Here Comes the Mud

We are down to the final week before the mayoral campaign is over.  Many people involved in politics call this "the silly season" because it is when the side that thinks it is losing throws everything they have got at the candidate who is ahead, trying to sully his name, his reputation and his record. 

Unfortunately, it looks like our own mayoral contest will follow that pattern.  Over the next week, you will probably see many letters and mailers from people like former Alderman Bach and others who are indebted and loyal to my opponent's close advisor, former Mayor Frimark, and who are now determined to attack my character and my integrity and to try to tear down the record of success we have built up over the past four years.  However, while the people authoring these attacks are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts. 

I am confident the people of Park Ridge will see through all the bluster.  For instance, it is a fact that the last three budgets passed under Frimark, WHILE HE CONTROLLED THE PROCESS, resulted in mutli-million General Fund deficits totalling $8 million which left that Fund on the brink of bankruptcy.  (Bach and others want to tag me with the results of Frimark's last budget.  While I certainly had to deal with the damage it caused, it is simply wrong to pin Frimark's budget on me)  And it is likewise a fact that ALL three bugets passed since I became mayor have resulted in General Fund surpluses with a total recently revised upward as exceeding $4 million.  Those are facts that cannot be spun away by Frimark, Bach, Ryles or any of the former elected offcials.  

Bach curiously takes issue with the recently-passed 2.15% property tax levy increase, the lowest increase in at least 10 years.  He claims that was achieved by increasing debt.  Wrong.  He is simply making that up.  (Remember, it IS "silly season")  Actually, the low increase was achieved by cutting spending and because the City's robust retail sector produced an unexpectedly high $5.5 million in sales tax revenues this past year, a full $1 miilion dollars more than Frimark's last year in office.  Hard to argue with those results, Alderman Bach.  p.s.  Whole Foods IS coming which will help lower our dependence on property taxes even more. 

Bach ridicules the Flood Control program instituted under my watch.  He claims it has not done any good.  Tell that to the Public Works Director who insists that the renewed focus on maintenance and sewer relining instituted over the past four years has helped the neighborhoods to better withstand heavy rains.  Or tell it to the residents in the Manor and other areas of town who have been hard-hit with flooding in the past while former mayors completely ignored the problem, but who are now finally in line for major flood control projects this summer which took the last two years to design. 

What about transparency?  Frimark and Bach were part of the LEAST transparent administration in the history of the City.  Frimark, Bach and his fellow aldermen actually condemned me when I was an alderman because I blew the whistle on a secret land deal they were discussing in closed session which would have led to building a new $16 miilion police station.  That is the type of government Bach and his friends want to return us to.  But I don't believe for a second that is what the people want. 

The City Manager, Frimark, Bach and others on Frimark's counsel fought my efforts as an alderman to televise Council meetings because they claimed it would cost too much.  But contrary to Bach's claim, televising City Council meetings does not cost the City a single penny.  When I became mayor in 2009, I bought the City a videocamera with my own money and started posting the meeting videos to my website and eventually the City's website.  WOW cable eventually gave us a camera and started televising our meetings live.  All for free.  That is the kind of transparency Ryles and his supporters want to do away with so they can go back to the old way of doing business where the taxpayers are left in the dark and decisions about how to spend their money are made in closed session and in private discussions. 

There are so many other inaccuracies or out right fibs in Bach's letter, it would take hours to go through them all.  Suffice to say that the voters should just consider the source:  Don Bach was Howard Frimark's right-hand man, Howard Frimark is Larry Ryles' right-hand man.  Enough said.