Mayor Dave Schmidt's Response to Former Elected Officials' Endorsement of Larry Ryles

Larry Ryles has proudly displayed a letter signed by three former mayors and a number of former aldermen endorsing his candidacy and taking pot shots at my record over the past four years.  However, every one of the signatories was either directly responsible for leading our City into a financial quagmire or sat idly by while it happened.

Why would any voter take the advice of a group of elected officials who nearly ruined us financially?  Where did these former officials get us with their “warm and fuzzy, “shared vision,” “collaborative leadership,” “collective thinking” and “positive approach” to City government?  On the edge of a financial precipice, that’s where.

Ron Wietecha and his Council wasted millions of dollars fighting O’Hare expansion while other communities sat at the negotiation table and hammered out a deal that left Park Ridge holding a bag of noise.  Mike MaRous’ sole purpose in life was to see the Uptown Development completed which should be given an award for the biggest financial disaster in the City’s history.  Howard Frimark was so busy trying to help his friends make deals that he allowed the City’s General Fund to dwindle to the point that it was within a year of going broke.  And almost all of the aldermen who signed that letter either helped those mayors lead us into the abyss or did nothing at all to stop it.

And although they collectively had more than 100 years in office, none of them did anything to address the City’s flooding and infrastructure problems, improve electrical service or provide a more transparent government to the people who own that government, the taxpayers.  With the help and cooperation of City staff and the current City Council, I have been able to address all of these issues in just four short years while leading the City’s General (Operating) Fund “back into the black.” 

The Ryles endorsement letter is full of inaccuracies.  Let’s start with the biggest whopper in their letter.  They accuse me of borrowing over $2 million to pay for pensions which supposedly artificially inflated the General Fund balance.  Not true. 

In February 2007, then-Mayor Frimark and four of the aldermen who signed the letter voted to create an ill-advised early retirement program which cost the City almost $2 million.  Because the City did not have $2 million at the time, the State’s Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (“IMRF”) allowed the City to finance the contribution, but the IMRF charged the City 7.5% interest on the unpaid amount.  Payments for the early retirement program came out of the City’s IMRF Fund, NOT the General Fund.  In November 2011, the City wisely chose to refinance the early retirement fund debt through issuance of bonds at an interest rate of only 2.6%.  This action will save the taxpayers almost $200,000 over an 8-year period. 

Importantly, the voters should know that all of these transactions involved the City’s IMRF Fund, NOT the General Fund, and the bonds were not issued to cover pension obligations which accrued after I took office, but rather to ease the pain of yet another financial disaster created by Frimark and his Council at the time, an obligation incurred in February 2007 before I even became an alderman.  In short, the bonds issued in 2011 saved the taxpayers money and had zero effect on the City’s General Fund balance, and the letter’s statement to the contrary is flat out untrue.

Perhaps the silliest statement in the letter involves the Uptown TIF Development and the TIF bond obligations.  The former elected officials deride me because I do not recognize the wonderfulness of the development in light of the many design awards it has received.  So what?  The current members of the City Council and I have been too busy worrying about how we are going to pay the TIF bond debt to concern ourselves with meaningless awards.  

Taxpayers are well aware that they cannot pay their mortgages with a trophy on the mantle. It takes money.  Likewise, the Uptown TIF financial disaster handed down to us by Wietecha, MaRous, Frimark and their compadres on the Council cannot be remedied by awards.  The TIF bond obligations cannot be paid with plaques and trophies; the bonds have to be paid with taxpayers’ money. 

The financial projections and agreements with the developer and other taxing bodies were so mismanaged by many of the officials who signed Ryles’ endorsement letter that we will have to make up the difference for years to come to the tune of $15 million (if we are lucky) to $27 million (if we are not).  It is their “collaborative leadership” which got us into this inescapable mess.  Why would voters take their advice on who should lead us for the next four years?

It is a fact that the City’s recent property tax levy increased at its lowest rate in at least 10 years, going back to the Wietecha days, if not before.  The endorsers attack those results by claiming we have kept the increases artificially low through creation of a Sewer Fund. According to them, sewer charges should be on the property tax bill.  This assertion is a perfect example of how their mismanagement got us into the financial mess we are finally digging our way out of. 

Almost every municipality around us has a separate sewer fund which charges a fee based on usage.  It is the fairest way to distribute the cost of sewer maintenance and improvements (something those elected officials neglected for years). What they fail to understand is that the biggest users, such as Lutheran General Hospital, the Park District and the School Districts do not pay property taxes.  This means that if the entire cost of sewers was shifted to property taxpayers, the biggest users would not pay a single dime, and the “regular folks” in Park Ridge would be paying for Lutheran General, the Park District and the School District’s share of the costs.  I doubt the voters want to see that kind of “collaborative leadership” either.

The aldermen also try to argue that the General Fund balance actually fell during my term.  Talk about fuzzy math.  The single biggest decline in the City’s General Fund came about as a result of Frimark’s last budget.  The former aldermen want to put that budget on my side of the scorecard. But it belongs right where it is now, part of Frimark’s failed legacy. 

Immediately upon taking office, I set about discarding the old way of approaching spending and budgeting.  I have overseen three budgets since taking office.  Every one of them resulted in a General Fund surplus, and I am presently “collaborating” with staff and the Council on a fourth budget which is also expected to result in a surplus, leaving the City with a perfect 4-for-4 during my first term as mayor.  Not one of the former mayors who signed that letter can say the same thing. 

The signers also attack my commitment to transparency, accusing me of violating employees’ right to privacy by publicly criticizing them.  Although they mention no names, it is clear they are talking about the process involving the long overdue firing of the former City Manager, Jim Hock. My opponent, himself, has mentioned that Hock’s review should have been done privately.  This reflects his apparent willingness to adopt the approach of former mayors and aldermen that closed sessions and private discussions are the way government should work.  They are wrong. 

The government belongs to the people who pay for it.  The City Manager is the single highest-paid individual in City government and has primary responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the City (not the Mayor who is not and has no need to be a “full-time mayor”).  The people who own and pay for their government had every right to be involved in and aware of the evaluation of his performance.

Finally, vetoes. The former elected officials criticize my use of vetoes as reflecting my lack of being a team player.   But the only team I play for is the taxpayers.  I make no apologies for vetoing spending measures which were not in the best interest of the taxpayers, whether the original vote by the aldermen was 7-0, 4-3 or something in between.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with using the veto process to ask the aldermen to take one more hard look before spending the taxpayers’ money. 

The taxpayers elected me to represent them, not employees or their unions, not community groups and not private businesses looking for handouts.  I would not be fulfilling my oath of office if I sat idly by and let a spending measure go through unchallenged which I thought was against the taxpayers’ best interests.  If that costs me some votes, then so be it.

Ultimately, the former mayors and aldermen who signed the endorsement letter cannot take issue with the results we have achieved over the past four years, so they fall back on the same hyperbole, platitudes and personal attacks which have marked my opponent’s campaign.   They did not “get it” before, and they still do not get it now. 

I firmly believe most of the voters in Park Ridge could care less about their mayor being warm and fuzzy.  What they care about is whether the mayor is on their side.  I am, and they know it.