Special Meeting 1/25/2018

 

 

IGA Contract 9/11/2018

 

 

Financial History of the District

 

 

First Meeting 12/16/2019

 

 

Second Meeting 1/20/2020

 

 

Third Meeting 2/17/2020

 

 

Third Meeting 3/2/2020

 

 

Fourth Meeting

 

 

 

 

Donald Russ

To:  Marcin Malinowski

Re:  Duty.

Cc:  Amy Bernstein, Dave Andersen, Karl Snoblin

Wed, Feb 26 at 6:15 PM

 

 

Mr. President,

 

You wrote to me the day after our second meeting (1/21) and I wrote to you the evening of our (first scheduled) third meeting (2/17) saying, “I have not received any communication from you or anyone associated with Rockland since [you wrote to me the day after our second meeting].”

Earlier today you write, “…please check any other email accounts you may have used to correspond with members of the board.”  You seem to be suggesting that I might have simply failed to read an email that was correctly sent to me.  That is not so.  The two email accounts and my phone (for voice & text) that are known to you or other board members are functioning correctly and are monitored closely.  The failure was entirely yours.

That is not a consequential point, but it is absolutely true and any denial of responsibility is intolerable, especially since my only (non-residential) connection to the RFPD is through the CRC which has the mission of holding a prior RFPD board accountable for its own errors.  I did not receive the email that was purportedly sent February 12th or any others between 1/21 and 2/17.

One week ago, Trustee Bernstein, to her credit, wrote to me, “I believe I have the wrong email address written down for you…My sincere apologies…”  We can leave it at that, or, if you prefer, Trustee Bernstein and I can meet and review her email so that we can identify the exact instance of where the “wrong email address written down” was used.

 

On much more important matters, you write, “The hypothetical ‘million dollar benefit’ you reference that ‘the Rogers Board acted to capture’ is exactly that, a hypothesis.”  The mission of the CRC is to understand the perspective of the Rogers Board.  The two projections that are the last pages of the Financial/Contracts section of our 3-ring notebooks, which were presented at our second meeting, were available to the Rogers Board.

It is therefore reasonable for the CRC to conclude (as I noted in my January 20th email to the board) that the Rogers Board understood that “the paper district projection is wrongly burdened with post-transition-year building expenses of $682,545.70 and further excludes the building equity (which Treasurer Snoblin said was significantly more than $300,000) for a combined benefit of more than a million dollars.”

As I write this, we are 44 days past the January 13th RFPD Board meeting.  The best information I have of the current building status comes from a Chicago Tribune story (Dan Dorfman) published two weeks after that meeting which says, “Karl Snoblin, treasurer for the fire protection district, said the district pays $90,000 each year on mortgage payments for the former fire station and another estimated $10,000 a year in utilities and maintenance on the building.”

First, transparency.  On November 13th last year I wrote to Trustee Bernstein (copying the other two trustees) in her capacity as Secretary, “I therefore suggest that the Board post the unapproved minutes the same evening as board meetings.  There is no reason not to do this.  Indeed, failure to promptly post minutes is opaque (the opposite of ‘transparent’) and needlessly provokes reckless speculation.  You as Secretary could order this immediately.  Such minutes would be labeled ‘Unapproved and Subject to Change’ and would be supplemented with the approved minutes a month later.”

44 days after the regular January meeting, there is nothing on your website except the agenda prepared prior to the meeting.  It is only from noticing the changed agenda item for the February regular meeting or from the faint hope that the Tribune stringer might generate a story that might be published that I might search for, that gives me any knowledge.  My suggestion of posting unapproved minutes has never even been acknowledged by Secretary Bernstein.

Perhaps the board discussed my suggestion, but how would I know even that?  My suggestion was easy to implement and cost-free.  Before the Rogers Board is faulted for lack of “transparency” – well you are living in a glass house and throwing stones all over the place.

Second, the Rogers Board was informed of post-transition-year building expenses of $682,545.70 through 2028.  The Rogers Board was also informed of the building equity (which Treasurer Snoblin said was significantly more than $300,000) for a combined benefit of more than a million dollars.

This is not a “hypothesis,” as you call it.  It is the facts available to the Rogers Board at the time they made their decisions.  You continue:  …presumption that the building mortgage would immediately drop off as a district expense, implying an immediate sale of the building.”  The Rogers Board did indeed make that possible.

The only meeting of the RFPD that I have ever attended was the April 8th meeting of the Rogers Board.  At that meeting, both you and I addressed the board.  You said they should not act on the building and I said they should.  An appraised value of $630 thousand was announced.  Haig Klujian bid $760 thousand.  I left before the meeting ended and whispered to Haig Klujian, “I hope you get it.”

He replied to me, “I do too.”

Haig Klujian later increased his bid to $980 thousand.  In November 18, 2019 the Pioneer Press (again Dan Dorfman) reported, “After the meeting, Klujian said he wanted to use the property for his work, and he does have the cash on hand to process the transaction. However, he expressed caution about the animosity that still exists with some Knollwood residents over the prior board’s decision to outsource the community’s fire department services to the point that a citizen’s committee is scheduled to start meeting next month to examine the decision.”

Even after he knew his first bid was above the appraisal, and even a half-year after he further raised his bid to nearly a million dollars, (and a half-year after the Rogers Board was no longer seated) of which he said, “he does have the cash on hand to process the transaction” the Malinowski Board failed to close the deal.  His only stated reservation was that the Malinowski Board’s “citizen’s committee is scheduled to start meeting next month to examine the decision.”

The Rogers Board can hardly be faulted for that.  The post-transition-year building expenses of $682,545.70 through 2028 (“Karl Snoblin, treasurer for the fire protection district, said the district pays $90,000 each year on mortgage payments for the former fire station and another estimated $10,000 a year in utilities and maintenance on the building.”) and the building equity (which Treasurer Snoblin said was significantly more than $300,000) is more than a million dollars that the Malinowski Board must extract from district taxpayers which the Rogers Board had rendered unnecessary.

Third, a million bucks is a lot of money even if realized only over a period of years.  In your reasoning, you take the annual amount and divide by an assumed 756 households to arrive at some $169 per year, which you then modify and further divide by 12 to arrive at some $15 per month.  You missed a bet:  You could then divide the $15 per month per household by 3 people per household and divide that by 30 days per month and get 16 cents per day per capita.  You could then ask the question, “Isn’t saving a life worth 16 cents?”

I certainly agree with you that “This entire topic cannot be diluted to a simple arithmetic problem.”  Let’s leave such nonsense behind.  A million bucks is a lot of money “full rest,” as Chief Carani (at 32:54) says, regardless of how finely you slice it.  Stewardship if a fundamental duty of the RFPD Board and the CRC cannot honestly fault the Rogers Board for not making justifiable and earnest effort.  If any review is ever made of the Malinowski Board’s subsequent handling of the building sale, I hold less hope for such a finding.

Fourth, grasping at straws, you write, “The building that has become a subject of contention, was available as an emergency shelter for individuals seeking refuge from violent storms or that were stranded by their incapacitated vehicle due to a flooded Route 41/176 underpass.”  That is not your mission any more than converting it to a homeless shelter would be.  It might be relevant to the Shields Township mission, but not the fire district.

We voted at the Shields Township building before it was changed to the firehouse.  The fire board could meet at the Shields boardroom, which is better suited than the firehouse classroom for that purpose.  When I was President of the Lake Bluff School Caucus, the Shields Township boardroom was offered to us for no charge.

The Knollwood firehouse was poorly conceived as a firehouse.  It is not the role of the fire board to rationalize it for another, lesser purpose.  And now we learn that IDOT has determined that the property is more useful as a literal hole in the ground.  We need a detention pond, not a stranded-motorist shelter.

Fifth, whether it is $100 thousand for the District per year (per Karl Snoblin) or $169 per family per year (per Marcin Malinowski) or 16 cents per day per capita (per Don Russ) the fact remains that we are not paying that for improved service, nor are we paying it for any service at all.  We are paying it for nothing.  We have had an ambulance contract for years which accounts for 98 percent of our calls-for-service.  When the Rogers Board expanded that contract from 98 percent to 100 percent, we no longer needed to incur building expense.  It is just like continuing to pay for Comcast TV service every month after you quit watching cable TV.

Lastly, I have two step-sons and both were soldiers – one still is.  When a soldier fights, he fights to win.  He is not thinking about conserving bullets to save the taxpayers’ money.  First responders, same thing.  When the ambulance is parked in a driveway and the husband is turning blue and the wife is hysterical, the paramedics should be doing everything they can to win the fight.

But there are many limitations on the RFPD fight in that driveway.  Instead of responding with one ambulance, wouldn’t two be better?  Wouldn’t it be better to surround the patient with six paramedics?  Why not six certified M.D.s?

The soldier clearing the room or the paramedic kneeling in the driveway is trained, motivated and determined to do everything he can to win the fight.  He makes no trade-offs.  And that is what differentiates the front-line warriors from the strategic decision-makers in the boardrooms.  Should the defense contractor have made the rifle receiver out of titanium instead of aluminum?  It would make the rifle $25 more expensive (times a million soldiers is 25 million dollars) but it would make the rifle half-ounce lighter.

Ask the soldier and he will tell you that he cares a lot about the half-ounce that he carries but he doesn’t care at all about the $25 that someone else pays.  That’s the front-line perspective.  And that’s the reason we don’t have a referendum of soldiers when we develop specifications for army rifles.

I know that you (and Members Knesley & Johnson and (James) Bernstein) were on the front line, but respectfully, I suggest that you need to change your strategic perspective to suit your new boardroom role.  For example, a goal is not 10-second response time because that would require the district to buy 300 ambulances and hire 3000 paramedics.

Nor is the goal to amass cash to build a new firehouse at the first opportunity.  Treasurer Snoblin has been very consistent about that – I think he sees the board’s duty to the taxpayers clearly.  If 10, or 20, or 30 years from now the district wishes to build a multi-million dollar firehouse, it can raise the money at that time.  (School District 65 sold bonds 11 years ago to build the $26 million elementary school on Green Bay.)  For now, our fire district is only entitled to the minimal amount of taxpayers’ money that is necessary for its mission, and its mission is fully served by the IGA.

You write, “We can agree to disagree, however ‘acceptable’ is not a term that should be used in regards to Emergency Medical Services. Acceptable is a term that you can use when comparing cable or home entertainment providers, but not in Emergency Medical Services.”  The term I have been using is “adequate” not ”acceptable” but I think I know what you are saying.  Anyone can see that you take you job seriously and I believe that you want to do it well, but I do not “agree to disagree;” I think you are wrong on this and that you should change your mind.

Consider:  What does “more than adequate” mean to you?  Is that what you say when you mean “extra good?”  Because that is not what it means.  “More than adequate” means inefficient or extravagant.  If I have one subscription to HBO, that is adequate.  If I have two subscriptions to HBO, that is “more than adequate.”  If I have two subscriptions to HBO, that is inefficient and extravagant.

We have hard data that establishes that the response time for an out-of-district professional ambulance lags the in-district volunteer ambulance by less than a half-minute and we have reason to believe that fact was know to the Rogers Board.

In my January 20th email to you I asked:  How many families should face foreclosure so that a non-transporting paramedic can beat the ambulance by a minute or two?  Tough question.  But it is a political question.  And it has been reasonably answered by a legitimate, duly-empowered board.  We have a 20-year contract.  We are well past the point of cost-per-call analysis.”

And we now know that it is not “a minute or two,” it is less than a half-minute.

A majority vote in a referendum is not the result of careful analysis; that is the role of the board.  Ask the community if they want better ambulance service and they will always say “yes.”  Even if you remind them that it will cost 16 cents and they will still say “yes.”  That is why it is up to the fire board to make the holistic balancing decisions.  And perhaps that is why an appointed board is preferable to an elected board.  Certainly, it is better than a board elected in anger who sees its mandate as keeping the anger alive.

 

Most sincerely,

your loyal customer and future patient,

Don Russ

 

 

 

 

 

Special Meeting 1/25/2018

 

 

IGA Contract 9/11/2018

 

 

Financial History of the District

 

 

First Meeting 12/16/2019

 

 

Second Meeting 1/20/2020

 

 

Third Meeting 2/17/2020

 

 

Third Meeting 3/2/2020

 

 

Fourth Meeting