Soapbox: They've got a secret

The Naperville Park District board stumbled again this week when commissioners unsuccessfully tried to keep their choice for executive director secret -- even after the selection was reported in Denver-area newspapers. Only one commissioner, Suzanne Hart, was willing to speak on the record about why Daniel Betts was the right person for the job. The rest of the board, meanwhile, refused to publicly acknowledge the choice -- even though Betts already had resigned his post in Colorado to come here. There are a couple lessons to be learned. First, it's always better for publicly elected bodies that are spending public dollars to operate in the open. Second, it's always better to come clean once your silly little secrets have been exposed. If you don't, it rightfully should make voters and taxpayers wonder what else you're not telling them.

Pick up the phone

Daniel Betts will be the eighth administrator to head the Naperville Park District in the past 12 years. Several of those have been interim directors. At least three "permanent" directors -- Joe Schultz, Ken Brissa and Barbara Heller -- have left under some kind of cloud. We hope Betts will break that mold and have a long and successful tenure. But we already have a piece of advice for the new guy: It would have been nice if you had the courtesy to reply to phone calls during the early part of this week -- even if it was simply to decline comment. Dodging the media and the public it represents is seldom a good first step in building the lines of communication you're going to need once you arrive to take the reins of a district with a severe image problem.

Waiting for the inevitable

With some Indian Prairie Unit District 204 students looking at up to 30 minutes on a bus to get to and from school each day under the current boundary proposals for the third high school, how long will it take before parents are talking about a fourth high school?

Keep it clean

Saw an interesting bumper sticker recently, one with a message for all: "Keep your butt in the car. The Earth is not your ashtray." Too often these days we single out the smokers, but in this case, butts and any other garbage should stay in the car. The Earth is nobody's ashtray… or garbage can. And, really, how much effort does it take to wait until you get home to toss out that trash?

Win, lose, draw

A judge has ruled, but it hardly has brought resolution. Villa Olivia, a banquet, ski, golf resort in Bartlett, has been trying for some time to convert its golf operation into homes, pitting Bartlett vs. Elgin, and basically asking to subvert a covenant requiring that the course stay in place until 2022. A judge said, yes, Villa Olivia could de-annex from Bartlett, making annexation by Elgin possible. But no, it couldn't ignore the covenant and build homes, meaning there's little reason to de-annex. Everybody plans to appeal, of course. So stay tuned for more.

More, more, more

So, ComEd wants a big delivery fee rate hike. ComEd says it needs more money to assure reliable service and modern equipment. But the Citizens Utility Board says ComEd is exaggerating costs and understating income to justify the increase. No real surprises in those arguments. But with gas companies gearing up for delivery rate hikes and electricity users still recovering from last year's rate hikes, financially beleaguered consumers are likely to revolt over more, mostly because they don't have much more to give.