I hope that everyone had a great Memorial Day and weekend. As announced on April 23rd, the village hosted our Memorial Day event. Of course, we made modifications, but all the families of those veterans added to the wall were in attendance. Thank you to everyone for making the event possible.
This last weekend had some good news – reopening, and some bad news – inaction by the legislature.
While he may not publicly acknowledge it, the governor has started to listen to people in the trenches. The efforts of mayors, other elected officials and citizens are making a difference. This is particularly evidenced by the changes to the Restore Illinois plan as we move to Phase 3 on May 29th. This guidance was much more accommodating for outdoor recreation, youth sports, retail, etc. Even more telling was the fact that the IDPH clearly spells out that they are providing guidelines, when previously everything put out was a mandate. I want to thank the governor for listening.
As you recall as recently as 2 weeks ago, the governor was insisting that we were not going to peak until mid-June. This would have delayed opening to the end of June. As you are also aware, some Illinois citizens filed lawsuits, other counties announced their opening, and several municipalities filed resolutions with various requests. The Village of Orland Park passed a resolution on May 18th requesting that the legislature take action on COVID-19 and open by the end of the month. We also passed an ordinance allowing restaurants to temporarily use their outdoor spaces for seating to augment the indoor seating restrictions that they will face upon opening.
By mid-week, the governor changed his position and announced that the state would be opening on May 29th. He also announced, on May 20th, that restaurants could open their outdoor seating and encouraged mayors to allow it. Our efforts worked!
Another example is the opening of Orland Square Mall. As you are aware, several weeks ago, I was asked about this in several TV, radio and newspaper interviews. I responded that the governor’s orders end on May 29th, we currently meet all of his required metrics, and the Restore Illinois plan allowed for all retail to open. Therefore, I thought it was appropriate that Simon Properties (the mall owner) was preparing for opening because they needed to have a plan. The governor was also asked about this. He stated that malls will not open until Phase 5. Due to the efforts of businesses, residents and elected officials, his position changed. The guidance from Restore Illinois now specifically states that malls are allowed to open in Phase 3.
This weekend, IDPH also decided to stop reporting the COVID information on long-term care facilities due to the widespread reporting of half of the state’s deaths coming from long-term care facilities. There were at least two articles calling the state out for this lack of transparency and IDPH reversed its decision. Another example of public pressure having a positive impact on transparency and state actions. Though the IDPH site now appears to list the long-term care facilities by county randomly instead of in alphabetical order. This makes it very difficult to find our facilities and to fully understand the number of deaths at Orland Park’s long-term care facilities, which as of last week, according to IDPH, was 100% of our total COVID-19 deaths.
By now you are also well aware of the rulemaking made by Governor Pritzker and the IDPH on May 15th, where they made defying any of their guidelines punishable by one year in jail and/or a hefty fine. The legislative body that reviews these administrative rules is known as the Joint Committee of Administrative Rules (JCAR). This body was set to review this on May 20th, but the governor wisely withdrew this rule before JCAR acted. I am sure this happened because JCAR did not have enough votes to uphold it. We are also told by the committee chair that the legislative body would be taking action on these rules directly. I was informed that a straw poll was taken on making this rule a law. Clearly, the straw poll indicated that the measure would fail, because it was never acted upon by the General Assembly.
The pressure put on publicly by businesses, citizens, elected officials and the press were able to get this done and stop the heavy hand and abuse through the administrative actions of government. Another win for the people.
Though what people don’t know is that after all this happened, on May 20th, our police department received a threat letter from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. It stated, “ISP’s (Illinois State Police) protocol includes a misdemeanor criminal enforcement option against businesses and business owners that persist in violating the EO (Executive Order) and requires thorough documentation of violations to support closure efforts in extreme cases of noncompliance… Businesses should also be informed that state licensing agencies, eg. Illinois Liquor Commission, Illinois Gaming Board, Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, and Illinois Department of Public Health, may become involved should they reopen prior to authorization from the Governor.”
In addition to this threat to businesses, the village and I were threatened as follows, “In addition to business consequences, please be aware there could be consequences from failure of the local jurisdictions, including the EMAs/ESDAs to enforce the EO… However, the immunity does not apply in cases of gross negligence or willful misconduct. Depending on the circumstances, immunity may not apply to a Principal Executive Officer or an agent, employee or representative of a political subdivision should it be determined that failure to enforce the EO resulted in gross negligence or willful misconduct. The federal government provides funding to the State of Illinois for disaster through the Public Assistance Program (PA). The State is the grantee for the PA grand and the local jurisdictions are the sub-recipients under the State’s grant… Failure to execute or enforce the EO could be considered noncompliance with the Agreement condition to comply with all applicable State laws, regulations and policies thus placing the applicant’s funding in jeopardy.”
The good news is that our attorneys have informed us that, in their opinion, this threat is not enforceable by law.
While the legislature did the right thing by stopping this rulemaking from the IDPH, the news from the rest of their time in Springfield was not as good. A reminder that while the General Assembly was in session since March 5th, they never convened. They were AWOL until May 20th.
Last week, with their four days, they failed to address any COVID-related issues aside from the above action and for allowing mixed drinks to go, to be sold by restaurants. What they did pass included the following:A budget with record spending, $2.5 billion more than 2020 budget, a 6.2 percent increase to $42.9B.The budget has a $6 billion deficit, which doesn’t include actuarial pension costs which would cost approximately another $4 billion.The budget included no cuts and continues to pay state workers who are not working while millions of Illinoisans are unemployed and our village just furloughed 141 part time positions and eliminated 9 more full time positions on top of the 15 eliminated in the last 2 weeks.No reforms of any kind.An approximate $1,800 a year pay raise for themselves.Approved the Chicago casino (more important than COVID-19 apparently)
Our only representative to vote against this fiscally irresponsible bill was Representative McDermed. Those that voted for this were Representatives Hurley, Rita and Slaughter and Senators Cunningham, Jones and Hastings.
Additionally, on a call on May 17th, Senator Harmon indicated that the state had received over $3 billion from the federal government, and of that, approximately $800 million was dedicated to municipalities other than Chicago (because they already received money directly). We have advocated for this to be distributed on a per capita basis (which would result in approximately $5M for the village). In this budget, the state reduced the amount to $250M and specifically excluded units of local government located within the five Illinois counties (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, and Will) whose county governments received direct allotments from the federal government. In other words, we are left without access to federal funds unless the makes a disbursement to us. So much for the threat of withholding federal funds – THE LEGISLATURE ALREADY ENSURED IT.
I was also made aware of a video published by one of our state senators calling out local mayors for their “political and partisan gamesmanship” as he did not like our resolutions and letters.
I would encourage anyone to review the letters sent to the governor and find anything that was disrespectful or partisan. What they represent are requests and differences of opinion. These are our rights. Additionally, when the legislature, including this state senator, aren’t doing their jobs, how else do we communicate with the state?
Our first resolution asked the General Assembly to return to session, the governor to share the data he is using in his deliberative process in the interest of transparency, and for the governor and legislature to work together to provide guidance for reopening.
Our second resolution asked for the General Assembly to clarify the governor’s authority, provide for reopening with reasonable guidelines by June 1, 2020, provide for the drawing of regional boundaries using Emergency Response Regions, and affording businesses and citizens adequate due process. In addition, the resolution authorized staff to research our legal options with regard to the shutdown and oversight of long-term care facilities.
I find nothing partisan or unreasonable in any of these requests. As one democratic legislator said, “How could anyone vote against this?”
The problem in Illinois politics is having a difference of opinion results in threats or retaliation. The common response to anyone that disagrees is “your actions will result in people dying,” or “you refuse to follow the data or the science.” The irony here is that we have been asking for transparency on the data and science. To date, it has not provided. In fact, the only numbers that have been shared from the state’s models were shown to be unrealistic.
I would like to remind this state senator that he works for the constituents in his district, not the governor. As for me, I am fighting for you, the residents of Orland Park.
Like every other mayor, I want to keep all our residents safe, regardless of their political affiliation. I want to see the state protect our most vulnerable citizens in our long-term care facilities (which contain 100% of our village’s deaths). I want our children to be able to enjoy their youth and play baseball, softball, soccer, etc. I want families to enjoy their summer vacations. I am also fighting for our local small businesses like Bill’s Barber Shop, Joy of Thai, Papa Joe’s, Café Gaston, Miroballi Shoes, Orland Park Shoe Repair, Kismet, etc.
At the end of the day, the only way to have a viable health care system is with a robust economy. In fact, Medicare is funded by payroll taxes from people who are employed. Medicare is for those in our community who are 65 and over, the very people who are most at risk for COVID 19. It’s not an option—we must have a thriving economy to keep people safe.
I know that none of our children are Democrats or Republicans. I also know that our adult residents and small business owners are both. That is irrelevant. I am fighting for all of them. Instead of abdicating his responsibility from March 5th to May 20th, maybe our state senator should do the same.
I will continue working to keep our residents safe while opening up our economy, regardless of the threats to the village or to me personally. This can be done safely if we think through the problem, innovate, and keep sharing our innovations with others. |
