Listening Politely!

Sorry people -- this post was supposed to be scheduled for publishing this morning but PRU.ADMIN, not to name any names, somebody forgot!



For our faithful PRU readers interested in the City's efforts to mitigate neighborhood flooding problems, by proposing use of Park District property as we mentioned here a few weeks ago, some of the news does not appear very promising.

As many of you may be aware, the City of Park Ridge has approached the Park Ridge Park District, armed with the recommendations from Burke Engineering -- the City Flooding consultant, about the idea of using park property for storm water retention ponds. The location currently under consideration for discussion are a significant portion of the fields at Northwest Park.

At last week's Park District Board COW meeting, Park District Commissioners were treated to a 90 minute presentation and discussion of the subject with two of the consultants from Burke Engineering, the Park Ridge City Manager Jim Hock, Director of Public Works Wayne Zingsheim, City Engineer Sarah Mitchell, and 2nd ward Alderman Rich DiPietro. City officials attempted to persuade the Park Board of the necessary wisdom of allowing the City to spend $1.9 million for the project, which could probably reduce flooding for 145 homes in the area, but would have the effect of also reducing the availability of the playing fields.

According to the Park Board minutes (.pdf) page 7 of the meeting, in addition to the reduced availability of the fields, Park District Commissioners also expressed concern about field damage and water safety issues.

Park District Executive Director Ray, The Big O, Ochromowicz did offer an alternative option to City officials -- turfing and lighting fields at Centennial Park so they are playable and available for night games. Some preliminary estimates we've heard are that the alternative plan could cost as much as $2 million in additional dollars to the City. Ironically, if the alternative plan were accepted, the total cost would be approximately $4 million -- equal to the amount Burke Engineering has estimated it would cost for underground work at Northwest Park.

The Park Ridge Park District Board has not formally discussed the alternative plan and City officials are said to be requesting the Mayor's involvement in the discussions, moving forward.

Why the Mayor hasn't already been involved in the discussions we can't explain.

In other Park Ridge Park District news, according to their meeting minutes --

"Executive Director Ochromowicz expressed his concern with the [Senior Services] agreement and said the District needs to stop the increasing subsidy. He said subsidy has to be decreased and he believes the senior building is used 99% of the time for Senior Services so the Senior Services should pay 100% of the full-time employees' salaries. Still under negotiations are that all programs that are planned and organized by Park District staff are open to all Park Ridge residents with no penalty." (sic)

~~THUD!!!~~ We're in love!!!

Gut Checking -- Thoughts

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.

For Coffee or Kool-aid!

Available from zazzle.com

In this week's edition of the online Herald-Advocate we read an article, written by Ms. Jennifer Johnson, titled 'Bach: Council should manage city employees'. If that title alone doesn't make you sit up and take notice, then the opening paragraphs of the story should --

"Some might call it micromanaging, but for Park Ridge Alderman Don Bach, giving the City Council the authority to reorganize city staff and terminate positions is a necessity in light of the current economic climate.

Accusing City Manager Jim Hock of not doing enough to cut expenses, Bach presented the council with a proposal Monday night that would allow aldermen to "mandate reorganization and staff reduction for specified positions in specified numbers in a specific period of time by a super majority vote." Since 1949, when the position was created, the city manager has had the authority to "consolidate, combine or reorganize positions or units" that fall under his jurisdiction. These positions include all department heads and any employees exclusive of police officers and firefighters."

Holy wow! Does anyone really feel that politicians should control the hiring and firing of public employees? We mean, anyone besides City of Chicago Mayor Shortshanks?

Thankfully, it appears the rest of the Park Ridge City Council didn't hop on 3rd ward Ald. Don Bachtard's patronage wagon.

The article quotes the 2nd ward's Lord of the Manor, Rich DiPietro as saying --

"This City Council has enough problems trying to figure out what it's doing and being consistent in what it's doing without trying to run the day-to-day operation of the city," said 2nd Ward Alderman Rich DiPietro."

PRUdos to Ald. DiPietro! The PRU Crew has noted the same problems and inconsistency!

Anyone interested in viewing the Council's discussion of this topic can do so by going to the 38:33 mark in video #3 and the beginning of video #4 which we posted here.

For a quicker view, we've been provided with a link to the specific video segment, below --

We're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat!

Back in October of 2007, a little over a year ago, we told PRU readers Lesson #1: Pay Attention!



In that piece we wrote about how the council's Finance and Budget committee, chaired by the Lord of the Manor, Ald. Rich DiPietro (2nd Ward) had been cancelling meetings. We viewed those cancellations as a mixed blessing but warned that, "We sure do hope the Lord of the Manor is paying attention, because his won't be the only ass that could get bitten by something that creeps up from behind."

Six months later, in April 2008, we again wrote about the Finance and Budget committee meeting to discuss some serious budget issues that had crept up. We called that piece Lesson #2: Pay Attention or Pay Up!

Well people, just another six months later and the piper's come calling again, and he's got really really big teeth and an insatiable appetite! The city's bloody red spending is starting to look a lot like this --



Who's the guy on the surf board, you may ask? You'll find the answer in the mirror.

Last year's red ink totaled a whopping $1.7 million dollars, and according to some of the recent articles in the local rags, the city is poised to be swamped with another red ink wave of the same magnitude.

We're glad to see the Finance and Budget committee hasn't cancelled their next meeting (.pdf), but we sure do wish they'd post those financial statements their background memo (.pdf) refers to.

So people, how long can you tread water?

Suckers-R-Us!

Last week we linked to the Burbcopschicago post, $afety Fir$t. The piece was about Red Light Cameras. But we also wanted PRU readers to become aware of the many officers who seem to feel they, themselves, are also being used as revenue generating machines for over-spent municipal budgets.

The Burbcops' post noted the cynicism of politicians who tell the public they are concerned for traffic safety matters, while behind the scenes the issue seems to be all about revenue generation.

So PRU readers, let's play a game -- The PRU Crew calls this game, "Suckers-R-Us."

Start...If you were an alderman, and you were on a city council that had to find a way to generate revenue to help reduce an unexpected city budget general fund deficit of $600,000...

Question #1...Would you vote to increase taxes?

Question #2...Would you vote to increase the parking tax by $1 per car at one of your largest local employers, say...a local hospital?

Question #3...Would you then think about that increase for a few days?

Question #4...Would you remember the amount of revenue that local hospital contributed to the city budget through the recent construction and permit fees the city collected -- the contribution that local hospital made to the new paint job on your town's water tower -- the money that local hospital gave to your constituents for repaving one of your ward's streets?

Question #5...Would you feel regret for having to increase the parking tax on that local hospital's employees and visitors?

If you answered "Yes" to question #5, go back to Start and begin the game again...

If you answered "No", proceed to the next question...

Question #6...After thinking about the increased parking tax, would you hit upon the idea that employees and visitors may try to avoid paying that extra dollar by trying to find parking in the residential area surrounding that local hospital?

Question #7...What would you do then?

Question #8...Would you send an email to the Public Safety committee chairman suggesting that the police department patrol the area to make sure no traffic safety issues arise from the possibility of more cars being parked throughout the neighborhood?

If you answered "Yes" to question #8, go back to Start and begin the game again...

If you answered "No", proceed to the next question...

Question #9...Would you send an email to the Public Safety committee chairman suggesting that the police department patrol the area to make sure your constituents aren't being inconvenienced by people parking too close to, or blocking, driveways?

If you answered "Yes" to question #9, go back to Start and begin the game again...

If you answered "No", proceed to the next question...

Question #10...Would you send an email to the Public Safety committee chairman suggesting that the police department be aware of a "revenue generating opportunity" surrounding the local hospital, because the hospital's employees and visitors may be looking to avoid paying the increased parking tax?

If you've gotten to question #10 and you answered "Yes", congratulations!

You could be a Second Ward Alderman.

Hey! Mr. Milissis! How'd you score?

Kissing and Telling!

For those of you who don't know, there's a guy in town who is not so affectionately referred to as "The Frog". That guy is retired Park Ridge police officer and unsuccessful 7th Ward aldermanic candidate, Robert Kristie; one of Mayor Howard's favorite pets and another name we've heard tentatively floated as a potential replacement for "retiring" Police Chief Caudill.

The PRU Crew does not believe for a minute that even Mayor Howard would be dumb enough to try to name Kristie The Frog as the new Chief. Mayor Howard needs and wants the cooperation of the police department rank and file for use in carrying out his petty personal vendettas. And Mayor Howard knows that it's a toss-up between The Frog and "Hoopty Lou" Jogmen for who is more despised by the majority of officers in the department. But that doesn't mean that Kristie isn't useful to Mayor Howard, or that Mayor Howard doesn't engage in a kiss and tell relationship with The Frog.

So it came as no surprise that The Frog was overheard last week at a Maine South event telling everyone within earshot all the astoundingly accurate details of the "separation agreement" with Chief Caudill. That agreement, according to the now departed city manager, Tim Schuenke, contains language that mandates confidentiality. According to a report in last week's Herald-Advocate, "The entire separation agreement has not been released to the City Council or the public because the document includes a clause stipulating it remain confidential, Schuenke said. Both Schuenke and Caudill have signed the agreement." Also according to Tim Schuenke, the city council agreed to a general framework for the terms of the separation agreement in closed session; for the first time, Chief Caudill's separation agreement will be the subject of discussion in open session at tonight's council meeting.

The PRU Crew does believe that the terms of the agreement should be subject to public discussion and review. The Chief of Police is a public employee, whose compensation is directly paid for by the taxpayers of Park Ridge; though Mayor Howard and the city council have worked hard to keep Park Ridge taxpayers in the dark.

However, what the PRU Crew finds really entertaining in all of this is that Mayor Howard has taken the position that city council closed sessions are to be kept strictly confidential. And a majority of the Mayor's lapdogs on the council agree with that position. Mayor Howard has even tasked the 2nd Ward's Lord of the Manor, Rich DiPietro, with the job of raising the issue before the Procedures & Regulations committee; the committee will be discussing the issue, along with other interesting items, at their meeting Tuesday night. And the Procedures & Regulations committee chairman, 4th Ward Ald. Allspaghetti, is a known and notorious Mayor Howard lackey, who will eagerly do Frimark's bidding.

As we have said before, we believe a policy or ordinance mandating confidentiality and imposing a punishment on those who disclose closed session information is contrary to State law.

But we have to ask, if the Mayor's lapdogs on the council foolishly enact a policy or ordinance that mandates confidentiality and imposes a punishment on those who disclose closed session information, will they then be willing to also punish Mayor Howard for doing exactly what he has hypocritically objected to others having done?

Come on aldermorons, you know Mayor Howard may be one of the biggest gossip mongers in all of Park Ridge.

We can't wait for the twisted contortions of the pols when and if they have to explain it all as they pucker up and kiss the Mayor's ass on this one.

And it should also make whatever Mayor Howard has planned for tonight's "council decorum" discussion all the more amusing to listen to; like Heidi Fleiss being invited to deliver a Sunday sermon on the benefits of clean living.

Advocating for Evil.

Good afternoon, PRU readers. The Crew appreciates your patience while we get our story straight.

At last night's Procedures and Regulations Committee meeting, it was the Lord of the Manor, Alderman Rich DiPietro (2nd ward) who led the charge to keep Park Ridge "safe" for the doing of evil under the guise of "protecting" the residents of Park Ridge from too much knowledge.

Just like the Illinois Family Institute, who prefer that High School freshman never even hear the words birth control, let alone learn how to use methods of birth control, the Lord of the Manor is reported to have said that the taxpayers of Park Ridge must be protected from the disclosure of information the council chooses to discuss in secret.

It is further reported to PRU that the Lord of the Manor is demanding that a procedure for censure be put in place to punish anyone who does release closed session material, or the Lord of the Manor can't, "in good conscience", vote for future closed sessions of the city council.

We've got news for the Lord of the Manor, what you're advocating is pure evil and illegal.

Keeping information from the citizens of Park Ridge and claiming it is for their own protection is so Orwellian in its twisted logic we believe DiPietro's "good conscience" has been possessed by some sort of evil demon.

Forget censure. The city council needs a procedure for an exorcism.

Stupid Gets What Stupid Agrees To.

A few weeks ago we reported on an action item before the city council in our post about 800 lb Gorilla in City Council! We discussed the mandates of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised and the role of a meeting chairman. Shortly after that, a PRU reader asked for a follow-up on the issue.

At the City Council meeting on 12/17/07 (minutes-.pdf) an amendment was offered by the Lord of the Manor, Alderman Rich DiPietro (2nd ward), to add the words "upon relinquishing the chair" to the motion by the unfriendly Ghost of the 6th ward, Alderman Thomas Carey, to allow the Mayor to participate in debate and discussion of matters before the city council.

Gee fellas, did you work out that motioning and amending business prior to the meeting?

The change to the procedure governing the Mayor's participation in debate and discussion "upon relinquishing the chair" does mean that some ward may on occasion not have a representative participating in debate and discussion.

So there's the update on the issue of the Mayor's participation in debate and discussion at city council meetings.

The PRU Crew has enjoyed a few laughs over this issue and its outcome.

DiPietro, sometimes you are a real piece of work.

Yes! We have no bananas!

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?

It Ain't Over Til...

As we expected, last night the city council voted 4 (Allspaghetti, Benedict Ryan, Lord of the Manor and Carey the Unfriendly Ghost) to 3 (Schmidtzkrieg, Wsoooool man, DreadBach) in favor of giving Norwood's Park Ridge 2004 LLC the density variance for the 8 additional condo units.

Again, it was Aldermen Schmidt and Wsol who led the effort to not only keep the development within the parameters of the new and more lenient zoning code, but also tighten up the language on the ordinance regarding the "senior housing" component and ensure that the city not get handed the final bill for the water retention.

The language in the ordinance remains full of loopholes "big enough to drive a condo through", largely due to the parliamentary maneuverings of the Lord of the Manor and the stupidity of his fellow Aldermorons.

There were 13 comments from the gallery; 4 of those comments were in support of the project. Again, Carla Owen addressed the council and "updated" the petitions she and her Berry Pky. neighbors have been collecting in opposition to the code variances for the Norwood project. Those petition signers now number around 500.

To no avail.

The preferences and will of the majority of residents in the immediate area of Executive Office Plaza and throughout the city have been ignored.

Get used to it.

Lesson #1: Pay Attention!

The city council has 4 standing committees. One of those committees is Finance and Budget. The members of the Finance and Budget committee are the 2nd ward's Lord of the Manor, Rich DiPietro - committee chairman, the 5th ward's Benedict-Alderman, Robert Ryan, and the 6th ward's Unfriendly Ghost, Tom Carey. Yeah, we know - not a promising line up.

The Finance and Budget committee is supposed to consider policy questions about revenue, expenses, and appropriations, generally.

It is with great pleasure that we report, so far this line up of aldermopes has not been able to do a lot of damage to city policy as it relates to city finances and the city budget. The reason is, they've scheduled 10* meetings since last June and they have canceled 5 of them - more than half of all their scheduled meetings; this means, cumulatively, the Finance and Budget committee has met less than once per month since having been convened. They didn't meet at all in August, only once in September, and tonight's first October meeting has also been canceled.

Still, we wonder who is minding the city's finance and budget store. Since it is the Finance and Budget committee that is supposed to keep track of account reporting and dialogue with staff, we wonder who's been doing that. Providing oversight to the city finances and budget is one of the most important functions of a city council. We aren't impressed with the lack of public discussion taking place regarding contingency fund expenditures, the debts owed to the general operating fund, and the city's overall $48.5 million dollars of debt.

We sure do hope the Lord of the Manor is paying attention, because his won't be the only ass that could get bitten by something that creeps up from behind.

*correction* Our thanks to a keen eyed reader who let us know that we missed counting one of the Fin./Bud. meetings. On Oct. 1st, the Fin./Bud. committee met for 15 minutes prior to the city council meeting that evening. They met to formally give committee approval to two action items on the city council agenda that evening: 1) a contract extension and 2) payments to Vistara Construction.

A Space Odyssey.

Last evening's city council meeting was nothing if not a resounding display of how tightly sealed the pod bay doors have been shut in the minds of some council members on the condo project commonly known as Executive Office Plaza (EOP).

Alderman Dave Schmidtzkrieg (1st ward) made a determined effort to see to it the interests of Park Ridge residents were addressed; particularly residents living in the neighboring 5th ward. After all, somebody has to represent the folks in the 5th ward. Benedict-Alderman, Robert Ryan, sure isn't doing that even when he does manage to make it to a meeting!

Alderman Schmidtzkrieg attempted to amend the zoning map ordinance by offering his fellow council members a motion and opportunity to consider the more transitional and less dense R-4 zoning district.

5th ward residents Carla Owen and CURRB's Judy Barclay both spoke, and urged the city council to give thoughtful consideration to discussion of the R-4 amendment as well as the precedent-setting nature of the decisions before them.

Then, in case anyone was lost, 1st ward resident Dave Kemerer informed those in attendance that they are not living in Colonial Williamsburg, and that there is nothing so unique about Park Ridge that it must be preserved. Don't tell the Pickwick owners he said that, their feelings might get hurt.

Mr. Kemerer also questioned the wisdom of a "stable housing base", opining that we need to add more housing units in order to produce more tax revenues to off-set the costs of increased services, implicitly suggesting that the taxes from those new units will pay for services not only for their own residents but also for the rest of Park Ridge. Mr. Kemerer offered this suggestion without any supporting data. Mr. Kemerer also insisted it was unfair to make a motion for a less dense R-4 district "at the 23rd hour" after having "led the developer way down the road".

We're not sure what roads Mr. Kemerer travels, but we are sure he's lost the map for this trip. Mr. Kemerer, we'd like to suggest that just this once you pull over and ask somebody for directions.

Norwood's attorney offered that the motion before the council was not proper. He was roundly ignored. Norwood's attorney then went on to say that the R-4 zoning district "doesn't advance the development potential of the site". That's lawyer talk for "doesn't provide my clients with the potential level of profits they want."

Resident Herb Zuegel then addressed the council in support of Norwood's plan. Mr. Zuegel must have forgotten to print out a copy of his recent email on the subject so he could have read it to the city council. Mr. Zuegel's remarks before the council were far less strident and lacked his email's wildly speculative questions about the motivations of CURRB's Judy Barclay and others opposed to the density and height variances for Norwood's condominium project. Tsk tsk, Mr. Zuegel. CURRB and Judy Barclay have been opposed to a number of questionable zoning variances for the last 12 years. It is silly to now speculate that CURRB's or Ms. Barclay's motivations have anything to do with her having lost the election to Benedict-Alderman Ryan.

Schmidtzkrieg's R-4 zoning district amendment lost by a 4 (Allspaghetti, Lord of the Manor, Benedict-Alderman, Carey the unfriendly Ghost) to 2 (Schmidtzkrieg, Wsoooool man) vote.

Alderman Wsoooool man did make note of the fact that Guido Neri, a developer and resident of Park Ridge, had a project to build 25 townhomes on an adjacent parcel approved as planned.

Shortly thereafter, the city council voted 5 to 1 (Schmidtzkrieg) to adopt the R-5 zoning map amendment.

The next item on the agenda was final consideration of the ordinance to allow Norwood's Park Ridge 2004 LLC project to be approved. An ordinance for this type of a project is referred to as a PUD (Planned Unit Development). We think this one should be referred to as a DUD!

Norwood's Park Ridge 2004 LLC again insisted they have made every effort to adjust their condominium plan, and that they are "amenable to further discussions" on the issue of senior housing. No one has reported they saw any of Norwood's people with their fingers crossed behind their backs. Still we are pleased to hear the Lord of the Manor motioned to defer consideration of final ordinance approval until such time as a covenant, ensuring that senior housing be maintained on the site, is written into the final ordinance. What a concept! Get it in writing first!

Additionally, the Lord of the Manor had an enumerated list of conditions that would have to be met prior to the council's final consideration of the ordinance on October 15th; one significant item was the inclusion of an on-site Registered Nurse to provide consultation and care for those living in the senior housing units.

We still object, we strenuously object, to the characterization of the 50 senior housing units as senior housing units. What Norwood and Presbyterian Homes is offering the Park Ridge community is nothing more than age-restricted condominium units with a sprinkle of ordinary services offered by most insurance providers, local libraries, community centers, park districts and churches.

In response to the Lord of the Manor's motion to defer final consideration, most of those in attendance became aware that Alderman Allspaghetti's personal power grid had shut down, and his internal digital clock was flashing 12:00. Alderman Allspaghetti urged the council not to defer final consideration of the DUD since the matter had "already been deferred for a year". Alderman Schmidtzkrieg helped Alderman Allspaghetti reset his clock to the correct time by reminding him that the matter had only come before the council last August...not quite two months ago.

Benedict-Alderman Ryan, described by Herb Zuegel in his email as having "done his homework" on the Norwood - Presbyterian Homes project, said he "won't dictate the need for an on-site Registered Nurse; he doesn't know enough about it". Between his absences and incomplete homework, we fear we will have to give Benedict-Alderman Ryan a first quarter failing grade in Alderman 101!

We thought we heard that the Ghost of the 6th ward was present in the room, but we can't be sure. He made no attempt to communicate with the living.

And with that the pod bay doors opened and the motion to defer final consideration was voted upon.

Can you guess the outcome?

A Target-Rich Environment!

There is no end to the amusement provided by politicians. We find the fun reaches a zenith when they get together in the same room!


We read today that the Park Ridge city council held a planning meeting-pdf. back in June. They got together in the same room to do it. We are amused! Even if we had to wait three months for the city clerk to prepare and post the draft minutes.


The very first order of business was to break for dinner. You can't have your representatives starving while they plan the city's destiny.

We read that Alderman DiPietro discussed his desire to move forward on Norwood's Executive Plaza plan.

The Lord of the Manor is nothing if not a quick study in buzzword bingo lingo! Still we remain pleased that, despite his desire to move forward, he's kept the interests of the Park Ridge serf-izens in mind.


Mayor Hozo Frimark is always a source of amusement! We read that Mayor Hozo wants to form a "Citizens Advisory Task Force to help promote the new Police Station."










We hope he's just clowning around. We would hate to think Mayor Hozo is recommending that the city council use a group of serf-izens as a propoganda vehicle for moving forward on the building of a new police station. Mayor Hozo "explained it would assist by informing the community of the Council’s message and plan", but we feel he must have been joking. Surely Mayor Hozo understands it is the responsibility of elected officials to inform the community of their message and plan, even if he doesn't understand the expressly written purpose of a citizen's advisory task force is to inform the council on issues in the community.

Alderman Wsoooool man offered that he's "inclined to protect the little guy", notwithstanding his voting record.











Alderman Wsoooool man believes that the serf-izens of Park Ridge need to understand what the police are asked to do, while the police need to "develop a positive relationship" with Park Ridge serf-izens. The Wsoooool man goes on to suggest that Park Ridge serf-izens should be treated with respect by the Park Ridge police. Mind you, this is only a suggestion.


To accomplish the fulfillment of these needs and suggestions, Alderman Wsoooool man offered another suggestion - a sign design contest to promote involvement.


We speculate that the sign design contest was too complicated to implement, so the city administration decided to hand out an assortment of trinkets to serf-izens who stop by the Coffee with the Cops booth that we mentioned here.

Nothing helps a serf-izen to "Focus on the Vision" - the city administration's plan for promoting a more positive relationship between Park Ridge serf-izens and the police - like a shiny new keychain.

We would like to suggest that the next time our politicians gather to plan the city's destiny that the caterer be asked to include an assortment of herbal supplements.

Maybe if they ingest some fish oil, the serf-izens of Park Ridge would be saved from suggestions for political snake oil.