Saturday, April 07, 2007
Hospital Still “Not An Issue”?
This week I listed a series of issues that could be used in the Crystal Lake city elections. Some were specific to Shepley, but others would be just as appropriate for city council candidates running for re-election.I learned early on that candidates can try to control what issues are significant in a campaign, but the media and opposition candidates also play a role.
Sometimes a significant role.
When Crystal Lake mayoral challenger Lori Phelps initiated her campaign, her lynch pin was bringing a hospital to Crystal Lake. Read her press release. It’s all about her passion to bring a hospital to Crystal Lake.
She more than hinted that incumbent two-term mayor Aaron Shepley’s less than positive attitude was part of the reason that Mercy had not been successful in bringing a hospital to Crystal Lake.
Phelps, by the way, worked hard to elect Shepley in 1999, when he was a private lawyer, not a Centegra “senior vice president and chief quality officer,” as Chicago Tribune reporter Jeff Long described him in his Friday article.
Who would expect a vice president of Centegra, the future competition of a Mercy Hospital, to champion a major potential competitor?
So, when Mercy announced it would make a second attempt to gain permission to build a hospital at Three Oaks Road and Route 31 across from the Holiday Inn, Shepley told the Northwest Herald that he was in favor and it was not an issue. (See Part 2 of this article, too.)
Now, with the Chicago Tribune running its Friday story entitled,
Challenger assails mayor on hospital,I think even Shepley might admit,
IT IS AN ISSUE.Reporter Jeff Long says the Crystal Lake campaign for mayor
is a heated one.You sure could not tell by the sign war, which Shepley, with at least $24,000 to spend, is winning handily.
Tomorrow, the other “not an issue” that the Tribune mentions.
Labels: Aaron Shepley, Centegra, Lori Phelps, Mercy Hospital
Comments:
<< Home
Illinois' Certificate of Need Process is a useless dinosaur, ripe for political corruption and influence-peddling (as we've witnessed). Other states have already done AWAY with the CON, though Illinois continues to embrace CONning its CONstituents - brought it to an new art form.
- - - - - - - -
Cal, to respond to the TRIB's piece you included on this same post - where it discussed Shepley's comment on the community center, I would like to do a bit of a SIDEBAR to respond here. It stated:
"Shepley said partnerships with the Park District and school districts will get the center built and financed. Funding, he said, could come through a bond issue by the Park District, which stretches beyond the city's borders and would distribute the financial burden among all users, not just Crystal Lake residents."
Mayor Shepley, in speaking of "partnerships" with the Park District, brings to mind a solution I've been considering for quite some time, to save everyone a lot of money, while improving the responsiveness of local government itself.
While there are plenty of challenges, the benefits of accomplishing this idea make it quite worthwhile.
It sounds radical, but it's really quite simple (I said "simple," not easy) - the voters of the CL Park District ought to vote to disband the Park District and allow it to be divided up - ROLLED-UP to become a Parks Department, under the auspices of other entities - namely the City of Crystal Lake.
Folks, this is OUR government. Just like products need RE-ENGINEERING from time to time to increase efficiencies, reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction, our very local government needs a serious and long-overdue re-engineering to do just that. We can't expect for staff to do this; it's OUR responsibility.
Benefits of a Park District Roll-up include:
::Major savings in overhead costs:: from personnel to equipment, to redundant police departments, insurance, high legal and accounting fees, consumables, vehicles, pensions, etc. The City should SELL OFF many redundant assets (including some facilities & real estate within the City proper). Assets outside of the City proper would go toward the respective Township.
::Far more responsive governing body:: Since authority and jurisdiction is clear, there's no "who's on first" when it comes down to who the voter can turn to in order to accomplish an objective. In Iraq, one chief problem is clear chain of command. We VOTERS deal with the same problem - Lack of clarity - yet we continue paying for this total inefficiency at the same time? That's foolish.
::Accomplish More:: When the Voters elect City Council members to make progress on objectives, we can turn to one governing body with clear authority and jurisdiction to focus on the solutions to get it done - not "herd cats" as it is being done now. No shirking responsibilities either.
::The Parks Department would have access to far more resources - from personnel who specialize in financial planning to legal, accounting, marketing, communications, etc - to accomplish their goals for the people who live in the City of Crystal Lake.
::Clear and Fair Representation:: City Council Members will have a very clear delineation of exactly who they can ask for financial support, and resist the temptation of going outside their City boundaries to reach into non-City residents to pay for City residents' well-being.
Dipping outside your jurisdiction is a Chicago-style political strategy, not a best-practice good-governance policy. We can not justify fighting Mayor Daley's efforts to pick our suburban pockets to fund his Chicago-based initiatives, while simultaneously picking the pockets of the district to pay for what is clearly a Crystal Lake-based initiative - just like the library. For the small percentage of non-resident who WOULD utilize the facility, they can choose to pay a user fee, or pay a higher annual membership fee, just like the City's library.
I believe in building a community center - though one much smaller than the one planned, and one that the isn't slipped through the back door, with $92,000 already approved before new Commissioners are elected. Simply HAVING this duplicating taxing body itself, and all the elected leaders, is evidence of its total inefficiency to accomplish more for less, for the voters.
I don't believe the Park District has all the tools it needs to tackle a community center - nor SHOULD it, by design. It proved that it couldn't even handle the Dole Mansion, at $1.6 Million. WHY in the world would we multiply this by 25 (25 x 1.6 = $40 Million)?
This sounds like criticism, but it's not. It's actually CLARIFYING that we VOTERS (you know, the ones making the top-level decisions on what we want to pay for and what we don't?) are guilty of allowing for duplicating governing bodies, and not streamlining efficiencies along the way.
Time to fix it.
This major effort clarifies the right choice of TODAY'S Parks. Do away with the Park District, and be like MOST OTHER STATES (no park district, just Parks Departments). Perhaps it served its purpose over 80 years ago when park districts were given autonomy by State statute, but today, its time has come. It's time for progress through streamlining.
We voters need to put government on a "slim-fast diet" to become better, faster, more responsive to our needs.
It's too expensive for taxpayers to duplicate staffing, services, etc and occupy otherwise tax-generating property.
Wouldn't you rather the Parks Department (under City leadership) use its own resources to accomplish its goals WITHIN ITS MEANS, rather than witness the City inappropriately employ ONE ASSET of the Park District - its ability to reach beyond Crystal Lake's borders - to pick others' pockets to fund the project?
Not only is that blatantly unfair to those outside Crystal Lake (including me, even though I'm a supporter of a community center and pool), it gives permission to the City leadership to continue down this irresponsible path. "Don't worry, we'll find someone else to pay for it."
No, good government needs to take responsibility for itself; not use others' bank accounts as if it's their own, knowing full well the non-resident ("partner") will receive little or nothing in return.
In business, that's getting darn close to what one would term deceptive practice. While Daley may be a lost cause as the almighty Poobah of "partnering with the suburbs" to cover his ass-ets, let's make sure it has NO PLACE in McHenry County's practices of good governance.
John Coonen
Crystal Lake
Post a Comment
- - - - - - - -
Cal, to respond to the TRIB's piece you included on this same post - where it discussed Shepley's comment on the community center, I would like to do a bit of a SIDEBAR to respond here. It stated:
"Shepley said partnerships with the Park District and school districts will get the center built and financed. Funding, he said, could come through a bond issue by the Park District, which stretches beyond the city's borders and would distribute the financial burden among all users, not just Crystal Lake residents."
Mayor Shepley, in speaking of "partnerships" with the Park District, brings to mind a solution I've been considering for quite some time, to save everyone a lot of money, while improving the responsiveness of local government itself.
While there are plenty of challenges, the benefits of accomplishing this idea make it quite worthwhile.
It sounds radical, but it's really quite simple (I said "simple," not easy) - the voters of the CL Park District ought to vote to disband the Park District and allow it to be divided up - ROLLED-UP to become a Parks Department, under the auspices of other entities - namely the City of Crystal Lake.
Folks, this is OUR government. Just like products need RE-ENGINEERING from time to time to increase efficiencies, reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction, our very local government needs a serious and long-overdue re-engineering to do just that. We can't expect for staff to do this; it's OUR responsibility.
Benefits of a Park District Roll-up include:
::Major savings in overhead costs:: from personnel to equipment, to redundant police departments, insurance, high legal and accounting fees, consumables, vehicles, pensions, etc. The City should SELL OFF many redundant assets (including some facilities & real estate within the City proper). Assets outside of the City proper would go toward the respective Township.
::Far more responsive governing body:: Since authority and jurisdiction is clear, there's no "who's on first" when it comes down to who the voter can turn to in order to accomplish an objective. In Iraq, one chief problem is clear chain of command. We VOTERS deal with the same problem - Lack of clarity - yet we continue paying for this total inefficiency at the same time? That's foolish.
::Accomplish More:: When the Voters elect City Council members to make progress on objectives, we can turn to one governing body with clear authority and jurisdiction to focus on the solutions to get it done - not "herd cats" as it is being done now. No shirking responsibilities either.
::The Parks Department would have access to far more resources - from personnel who specialize in financial planning to legal, accounting, marketing, communications, etc - to accomplish their goals for the people who live in the City of Crystal Lake.
::Clear and Fair Representation:: City Council Members will have a very clear delineation of exactly who they can ask for financial support, and resist the temptation of going outside their City boundaries to reach into non-City residents to pay for City residents' well-being.
Dipping outside your jurisdiction is a Chicago-style political strategy, not a best-practice good-governance policy. We can not justify fighting Mayor Daley's efforts to pick our suburban pockets to fund his Chicago-based initiatives, while simultaneously picking the pockets of the district to pay for what is clearly a Crystal Lake-based initiative - just like the library. For the small percentage of non-resident who WOULD utilize the facility, they can choose to pay a user fee, or pay a higher annual membership fee, just like the City's library.
I believe in building a community center - though one much smaller than the one planned, and one that the isn't slipped through the back door, with $92,000 already approved before new Commissioners are elected. Simply HAVING this duplicating taxing body itself, and all the elected leaders, is evidence of its total inefficiency to accomplish more for less, for the voters.
I don't believe the Park District has all the tools it needs to tackle a community center - nor SHOULD it, by design. It proved that it couldn't even handle the Dole Mansion, at $1.6 Million. WHY in the world would we multiply this by 25 (25 x 1.6 = $40 Million)?
This sounds like criticism, but it's not. It's actually CLARIFYING that we VOTERS (you know, the ones making the top-level decisions on what we want to pay for and what we don't?) are guilty of allowing for duplicating governing bodies, and not streamlining efficiencies along the way.
Time to fix it.
This major effort clarifies the right choice of TODAY'S Parks. Do away with the Park District, and be like MOST OTHER STATES (no park district, just Parks Departments). Perhaps it served its purpose over 80 years ago when park districts were given autonomy by State statute, but today, its time has come. It's time for progress through streamlining.
We voters need to put government on a "slim-fast diet" to become better, faster, more responsive to our needs.
It's too expensive for taxpayers to duplicate staffing, services, etc and occupy otherwise tax-generating property.
Wouldn't you rather the Parks Department (under City leadership) use its own resources to accomplish its goals WITHIN ITS MEANS, rather than witness the City inappropriately employ ONE ASSET of the Park District - its ability to reach beyond Crystal Lake's borders - to pick others' pockets to fund the project?
Not only is that blatantly unfair to those outside Crystal Lake (including me, even though I'm a supporter of a community center and pool), it gives permission to the City leadership to continue down this irresponsible path. "Don't worry, we'll find someone else to pay for it."
No, good government needs to take responsibility for itself; not use others' bank accounts as if it's their own, knowing full well the non-resident ("partner") will receive little or nothing in return.
In business, that's getting darn close to what one would term deceptive practice. While Daley may be a lost cause as the almighty Poobah of "partnering with the suburbs" to cover his ass-ets, let's make sure it has NO PLACE in McHenry County's practices of good governance.
John Coonen
Crystal Lake
<< Home
