Thursday PRU Briefs!

1. -- Out with the old!

For those who may have missed the announcement by City Manager Hock, the Director of Community Preservation and Development, Ms. Carrie Davis, enjoyed her last day of gainful employment with the City of Park Ridge last Friday.

It is our understanding the assistant to the City Manager, Ms. Cathy Doczekalski -- bet you can't say that fast, five times! -- will be overseeing the department, at least for the time being.

Good luck to Ms. Davis in her future endeavors.

May the good Lord have mercy on Ms. Doczekalski.


2. -- In with the new!

The new City website is up and running and if you are an obsessive mouse clicker, then has the City got a website for you!

Our PRU.TECH adds -- and not a lick of drupal in the source code to be found. Then again, why bother with free open source code when you've got a local company eager to copy and license their own CMS? It's not like the City of Park Ridge could afford either one or another of the web designers at Blue State Digital.

We hope the geeks in the crowd -- we mean that in the nicest way -- have a good time figuring that out.


3. -- Rudyard Kipling and FOIA -- Part deux!

As promised, the Butterly on Education blog has posted another installment of FOIA Fun! The latest piece offers "A few points to keep in mind on your way to becoming a FOIA maven." As well as providing step-by-step strategy instructions --

Butterly's five steps for FOIA requests.

1. Pick your target.
2. Determine who to send the FOIA to.
3. Perfect your question.
4. Send via e-mail.
5. Await your answer.

4. -- Happy Mother's Day!



Or if you prefer --



And there's always --



Enjoy the weekend!

FOIA Fun!

For our faithful PRU readers who may have missed it, the Butterly On Education blog recently posted an interesting article titled A Rudyard Kipling approach to (FOIA) requests - Part One.

Butterly offers that he intends to "write a series of Blog postings on writing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests...My ultimate goal is to teach you a disciplined and repeatable approach to investigating your School District’s activities, utilizing the Freedom of Information Act...So, let’s end this post with the first question. What is FOIA?"

The PRU Crew is looking forward to reading what Butterly has to say on the subject and we look forward to the promised future postings. We also hope those who may be interested in paying closer attention, not only to what their local School District is up to but also any of their other local governing bodies, will find the information useful and the Butterly blog a helpful resource.

We have to admit we were dumbfounded by the story which inspired the above -- When is enough, enough? $900 a day for consulting? Not bad for government work!

And in case our faithful PRU readers are not aware, there is a small section of Park Ridge which reportedly pays property taxes into East Maine School District #63 (map)(.pdf).

Jeez, some of our fellow taxpayers are taking it from all sides!

Two-steppin' Blue-footed Boobie!

John Sill - freelance artist and bird illustrator

From the Journal & Topics online, we read an unattributed article titled "Committee To Review Caudill Agreement." What caught the PRU Crews attention were a few lines in the piece indicating what can only be described as a lack of transparency and cooperation on the part of city government; specifically, acting City Manager, Julianna Maller. The article states:

1) "The revised agreement was not provided to the media."

2) "The Journal & Topics Newspapers was told to file a Freedom of Information Act request for access."

3) "Maller would not speak to a Journal & Topics Newspapers reporter regarding the issue; choosing to respond only to written questions."

4) "...but she did not indicate if that was at Caudill's original rate of pay or at the increased rate."

5) "She also did not answer a question asking if the three additional months of settlement would be adjusted to reflect only the first 4% increase."

The Illinois Attorney General's website says, “…it is declared to be the public policy of the State of Illinois that all persons are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government […] Such access is necessary to enable the people to fulfill their duties of discussing public issues fully and freely, making informed political judgments and monitoring government to ensure that it is being conducted in the public interest.” (5 ILCS 140/1)".

And, the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) "...is intended to open the government to all citizens by guaranteeing access to governmental records in whatever form they are maintained. The Act maintains a clear preference for access to public documents while still protecting legitimate governmental interests and the privacy rights of individual citizens."

Before PRU readers jump to any conclusions about their right to access public information -- a task the press often undertakes on the public's behalf -- the PRU Crew feels the need to translate the above into what government officials understand the FOIA to mean; that is, "As government officials, we can delay and deter access to information by requiring anyone seeking information to jump through hoops."

So while you may think that FOIA is for the purpose of ensuring that "access is necessary to enable the people to fulfill their duties of discussing public issues fully and freely, making informed political judgments and monitoring government to ensure that it is being conducted in the public interest”, what you really should understand is that, before completing your duties as citizens in an open and free democracy, government officials will expect nothing less than an Olga Korbut performance on paper from you.

And, even when government officials snootily demand that all questions must be submitted in writing, you shouldn't expect those written questions to be answered either.