Happy Friday, faithful PRU readers. We hope you've had a productive week.
We put up our usual Monday post and then reviewed the Melidosian Motionbox magic on Tuesday -- and we observe a respectable number of you are finding your way to the videos without having your hands held. Excellent.
As most of you know, our standing blog rule for everybody is "no libel -- no bullshit." For the Crew both portions of the rule are of particular importance. And we are always gut checking to try to make sure what we offer here for public consumption isn't bullshit.
Aside from the City business material covered at Monday night's City Council meeting, we were very interested in the Aldermen's reply to the Mayor's address.
Our first reaction and instinct was to correct the factual error concerning the statement -- "On May 9, 2007, this City Council enacted the first major rewrite of our city's Zoning Ordinance in over 30 years." This Council wasn't installed into office until May 21, 2007 (.pdf), so any attempt to take credit or blame for having "enacted the first major rewrite of our city's Zoning Ordinance in over 30 years" is factually false. Hell, other than the parts of the zoning code placed directly under the noses of these Alderdopes at any given time over the last 3+ years, the Crew is willing to bet a super majority of these Aldermen have never read the zoning code, nor the municipal code.
Our second reaction and instinct was to discuss the seven paragraph introduction in the Aldermen's response and talk about what unmentioned connection there is from the second paragraph to the third, and what any of that has to do with the current City budget dilemma. Our opinion is, whomever may have been the primary author -- and we believe the 2nd ward's Lord of the Manor did not compose this piece alone -- was attempting to buck up the members of the City Council and dubiously highlight items of interest, calling them accomplishments, when they simply are not.
We wondered about the unanimity of the piece and the possibility of IOMA violations, but we don't discount the hub and spoke method of communication among elected officials -- we trust we don't have to explain that to the majority of our educated PRU readership.
Our third reaction and instinct was to do exactly what the Pub-dogs did in their Wednesday post -- address the vacuous, hollow, and meaningless platitudes of the piece. And we expected to have fun pointing out the hypocrisy and irony of one of 3rd ward Alderman Bachtard's quotes in one of the local rags -- "It's my personal opinion that politicking at City Council meetings and in those chambers is a no-no." Is that right, Bachtard? So how do you justify lending your name and support to an Aldermoron response of the same nature?
We were all set to go -- then PRU.ADMIN called bullshit and our internal battle began. And as always, PRU.ADMIN decides the final outcome.
Stepping back and taking a look at the Aldermoron's response -- it was a very politically astute maneuver. And an exceptionally smart way to nullify Mayor Schmidtzkrieg's attempt to differentiate himself from the rest of the City Council by repeatedly offering agreement with the Mayor, while at the very same time denigrating Schmidtzkrieg's more aggressively negative style through a starkly contrasting and seemingly positive approach.
The Aldermoron's unanimous response is the first of many salvos and shots over Mayor Schmidtzkrieg's bow, which are to come as segments of the Park Ridge political population get ready to launch campaigns for the next round of Council elections.
Of course, it was nothing more than a very political attack on Mayor Schmidtkrieg. The response was designed more for the purpose of weakening the Mayor, so any potential Council candidate he may choose to support won't have much of a mayoral coattail to ride, than it was to address any real issues concerning the City budget. But the response was exceptional in its' subtlety. And effective. How effective remains to be seen.
Enjoy a thoughtful and relaxing weekend.
February 19, 2010
Gut Checking -- Thoughts
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6 comments:
As da lawyers say, if you have the law on your side, argue the law. If you don't have the law but have the facts on your side, argue the facts. If you don't have the law or the facts on your side, argue the equities (what's really fair here?). To which I'd add, and if you don't have the law, the facts or the equities on your side, argue the courtesies of lack thereof. Hence, Bach.
PRU once again your recollection is dead on. The minutes from 05/09/2007 (https://www.parkridge.us/assets/SpecialCCMtg592007l.pdf) show the prior council enacting the rewrite of our city's Zoning Ordinance. How is it that both the Mayor and the current group of Alderman seem to distance themselves from the prior council, then conveniently forget anything the prior council did and then try to take credit for doing what they did? What a bunch of crap.
i know this isnt the place,and for that i apologize. however, for a few weeks now, i have been hearing about the cook county state's attorney's office and the FBI descending on the Park Ridge Police Dept, subpoenas in hand. seems that it has occurred twice recently, and that numerous records, computers, etc, were removed and sevral members of the department questioned at length. you guys have anything on this???
Anon@4:11 --
We've got pretty much what you've got.
And because of the nature of the investigation, we wouldn't publish anything if we did have it.
fair enough.
It is past time for all these elected representatives to stop the pointless bickering and get real about solving the problems they made in the first place.
I don't care if they are volunteers. They came forward and made promises to all of us. They better make good on those words.
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