This past weekend the village hosted our first ticketed concert at Centennial Park West featuring Jefferson Starship and Loverboy. It was a smashing success! Almost 2,000 people attended and everyone had a great time. Since the event I have heard nothing but great reviews. We learned a lot from this first effort and are already planning more ticketed concerts for next year. Getting started 9 to 10 months earlier will make future concerts even more successful!
At our last board meeting we made even more strides towards increasing the transparency of our local government. For the first time ever, we used new technology to broadcast the meeting on the village’s YouTube page. The feedback on this was great. Outstanding audio and video. We’ve come a long way in just 2 years, and now all Board of Trustee Meetings, Committee Meetings and Budget Meetings will be broadcast publicly going forward.
At the last board meeting I honored Martin Implement as our business of the month. They are in their 4th location in Orland Park and have been part of the village my entire life. I am proud to support our local businesses, as their success means more good-paying jobs for our residents and vitality for our community.
We approved a red-light camera at 159th Street and 94th Avenue. I have received several questions and concerns about this. This camera is intended to improve the safety of the intersection, as this intersection has had the most vehicle accidents in the village for the last 5 years. To ensure cameras are for safety rather than revenue, the village’s policy for these cameras is not to ticket rolling right turns on red (unless there is a pedestrian in the cross walk or there was no attempt to stop at all). Our efforts have been successful, as our other 2 cameras on Harlem have significantly reduced accidents at each of those intersections.
We also approved Fernway subdivision road and ditch improvements for this year, once again unanimously awarding the business to the lowest qualified bidder through a sealed bid process. Unfortunately, before voting in favor, Trustee Dodge insinuated that the village staff, trustees, and/or the bid-winning contractor did something wrong during the bidding, for what I can only assume were political reasons. But we should all be proud of the village’s fair and transparent bidding process because it saves the taxpayers money and ensures quality results for our village. That is why the overwhelming majority of our recent bids have received unanimous approval, including Trustee Dodge’s own vote.
Earlier this week we had one of a series of budget meetings. This meeting discussed revenue projections for 2020. Based on our current projections, and because of the expense cuts of the last several years, we are in a fiscally healthy position and I see no need to increase our property taxes.
Unfortunately, the state’s inability to solve the pension crisis continues to be problematic for the village. This year our required contribution to the police pension went up almost $1 million and is increasing from 30% of wages to nearly 35% of wages for our police force. This is clearly unsustainable and these funds come directly from our property taxes. That is $1 million we won’t have for capital needs or other important priorities. These increases are crowding out the rest of our budget. Due to increased efficiencies and reduction in personnel through retirements we are able to absorb the pension expenses at the present time, but I worry this won’t always be the case.
The State of Illinois has been derelict in their duties and fiscally negligent. The pension issues have been known for 50 years and yet they are still largely ignored. While the Tier II system that was implemented in 2011 has helped significantly, there are other issues that must be tackled to make the system solvent. Until they do so, it will fall on municipalities to shoulder the burden of their malfeasance and negligence.
Thankfully, for the residents of Orland Park, our proactive efforts to reduce expenses over the last 2 years have sheltered them from these increased costs.
Statement from Keith Pekau, Mayor of Orland Park:
“First let me commend the Orland Park Police Department for their outstanding work in apprehending three armed and dangerous felons who came to our town from Arizona last weekend to deal Heroin and Methamphetamines. These armed criminals posed an extreme danger to our community and our officers acted with bravery and professionalism to arrest them without incident.
That’s the good part. The bad part, which should give us all pause, is the broken Cook County Court System which almost let these three thugs, who were CONVICTED FELONS from another STATE, walk. The ridiculously low bail amounts $25,000 (2500 cash) for one, $15,000 (1500 cash) for another, and $3000 (300 cash) for the third are incomprehensible given they had large amounts of illegal drugs and three loaded illegal handguns in their truck. Were it not for the diligence of the Orland Park Police Department in quickly obtaining a search warrant for a safe found in the truck, where almost 3 kilos of heroin were found, these violent felons would have likely made bond and disappeared.
This cannot be allowed to continue. The Cook County Court system needs to protect our citizens by enforcing existing laws and ensuring that known, armed, violent felons do not end up back on our streets while facing charges. I am calling on both the Circuit Court of Cook County and the Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office to get their act together to ensure that law abiding citizens are protected.”
The Press Release from the Village of Orland Park Police Department with the specifics of this incident can be found here.
Link to Mayor Pekau’s statement on the Village website can be found here.
Some reminders of important upcoming events and dates:
- The deadline to file property tax appeals with Orland Township is September 9th.
- The 52nd Street Billy Joel cover band will play at Centennial Park West on Sunday September 1st starting at 4PM.
- Orland Park Brewfest September 21st
- The Great Pumpkin Party is on September 28th.
Also, I hope you can join me on October 9th at Crystal Tree Country Club for dinner and drinks at my fundraiser
