important that this zoning text amendment should be sent from the Council to Planning and Zoning on behalf of the applicant, while Allspaghetti seems to have remained stone-cold silent on doing local businesses the same favor, according to the July 13, 2009 COW meeting minutes (.pdf, pg. 4).

At the same COW meeting at which the Alderdopes voted to recommend a text amendment request be sent from the Council on behalf of law firm Loss & Pavone and their client, Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Gail Haller made a similar request on behalf of local Park Ridge businesses to allow A-frame sidewalk signs. The Council's answer to Ms. Haller and our local businesses? You're on your own.

Clearly, our PRU readers see the logic in all this! And the PRU Crew is sure Frimark's past mention of billboards and the advocacy position taken by Allspaghetti are just pure coincidence.

As we said, it's just a little odd.

Hope to have video tomorrow at some point!

Relocation, Relocation, Relocation!

In this week's edition of the Journal and Topics we read about Rising Costs Send Johnny's Place Packin'.

The article reports the owner "[Mr. John] Nasiopoulos made it clear he did not want to leave Park Ridge, but cited a rent increase and rising taxes as two reasons he had to leave.

"It (the increase) was almost $1,000 a month," he said. "I either had to raise my prices to the point where I aggravate my customers... or I buy garbage product," he said. "And I never considered reducing the quality of the product."

The PRU Crew recalls many other businesses that have closed up or moved on from Park Ridge -- Happy House, Bailey's, Walter's Restaurant, and Napleton Cadillac to name just a few -- for reasons that didn't seem to have much to do with the constantly cited "Park Ridge is unfriendly to business" complaints we hear from members of the Park Ridge business community.

We've also heard complaints from businesses that landlords in Park Ridge need to adopt a more realistic view of the rental market, which seems to fit the bill in the case of Johnny's Place.

We are very seriously wondering how exactly Park Ridge is "unfriendly to business." Does the business community experience insurmountable difficulty when trying to open a business here? What are those difficulties? Does the business community find shoppers in Park Ridge particularly tight with a buck? Did the Chamber experience any up-tic in sales during their "Shop Local" campaign?

Anybody got any insights?

We ask because we do not expect the economy to get much better any time soon, and more importantly we also hear rumors that another large business player in town could be having some serious problems.

Every time our town loses a business that closes or decides to relocate out of Park Ridge, and then invites Park Ridge consumers to follow them out of town without the lost business having been replaced by some other tax generating entity, taxpayer's here will feel the pinch. Given the City's current financial position, these losses are felt more deeply than they may otherwise have been.

If City government is truly an impediment to new businesses opening in Park Ridge, we would hope that members of the business community would grab their brass and speak up. You can't fix problems you don't know exist.

We have yet to hear anyone in the business community articulate the precise issues that may make doing business in Park Ridge difficult or more difficult than in other places.

We're all ears.

Community Dunces?

On Monday, we mentioned that the owner of Napleton Cadillac should probably be recognized as some sort of Community Star because to us it looks like the pending $2.4million deal being considered by the city for Napleton may be the most impressive Return On Investment (ROI) that we're aware of, for a local "investor".

The article about honoring Community Stars by the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce was a piece published in the Herald-Advocate a couple of weeks ago. The article notes:

"Seven new "stars" will be honored for their work in the community during the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce's 72nd annual Recognition Dinner on Saturday, Jan. 26.

The dinner will be held at Rosewood Restaurant and Banquets, 9421 W. Higgins Road in Rosemont on Jan. 26"

Today we read about the election of new officers to the Park Ridge Chamber in an article in the Journal & Topics.



Of course, the Journal's reporter failed to mention the location of the dinner.

In any event, maybe the new officers of the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce will keep their mission statement in mind and remember their own recent advertising campaign - "Shop Local" - the next time they schedule their Community Stars and Installment of New Officers dinner. Maybe next year they can find a place to...uh..."dine local"?