Some hair of the dog for your viewing displeasure!
November 4, 2010
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Irreverent and Unrepentant Satire and Irony
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Nasties & Crawlies
32 comments:
Eminent domain?? Mayor Dave have you lost your marbles??
Anon@1:30 --
It should be noted, Mayor Schmidtzkrieg did qualify his question by insisting his inquiry was purely academic. Though the Crew feels the Mayor's academic inquiry provided an interesting glimpse into his mindset and thought process.
We can also tell you the matter was raised at the Park District meeting last evening, where the City Manager reassured the Park Board Commissioners of the City's desire to maintain a cooperative working relationship, heading off potential problems created by ill-considered inflammatory musings, and providing political damage control. That's as often why City Managers earn the big bucks, as they do for their other responsibilities.
PRU,
I appreciate your response. I still think he must be out of his mind to even think of going there. I mean, it's outrageous to even consider using eminent domain for our parks!!
Anon@1:58 --
As we said, the Mayor's academic inquiry provided an interesting glimpse into his mindset and thought process.
We would not go so far as to conclude Mayor Schmidtzkrieg was actually considering the possibility.
PRU, this is why I miss your recaps you used to do. I wish I knew what you are talking about without having to watch the whole video or try and skip around to find something.
Pretty please?
LOL. Mayor Koolaid!
It is called political crap....even with a $1000 dollar a month Mayor position. It reminds me of the Govoner of Texas talking about secession - Red meat to his base!! There are people in this town who very much enjoy hearing that kind of talk. I imagine the Mayor is probably having cocktails with some of them as we speak.
Not sure how anyone could have missed the facade program discussion.
We're worried about cutting spending and debt repayment but we have room for "one more" interested party who managed to squeak in their application just in the nick of time to receive their handout before the council voted to suspend the program.
This handout by the way is in the neighborhood of $50,000.
Anyone care to guess who the lucky applicant is?
Anonymous @ 8:59,
...heh...well, it's *essential* to give handouts to local businesses in order to PROVE we aren't "unfriendly to businesses"...even if they don't appear to have closed on the sale of the property, haven't pulled any building permits, and had to go before the Appearance Commission three times before they could get approval...
...with the promise of pubtastic 2AM revelry is so "near" at hand, how could the mayor and clowncil possibly say "no" more handouts...?
What is maddening is again out of Ryan's mouth comes the assertion, "it's been very successful" blah blah blah...
Puleeze!...somebody, define "successful!" At what point does this program provide a "break-even" for the city and taxpayers?
...and once again Mayor DipSchmidt uses disclosure to support remaining silent on the matter involving one of his campaign contributors.
If a $175 contribution can buy a politician's zipped lip on a budget issue...what can a contribution of multiple thousands buy...?
Successful?!?!?!?! Break even?!?!? Seem the only recipient of break even is the receiver if the improvement program payout.
If a long or even not so long standing business after several years of doing business in town, has over the years payed to the city their tax revenues. They essentially get back that money in the form of facade improvements.
"Break it down Mary!"........
.... doing business in town at no cost to the business and NO gain for the city.
WOW! with this sweetheart deal we had I for the life of me can't figure out why we have had such a hard time attracting business or keeping it for that matter.
I finally watched the video. How nice of Alderman Sweeney to vote No to all the City contributions for community groups and the charities then a couple months later make sure one of his own first ward neighbors gets money from the facade program. What an idiot.
hmmmmm.....So money for CoC or meals on wheels or TOPR is an outrage worth screaming from the rooftops about. Ahhhhh.......we cannot afford it....only essentials....ahhhhhh!!!!! This is 50K!?!?! This is for a facade on an as yet unopened bar?!?! Are these things true??? Not a peep from the Mayor et al.
Anon@4:13 --
It's the same intellectual dishonesty which allows some to demand from others what they've failed to accomplish themselves.
It's the Retardlicans favorite game! Screw everything up and blame the low income poor for getting pennies in assistance, then they give barrels of cash to their cronies!
November 6, 2010 10:26 PM
Like the Dumbocrats do a better job. Tax and spend. Tax and spend. The only thing they know how to do is tax and spend and transfer wealth from those that earn it to those who don't.
Anonymous @ 2:59,
...heh...well, that's the oft-repeated, mythic "conventional wisdom"...too bad it's not true. Making a voting choice would be soooooo much easier if it were.
My personal opinion and bias (supported by my penchant for statistical/historical reading) is that there's more truth to what Anonymous @ 10:26 wrote than not...
...but having said that, I don't believe either major party has cornered the market on stupid, over the other...and the Tea Party has both beat when it comes to profound and unmitigated idiocy.
4:13
The Mayor's lack of public outrage over the facade program spending is stunningly indecent in light of his most recent public brow beating of the community groups. Especially by the fact that he took special pride in trying to kill off any human needs funding. I can’t imagine that he that callous of a human being, but if he continues to allow his handlers to coerce him into these blatantly stupid positions then I guess he deserves to be portrayed as badly as the public opinion is turning.
guys, da mare is a smart, well-intentioned fellow which is more than we can say for his predecessor, who was both stupid and venal. But da mare is a repuglican. He cain't hep hisself. Giving to the vulnerable, bad; giving to businessmen, good.
Anonymous @ 5:41,
Well...like all-too-many neocon-knee-jerkers, Mayor DipSchmidt bought into the "trickle down" Reagan economic model...and so yes, if you bought that story, giving to business = good.
...but that's an over-simplification of our economic system.
...which is not to say willy-nilly giving of welfare to every individual out-stretched palm is a better methodology.
The entire system, which ebbs and flows between the "economic clases" in the long term, is pretty inter-dependent.
...if one presumes spending is what ultimately drives the economy.
To the Beanorat Socialist!!!!
The PEOPLE have spoken and the SOCIALIST IN CHIEF WILL BE OUT in 2012!!!!! We are taking back our country from the DUMBORAT SOCIALISTS!!!!!!
Anonymous @ 6:43,
...☺...
I suppose there's some measure of truth to your calling me a "Socialist"...like most every other family in Park Ridge, we have sent our kids to public schools... You are aware, I'm sure, that public education is a "socialist" construct...no?
If you don't mind much, I'd like to ask a little favor...when you and yours "take our country *back*"...puleeze, aim for mid- to late 90s...okay? I wasn't all that impressed with the decades prior...
Bean:
I would also hope that he/she did not except any FEMA money during the flooding. I would hope that they (if they are of age) or their parents are not accepting any social security checks or Medicare coverage.
Anonymous @ 7:32,
Indeed! Those kinds of socialist give-away programs would go against the anti-Socialist preaching...by the the Tea Party and their "darlings," likes of Dr. Rand Paul...
...well, except for that Medicare stuff...and SS...
Maybe I missed where the Tea Party and Dr. Paul advocated repealing those programs...or de-funding those programs...
...yes, I'm sure I missed that...
11:47 AM
I never thought of it like that. I can almost see if a business has been here for awhile because at least they have been contributing, but to give a big susidy before they even open is a bit much.
The powers that be are still making sweetheart deals, but the difference is who are the sweethearts lined up to get the deals. It's not as bad as Frimark and Napleton, but it's the same thing.
10:43
That's why you won't hear a peep out of the Mayor on this. He saves his outrage for human needs services but doesn't have anything to say about giveaways to his friends and supporters with their hands out.
The Mayor has always been quick to point the finger of blame at the Aldermen and he will do the same thing now. He gets to have it both ways by blaming the Aldermen but saying nothing against one of his friends and supporters.
repeat after me:
on you, it's minor surgery.
on me, it's major surgery.
for you, it's an undeserved entitlement.
for me, it's an earned service.
All of them suck. The mayor has his agenda and the aldermen have theirs.
Honestly I'm tired from all the bickering. It's like bratty spoilt children who can't get along.
I felt the mayor was ridiculous trying to get rid of human needs services from the city and the aldermen are being equally ridiculous giving money away we can't afford right now.
I hope whoever are the new aldermen will not be so ridiculous and I hope the mayor gets a group he can find a way to get along with for a change.
Regardless of whether they make $$ available for facade improvemets, the city is still a far cry from "cooperative" when it comes to general business dealings. It is far more interested in what it sees as "optimal" use of some buildings in uptown than it is in seeing blighted buildings occupied with opened businesses. There is a reason why we have so many shuttered buildings in our precious uptown "core". It's because the city managers (meaning planning and development dept) think that they live in the 1990s. FLASH! THE DEVELOPERS AND THEIR FAST MONEY IS GONE. Better to be flexible in allowing uses than continually bang the "restaurant and retail only" drum while more and more storefronts go undeveloped. Some for as much as 5 years. How about THAT for lost tax income! Wake up Park Ridge. Your "uptown" is looking pretty crappy. Consider not spending that 50k on behalf of certain parties while you chase away certain others who don't seem to have the right connections.
Anonymous @ 12:28,
I agree with you that "uptown" is looking pretty crappy." I think it's looked "pretty crappy" since [they] took out 12 acres of open and green space, and replaced it with the suburban development equivalent of a velvet Elvis...
..but hey, there's still a market for French provincial pastel furniture covered in clear plastic too...
More seriously, and to your point...the bottom-line argument you are making is "something is better than nothing." I disagree. I'm not willing to "sell out" the character of Park Ridge for fully-loaded property taxes.
Having said that...I respect and have seen evidence of your argument that city (in)actions "chase away certain others who don't seem to have the right connections." Even then...the real "problem" was the property owner...:::coughNapletoncough:::...not the city or city staff, necessarily.
11/8 @ 9:01 PM
You sound like Rodney King, and to about the same effect. If they all "got along," there would be no reason for majority votes, vetoes, and supermajority votes to over-ride those vetoes.
What's wrong with the mayor and the aldermen each having their own "agendas" and battling to employ those agendas in the operation of the city? I'd rather have officials with clear agendas than blank-slate ciphers who blow with the wind from issue to issue.
I hope whoever the candidates for aldermen are will campaign on clear, understandable positions on the issues instead of resorting to the standard "I just want to give back to the community" b.s., and irrespective of whether they are people the mayor can "find a way to get along with for a change."
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