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Today we held a press conference to discuss an clandestine investigation conducted by the former VIllage Manager Joe LaMargo into allegations about me. Apparently this investigation was unauthorized because at the last board meeting Trustees Dodge, Fenton and Calandriello said they were unaware of the investigation. The statements from Village Manager Tom Dubelbeis and Mayor Keith Pekau are below.
VILLAGE MANAGER TOM DUBELBEIS’ STATEMENT
My name is Tom Dubelbeis and I’m here to make a statement about an investigation regarding an elected official. I was appointed Interim village on May 6th. As some of you may know, I am a previous village trustee when Dan McLaughlin was mayor and most recently had the part time role of Veterans Program Assistant. I was hired for that role by former mayor McLaughlin and continued in that position under Mayor Pekau until this appointment.
Former Village Manager Joseph La Margo initially authorized the Chicago law firm Jones Day to conduct an internal investigation into potential contract irregularities associated with village landscape bids in 2012 and 2013. One of the companies in question was Groundskeeper, formerly owned by Keith Pekau.
The investigation was later expanded to include potential conflicts of interest by Keith Pekau for introducing the new owner of Groundskeeper to Public Works staff, Pekau’s consulting contract with Horton Insurance and subsequent discussion about the Horton Insurance contract that was ultimately put out for bid and won by Horton Insurance.
The village completed the unfinished investigation including the recommended next steps outlined in the draft report.
There is no evidence of wrong doing by any contractor associated with the landscape bids from 2012 and 2013. There is no evidence of a conflict of interest by Keith Pekau in his introduction of the new owner of Groundskeeper to public works staff and his business relationship with Horton insurance.
The document to be released are:
- Engagement letter between Orland Park and Jones Day
- Jones Day preliminary draft report
- Orland Park investigation report
- Supporting documents
The documents will be released after Mayor Keith Pekau’s statement.
MAYOR KEITH PEKAU’S STATEMENT
First, I want to thank our interim Village Manager Tom Dubelbeis and Interim Assistant Village Manager Deputy Chief Mitchell for handling this matter professionally. It cannot be easy to have this land on your desk on the first day of your interim role and have to spend 3 weeks dealing with it.
As Tom summarized, the investigation found no wrong doing whatsoever. NOT! ONE! THING!
The first two complaints are alleged to have happened SEVEN years ago — there was nothing substantiated in the claim. Why were they investigated now? EVERY invoice that the company I owned sent to the Village from 2012 until I became Mayor was looked at. The third complaint was lodged in the middle February of 2019, was also in the middle of a campaign. This is a purely political attack.
The final complaint was made by Village Manager Joe LaMargo in 2019 for an incident that allegedly occurred almost one full year prior. What took so long? Why now? I think we know why. Joe LaMargo filed the complaint, a fabrication, used taxpayer funds to hire the attorney who investigated the complaint and was the SOLE witness interviewed. Even after stacking the deck in this way, and affording me no due process, the investigation yielded NO WRONG DOING.
What really happened is that I informed our insurance company that we would be going out for bid for all of their services because it had been over a DECADE before I arrived since they had been put out for bid. I did this in my first month in office and the CEO completely understood. After the insurance company worked to reduce the Village’s benefit costs significantly, Joe LaMargo recommended to me that we NOT go out for bid for a year on this. I told him that I understood where he was coming from, but that I would need to abstain and the board would need to approve not going out for bid.
As noted in the report, and as many of you remember I disclosed my conflict of interest with the insurance company and abstained from votes. In this report, Mr. LaMargo states that SEVERAL Trustees wanted to know the value of my consulting firm’s contract with Horton Insurance and he called the CEO to get that information. What right does anyone have to ask that information? Why would anyone want to know that? Of course, that information showed up in the middle of the campaign as well. Another political fishing expedition!
Coincidentally, the information about that contract and an email pulled off Orland Park’s server for this report were used by a Trustee, and given to the press, at the board meeting of March 18, 2019. How did that trustee get his hands on an email and information from a CONFIDENTIAL report? A purely political attack!
The same information from this bogus investigation was then used during the most recent election to attack me by the Political Action Committee called the SouthWest Economic Enhancement Team whose only officer is Township Supervisor Paul O’Grady and whose only donors are Paul O’Grady and Friends of Paul O’Grady. Coincidence?
I don’t believe the law gives the Village Manager the authority to access the emails of Elected Officials without FOIA. Additionally, he certainly doesn’t have the authority to release information from a Confidential investigation to anyone. In my opinion, these may be criminal acts — official misconduct and dissemination of information.
Moreover, anyone with reasonable judgement would have recognized in minutes that these allegations were unfounded but they were investigated because this was political. Instead $46,000 of taxpayer money was spent to investigate these claims. Village code states that the village manager is only authorized to spend $20,000 without board approval. State law limits his spending authorization to $25,000 without board approval. Three Trustees indicated, after our last board meeting, that they had no knowledge of this investigation and we certainly never voted on this. So, this appears to be another violation of the law!
This investigation was unethical, potentially illegal and according to the Trustees, solely approved by Joe LaMargo, an Unelected Village Employee who does not have such authority.
I am sure the people of Orland Park are asking what I am — HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN? Unfortunately, our statutory Village Manager form of government gives unchecked power to an UNELECTED EMPLOYEE when the Trustees lack the willingness to oversee the person they appointed. The Mayor has no legal power to intervene. This investigation is the type of action that can happen when a person with questionable judgement and nefarious political intentions are given this power.
Had Mr. LaMargo not resigned, we probably would never have known about this, since the investigation found nothing and the draft report was complete on March 25, 2019 and never given to the Trustees. In fact, Mr. LaMargo had a long transition with Mr. Dubelbeis and never once mentioned this investigation. Had Mr. Dublebeis not seen the recent invoice, it would have been swept under the rug.
What should really scare the people of Orland Park is that the previous Board of Trustees implemented a new Ethics Ordinance, the day before this past election, that would have given carte blanche to the Village Manager to take these types of actions and would have REQUIRED the VILLAGE MANAGER to appoint an Independent Counsel to investigate ALL complaints – Imagine that cost!
That ordinance required that all elected and appointed officials, their spouses AND children:
- Disclose all customers that were residents of Orland Park
- Disclose all customers who were employees of any of our over 1,000 vendors
- Disclose all real estate holdings within 1.5 miles of our strategic planning area (specifically aimed at a property I own 1.4 miles from that area).
These disclosures are absurd for many previously discussed reasons. Moreover, any disagreements between Board Members required Board Members to go to the Village Manager and Village Attorney to resolve them – giving the Village Manager even more power. Are you kidding me? With what we just witnessed!
If you doubt that this ordinance was intended to attack political opponents you need to look no further than the rush to pass this one day before the election in spite of the concerns I raised. Our self-employed Trustees Healy and Katsenes, and other citizens who would follow could have their business and livelihoods ruined.
For those of you who think that I am overstating this, I want to remind you that I DISCLOSED ONE CLIENT due to a conflict of interest. My client and I have been attacked repeatedly by Trustees, The Orland Integrity Party and Paul O’Grady’s PAC after this disclosure. We’ve already seen firsthand how this information will be used.
Ironically, nobody would know about this client if I didn’t disclose my relationship to begin with. This ordinance would have required disclosures of items that weren’t a conflict of interest to be used for political attacks, to provide work for attorneys and to financially burden political opponents.
The people of Orland Park should be appalled. Today we see what an unchecked form of government can do – persecute those that it opposes. We have an obvious abuse of power that WASTED $46,000 of taxpayer money on a politically motivated fishing expedition against a duly elected Mayor.
As citizens, taxpayers, and most importantly, good-hearted people who love our village we cannot let this type of abuse stand. We must refuse to accept the actions of a few rogue individuals that give our Village a bad name.
These last two election cycles have made it clear. The people of Orland park will not stand for the dirty, Chicago style politics that has overrun our state. This is the END of those games in Orland Park. We have a new guard in town and WE WILL NOT tolerate abuse of power, leveraging public funds for political attacks, and scaring off the good citizens of our great Village from serving for the RIGHT reasons.
Actions such as this are NOT ACCEPTABLE. On behalf of the people of Orland Park, I call on all of our Trustees to join me in ensuring that one UNELECTED individual is never given this level of power and influence over village operations ever again!
I also call on Joe LaMargo to come clean — tell us who put him up to this action, who approved this action and tell us all of the people to whom he gave information from this investigation. The PEOPLE OF ORLAND PARK DESERVE THIS AND THEY DEMAND IT!
Additionally, I call on the Ad-Hoc Ethics committee to develop an ethics ordinance that is the model for every community in the state. It should include:
- Strong ethics requirements for elected officials, appointed officials and employees
- Due Process for the accused
- Specific procedures for complaints against the Village President, against Trustees and against the Village Manager
- Penalties for those who violate our ethics requirements, and
- Penalties for those who levy blatantly false allegations
I will not accept this type of behavior and I personally pledge to root this corrupt behavior out of the Village of Orland Park!
Thank you and now I will open it up for questions. |
