Happy New Year!

digitalblasphemy.com

Top Ten Reasons To Read PRU
in the New Year!

10) We don't accept advertising; advertisers can't call our Editor and raise holy hell about a story they didn't like and threaten to pull their advertising dollars.

9.) We offer an interactive experience on local issues with nearly unlimited space for your comments.

8.) We've got nothing to lose by ratting out the rotten apples in local government, and neither do you.

7.) We don't give a shit who you know, how long you've lived in Park Ridge, how much money you make, what club(s) you belong to, or what ivory tower gave you a degree; as a resident and/or taxpayer you are entitled to open, honest, transparent, and representative government, and that's what we are pushing for.

6.) If we know something and can verify its authenticity, we will tell it to you whether you want to read it or not; we refuse to infantilize the adult population of Park Ridge.

5.) We aren't politicians and we will never ask you for your $upport.

4.) We are a fun and entertaining alternative to the local presszzzzzzzzzzz...

3.) Where else can you see a picture of Howard Frimark in thigh-high fishnets and hooker heels?

2.) Admit it, you like seeing arrogant politicians and stupid kool-aid drinkers being made fun of.

And the number one reason to read PRU...

1.) You don't have to press "1" for English.

Have A Merry Christmas!

digitalblasphemy.com

An Interesting and Different Perspective.

M.C.Escher Puddle

Perhaps some of you noticed the new link we added to our list: Time Tells.

It is a blog billed as, "...a project of FNewsmagazine, the student news publication at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago."

Topics center around architectural history, preservation, and related issues.

We found it interesting. We also found some discussions we thought folks here may want to take a look at.

Time Tells » Huge Fact

Time Tells » A Tragedy in Park Ridge

Time Tells » Park Ridge: a Fistful of Dollars

If we'd had our act together, we would have sought permission to print 'Huge Fact' as a guest essay for today. But we're slackers.

Park Ridge Wonderland!

Our inspiration: 'Typo' or zoning loophole? - Park Ridge Herald-Advocate

For desired accompaniment: Winter Wonderland
(Click on traditional arrangement)

Hey, Park Ridge
Are you listening
In Uptown
Steel is glistening
A beautiful sight
If you're a builder tonight
Walking in a Park Ridge Wonderland

Gone away is the green space
In its place is a disgrace
A four-story hulk
With way too much bulk
Looming in a Park Ridge Wonderland

In the future we can build more condos
Then pretend that density is good
Why not build them higher?
Call them "Mondos"!
And you can say good-bye
To your old 'hood

Once again
They'll conspire
To go up even higher
And face unafraid
The zoning code that we've made
Building in a Park Ridge Wonderland

In the Uptown we can spend TIF dollars
And pretend that we are flush with cash
We'll have lots of fun with those TIF dollars
Unless a downturn bites us in the ass

Years from now
Reminiscing
Open space we'll be missing
What will we say
About back in the day
Living in a Park Ridge Wonderland

What will we say
About back in the day
Walking in a Park Ridge Wonderland

Our 10,000th Visitor!

A little less than two months ago, the Journal & Topics gave us some coverage in an article titled: Beware Of Blogger. That coverage served to boost our readership significantly.

The article contained the following:

"Ald. Rich DiPietro, the widely respected current alderman serving the second ward, was sharply critical of the website. "I didn't read much of Mad Magazine when I was growing up, and I gave up shortly after reading one or two of these blogs," he said. "It's negative, nothing constructive, it doesn't serve any purpose." He added that he doesn't know who the author is, but he offered that "is probably someone well known in the city."

Oh! That hurt! How could the Lord of the Manor not love us!? That's so negative!

In a bit of cosmic irony, we welcomed our 10,000th visitor to PRU early last week. Guess who it was.

That's right folks! The one! The only!

Lord of the Manor!



VISITOR ANALYSIS
Referring Link - No referring link
Host Name - adsl-75-51-60-73.dsl.chcgil.sbcglobal.net
IP Address - 75.51.60.73 Rich DiPietro [Edit Label]
Country - United States
Region - Texas
City - Plano
ISP - Crosstech Communications
Returning Visits - 6
Visit Length - 0 seconds

VISITOR SYSTEM SPECS
Browser - MSIE 5.0
Operating System - PPC
Resolution - 1024x768
Javascript - Enabled

No referring link? Awwww, did you put us in your "favorites" list?

800 lb Gorilla in City Council!

Tonight's City Council meeting agenda includes an action item that may give carte blanche to Mayor Frimark to participate in debate and discussion at City Council Meetings, by changing the City Council Procedures manual.

Currently, the City Council must entertain a motion to set aside the rules and allow the Mayor to participate in debate - this is one of the procedures expressly outlined in Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised; the meeting procedure long-ago adopted by the City Council. Though adherence has been far less formal than the language contained in RONR would suggest.

According to the mandate in Robert's Rules of Order - and not so subtly supported by a memo from the City Attorney quoting, "the chair of a meeting should have nothing to say on the merits of a pending question" - it is the role of the chairman to efficiently run the meeting and to see to it the rights of all assembly members are protected; in short, impartiality is required of Mayor Frimark in his role as the presiding officer.

~~~ We pause now for a moment of hysterical laughter ~~~

We feel this is a very poorly considered change to procedure on the part of the City Council, no matter who occupies the chairman's seat.

And from what many have reported, and we have witnessed, Mayor Frimark is barely capable of efficiently running City Council meetings now. We are almost certain his desire to protect the rights of all assembly members is non-existent. His conduct as the City Council chairman has particularly deteriorated over the last several months, and that has been under the proscribed constraints of RONR.

Releasing Mayor Frimark from the requirement of at least appearing to be an impartial presiding officer is like giving an 800 lb. gorilla free rein of a banana plantation.

And we think that is exactly what the City Council will be doing tonight.

HO-HO-HO!

Thanks to the Pub-dogs for the numbers.

Have a warm weekend.

Shell Game.

In today's edition of the Herald-Advocate we read about a New site for police station is under consideration. The article reports that nobody is willing to say which property is being looked at.

Of course, you know the PRU Crew is willing to say which property is being looked at. It's the American Insurance building on Garden St. City staff made a low-ball offer that was rejected by the owner, but that doesn't mean a deal is dead. The owner is said to be getting his own appraisal done, and the back-and-forth on dollars will probably continue.

The article goes on to report that Ald. Frank Wsooooolman (7th Ward) has asked that the city council review the "action plan" passed by the council last April; an "action plan" that Ald. Wsooooolman voted in favor of - Council Minutes 4-2-07 minutes-pdf.

The article notes that a list of preferred properties was included for consideration in the "action plan". But, in our reading of the Police Station Resolution-pdf we must have missed the specific list discussed in the article.

City officials are sure hot to trot for building a new police station in Target Area 4. We hear some interesting things about why that may be so. Do you think any elected officials or their spouses may have any interest in property in Target Area 4? Inquiring minds want to know!

While the city council, the Mayor, and city staff again take up the yackety yack about building a new police station, the city continues to sit on two properties it owns and on which a new police station could be built, 1) the old public works service center at Greenwood & Elm, and 2) the house on Courtland adjacent to the City Hall parking lot, which was specificially purchased as a site for a new police station.

And our cops continue to sit in a 9000 square foot shithole, while the politicians continue to dick around playing the property purchase shell game they love so much.

Another...

...for Norwood Builders' Bruce Adreani!

In today's edition of the Journal & Topics, we read:



Anybody willing to wager that the "temporary waitress" hired from Hooters was consulting with a financial advisor instead of showing up in court?

As one of our friendly correspondents put it, "There was no way any of this was ever going to see the light of day."

Adreani's attorney, Frank DiFranco, uncharacteristically did not have a statement for the press about the dismissal of the charges.

Along with Bruce Adreani, we bet there are a number of Park Ridge Country Club "civillian witnesses" for whom the dismissal of these charges will make this a very Merry Christmas.

B.O.H.I.C.A!*

PRU readers may remember an October post we put up about the City's meeting with ComEd. Our posts on ComEd and the City's meeting were a result of ComEd's piss poor performance in the aftermath of an August storm that left many Park Ridge residents and ComEd customers without power for as long as 98 hours. Many residents and business people in Park Ridge began to also discuss the generally piss poor service the Park Ridge community has received from ComEd over the years. ComEd's response to the complaints was to promise to do a report and get it back to the City.

The PRU Crew still maintains that ComEd and the City of Park Ridge should be discussing the costs and benefits of burying power lines.

Yesterday we came across another article in Crain's about a recent move by ComEd's parent company, Exelon Corp., to link Commonwealth Edison Co. to PJM, an East Coast power grid. According to the article, "The decision to join PJM instead of its Midwestern counterpart, commonly known as Midwest ISO, means the Northern Illinois power market is now tethered to the East Coast, where electricity supplies are far tighter and prices correspondingly higher than in the Midwest."

And ComEd customers can expect to see "households and small businesses...rates jump by 1 cent per kilowatt-hour by 2009, according to Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) staff calculations — 10% above next year's average rate of 10.2 cents per kilowatt-hour." Additionally, "in October, ComEd filed for a $360-million rate increase for delivering power, which if approved in full would raise household electric bills by about 8% starting next year. Put the two items together, and that's an 18% increase in electric bills by 2009."

The article notes:

"By itself, the PJM-related increase would nearly erase the relief won in this year's Springfield negotiations, which reduced ComEd's 24% rate hike that took effect at the beginning of the year to 13%.

In those negotiations, Exelon's Mr. Rowe won an important and overlooked concession: State officials are barred for the next 15 years from trying to force ComEd off the PJM grid."

It's clear to us that public officials are nothing if not fashionably late to a party; the article goes on to report that, "Local officials are beginning to question the PJM tie-in. In a hearing before the ICC last week, Commissioner Robert Lieberman chided PJM officials for hiking electric rates with no promise of anything in return from the industry. "It's not clear to us what we're getting for that," he said."

Maybe PJM will promise to do a report and get it back to the ICC.

*Bend over, here it comes again!

Tip of the Iceberg.

First we read a story in the Journal & Topics about Local House Foreclosures Continue Nasty Climb, which included some stats for Park Ridge. The article reports that "according to this latest information, Park Ridge's foreclosures increased by 147%, going from 32 to 79."

Tell us again how increasing density for new condominium projects is good for Park Ridge?

Then we read two articles in Crain's: one about the Foreclosure wave builds, and another about the Wave of need bleeds charities.

Maybe people can pick up an extra box of Mac-n-Cheese to show some thanks to Kraft foods for their charitable efforts, then deliver that extra box to Emergency Food Pantry - General Assistance - Maine Township.

And just in case anybody thought the Average Joe was going to catch a break, burbcopschicago put up an article to wish everybody a Merry F---ing Xmas From BGPD. They get it because they are out there every day seeing it. The working stiffs get stiffed from every direction.

The PRU Crew still hopes the good and blessed people of Park Ridge can dig a little deeper this Holiday season and give a little bit more to those less blessed, both within and without of our community.

Take It Slow.

full length video



Break it down, hit the blue notes, and have a restful weekend.

R.I.P. Henry Hyde - Funeral set for Dec. 7

Of Preachers, Practice, and Public Relations

The Pub-dogs had another interesting article up this week: PublicWatchdog.org - The Golden Girl. They cover a little-known get-around gal named Linda Szczepanski, or "Linda Ski" as they call her, and so will we.

Linda Ski is the Vice President of Empower Public Relations, which is owned by Samuel Chapman, Chief Executive Officer for Berman Center Inc., and husband of noted sex therapist, Dr. Laura Berman.

Linda Ski has also been the campaign and public relations manager for Mayor Howard Frimark, as well as providing her services to Frimark's aldermanic acolytes James Allspaghetti (4th Ward), and Thomas Carey the Unfriendly Ghost (6th Ward), and the Kalo Foundation of Park Ridge.

As the PRU Crew's curiosity about Linda Ski was raised, we started surfing the net to see what we could find. And we find irony hiding in plain sight.

It seems Mr. Chapman has banned gossip at Empower Public Relations, and is reported to have fired employees who have engaged in gossiping. Gawker.com has a video clip of brief interviews with several Empower employees: The Message Is The Message: Gossip-Banning PR Firm Is Its Own Best Client.

It seems to us that Linda Ski and her fellow employees at Empower Public Relations may preach about the ills of gossip, and may practice what they preach in-house. But the mandate against gossip doesn't seem to be something Linda Ski demands of her clients, such as Mayor Howard Frimark who many have said may be the biggest gossip monger in all of Park Ridge.

Or so we've heard.

Happy Repeal Day!

Today is Repeal Day! It is a day intended to celebrate the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, which was ratified on December 5, 1933, and which repealed "Prohibition; the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Some of you may have taken notice of some recent Dewar's ad campaigns that are promoting "Repeal Day" and encouraging adults to enjoy the responsible consumption of alcohol.

The PRU Crew gladly joins those promoting "Repeal Day" and we encourage all adults who are so inclined to fully enjoy being adults with the adult beverage of their choice.

We now raise our glasses in our first "Repeal Day" toast to Wayne Zingsheim who, after 3 months of enduring "acting" status as the man in charge of Public Works, we hear was finally named Director of Public Works at Monday night's City Council meeting.

As if on cue, Zingsheim was treated to Mother Nature's version of a celebratory balloon drop - a Tuesday snow storm - on his first day as Director. Most days in the Public Work's department are busy. Snow days are extra-special events. And as of this writing, it is still snowing.

So Zing, when your work is done, go home and kiss that pretty wife of yours, sit back, relax, and enjoy an adult beverage of your choice. You will have earned it.

Welcome to being in charge and good luck.


SLG Publishing - Beer Wench Print

There Goes The Neighborhood! A Two-fer.

Item #1



Just look at those happy little bastards, especially that one on the lower left. Who needs that in the neighborhood?

Two stories about a local child care center, Christie's Carousel of Learning operating out of the Park Ridge Presbyterian Church, 1300 W. Crescent Ave., caught the attention of the PRU Crew last week.

We first read about the issue of a special use permit for the center in the Journal & Topics: Residents Raise Day Care Concerns; then in the Herald-Advocate: Neighbors object to preschool's relocation, playground plans.

According to the Herald-Advocate report, Alderman Jim Allspaghetti (4th Ward) said that, "the school generates too much traffic and is an inappropriate use for the residential area." The report went on to say that Allspaghetti, "whose ward includes the Presbyterian Church, said he has received calls from many neighbors who are unhappy that the school moved there." Maybe Allspaghetti's constituents told him they would rather have 4-story condominium projects that exceed the new city zoning code for density? We're just wondering...

Both reports included an interesting piece of information about the fact that until recently the "center was located for more than 20 years in St. Mary's Episcopal Church. That church recently asked them to leave because they wanted to use the center's space for other things."

Things that make you go hhhmmmm...


Item #2

The PRU Crew knows how to throw a party. We get together and read meeting minutes and agendas for city committees and commissions. We are nothing if not one helluva rockin' good time!

We hadn't checked in on the Human Needs Task Force for a while, so we decided to make their most recent set of posted October minutes and November agenda part of our party games.

Then we remembered another recent story we read in the Herald-Advocate: Hope for the homeless: Churches hope to start PADS program here

We wonder if the newly available space at St. Mary's Episcopal Church is being readied for a PADS Program? Any knowledgeable PRU readers out there?

Or maybe Aldermoron Allspaghetti thinks his constituents would rather have a homeless shelter in their local Presbyterian church?

All together now -

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

It's a neighborly day in this beauty wood,
A neighborly day for a beauty.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

I've always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.
So, let's make the most of this beautiful day.
Since we're together we might as well say:
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

Won't you please,Won't you please?
Please won't you be my neighbor?

Worth 1000 Words.

Click on photos for larger view.

Mayor's Office at Park Ridge City Hall.




NorthStarNet was a community information network and hosting service created to help libraries develop relationships with their local community groups by aiding those groups in establishing a Web presence.



White Pages (dot) com Listing



Manta (dot) com Listing.



Yellow Book 2007-2008 page 87 Listing.



Tsk Tsk, Mr. Mayor. Politicizing public resources for political purposes is a no-no.