| A lot of positive things have happened in the last week in the village. Last weekend, we hosted a concert at Crescent Park that had better attendance than our pre-COVID concerts in that area. In spite of a very rainy morning and early afternoon, we successfully held our concert at Centennial Park West. The extreme amounts of rain made the park unusable. For that reason. we adapted, just like we have done all of 2020. In this case, we moved the concert to the parking lot and had a great turnout and great concert. Also, on Thursday we held a ribbon cutting for the newly renovated John Humphrey Complex. Play will resume on the fields next spring. I encourage you to take a drive by and see for yourself. While we have another fall worth of seeding to go, the fields are fantastic. As you recall, these renovations were halted in 2018 and were not able to resume until our new trustees came into office. I want to thank Trustees Healy, Katsenes and Milani for their support and resolve while seeing this through. At the board meeting, and in a subsequent video, I talked about our COVID data here in Orland Park. The numbers continue to trend positively. They have done so at a time when Orland Park is the most open community in Chicagoland and likely in Illinois. We have safely hosted concerts, the Taste of Orland, youth sports tournaments, Market on the Park, etc. It is easy to cancel everything, it is hard figure out how to do things safely. It may be hard, but it is good for our citizens and the village. I commend the staff for their hard work. I am proud to be mayor of such a resilient village. Our residents, businesses and staff are the best! Also, at the board meeting we approved an extension to our asphalt maintenance contract. It was unanimously approved (6-0, with Trustee Calandriello abstaining). I found this interesting after Trustee Dodge ran ads blasting the village board for sealing bike paths, which he originally voted to support. So, in the end he voted for the maintenance program twice and then tried to undermine the village for doing what he voted for. (I guess this is just like voting for the Taste and then running Facebook ads telling people not to go.) We also approved the winter and spring recreation program unanimously. That approval included concerts for next year. Yes, you read that right, it was unanimous. That is a first for concerts at Centennial Park West. It sure makes me wonder why they have been fought against for three years. We also unanimously approved a contract with our police officers’ union that was fair for our officers and our residents. It was a little slowed due to COVID (expired at end of 2019), but we got it done. Our entire police department is outstanding and I am glad to put the challenges of contract negotiations behind us. While we are talking about police, our village manager appointed Joseph Mitchell as our new Police Chief. This was unanimously approved by the entire village board. In our form of government, the village manager, not the mayor, makes this appointment and the board approves it. It was a great decision. Joe did a great job as Deputy Chief, Interim Assistant Village Manager and Interim Police Chief. He is dedicated to Orland Park and was former Chief McCarthy’s recommendation for the position. Joe has my utmost confidence – he will be a great chief. We also approved a number of development agreements which were fairly routine. It is great news that development remains strong in Orland Park. As you may also be aware, we approved an incentive for Ziegler BMW to expand its building and parking. Incentives for our auto dealer expansions is standard for the last decade or so. These are performance-based incentives where a baseline of sales is established (current sales over the last 5 years) and sales tax above that (due to expansion) is shared 50/50. It is win-win. We will see a property that is hard to develop go onto the property tax roll (with no incentive) and share the sales tax upside for 10 years. Trustee Dodge made the motion to approve the incentive and cast the first yes vote. The vote passed unanimously and as usual I cast the final vote for the 7-0 vote. Various trustees pointed out that this is “win-win”, approximately 75% of BMWs customers are from outside Orland Park (bringing shoppers to town), they are developing a difficult site and have committed more investment into Orland Park. At the end of the meeting, Trustee Calandriello requested to speak after I made my closing comments. He has tried to cause a kerfuffle at the end of board meetings on several occasions for some political purpose. It would be nice if he understood the rules – closing comments are not debate and the mayor speaks last. Just like his past attempts, he was denied by both myself and the board. I grew up in Orland Park, moved back to Orland Park after my time in the Air Force, and raised my family here. All my children are Carl Sandburg graduates and I had the honor of coaching many great kids in both basketball and baseball. The Orland Park I know is a wonderful place and it is a shame that so many people are intent on tearing it apart for their personal or political gain. I am sure, like me, you get tired of the constant attacks (robocalls, attack blogs, fake news posts, etc.) that try to damage the village’s reputation. I want to remind you what I frequently remind myself –people tear things down when they have no ideas on how to build things up. In spite of COVID, the last 18 months have seen an incredible amount of progress:Our local road program is 4 years ahead of where we were planned to be prior to the new trustees joining me to expand the program in May of 2019.Instead of one park every other year, we performed major renovations on 7 small parks this year and we renovated the John Humphrey Complex.Von Maur opened in 2019.The Toys R’ Us building has been demolished as part of the site’s redevelopment.Orland Park conducted several concerts at Centennial Park West. Also, please do not forget that term limits is on the ballot in November. It was important to me to get this on our agenda and it passed 4-3 (Trustees Dodge, Fenton and Carroll voting against). It will limit trustees, the clerk and the mayor to 3 terms from the April 2021 election on (by law it cannot be retroactive). Please get out and vote, and if you want signs to VOTE YES ON TERM LIMITS, please send me your address and we will get them installed. Keith |
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