| This week’s meeting was very short. The first thing we did is proclaim October Domestic Violence Awareness Month and honor the Crisis Center. The Crisis Center does an outstanding job helping victims of domestic violence. The lockdowns of COVID have led to a massive increase in domestic violence, suicide and mental health related calls for our police department. If you need help, do not be ashamed of asking for help. If you know anyone that you think needs help, please call the Crisis Center or our police department and let them know. We also approved the purchase of police equipment and approved the assignment of an officer to the DEA task force in Chicago. Having one of our officers connected with the DEA task force will greatly assist our department with stopping and solving drug related crimes. The Winter Recreation Guide will only be online this winter. This was approved because of the many on-going changes that have been occurring due to the pandemic. Please check the village website to find out about the many programs we offer. In executive session we did address one item that has since been made public. We unanimously decided to drop the lawsuit against Governor Pritzker. People have been reading and commenting frequently on this lawsuit. Now that it has been dropped, I can fully explain. We filed the lawsuit in the middle of June when, as you may recall, many businesses (restaurants, movie theaters, entertainment venues, and fitness centers) were not allowed to be open. We did so in an effort to force the governor to open them. The judge indicated she would rule on the temporary restraining order on July 2nd. She did not rule until the first week of August. By August, our lawsuit had largely been rendered moot, but most of our costs had already been incurred. Our lawsuit and others had already pressured the governor to move the state to Phase 4 and then on July 2nd, a downstate judge rendered the governor’s executive orders, that were made after the first 30 days, invalid. When that happened, the village adopted our own opening plan on July 6th moving into Phase 2 of our plan. On July 20th we met all of the metrics to be fully open and we have remained so (allowing our businesses to do what they think is right for their customers and themselves). We elected to continue the lawsuit further (at nearly zero additional cost) because one of our staff members was told (at a regional health meeting) that the State of Illinois and Cook County were planning to come into Orland Park to go after our businesses, but were waiting for our lawsuit to be resolved. Based on that information, the village board voted 6 to 1 to continue the suit as long as possible to provide additional protection for our businesses and residents. While the lawsuit did cost approximately $65,000, our businesses were opened much sooner as a result. This helped save some of our businesses from closing permanently and led to more economic activity and sales tax dollars that far outstrip the cost of the lawsuit. In my opinion, even in hindsight, it was the right decision because we ultimately were able to open much sooner and it protected our local small businesses. Also, in the last week, we have all observed the start of people campaigning for the election in April of 2021. I have received a lot of emails and calls about the polls, the Facebook posts, and blog posts. These are not new and started with the fictional attack robocalls and mailers from elected officials during the 2019 election. My favorite of the last week claimed that Orland Park had the largest spike in cases in the last month, based on Oct 5th data of 1398 cases and 320 cases over the “last month.” That is over 35 days, not over one month. The average for those 35 days is 9.1 cases per day from September 1 to October 5th. From August 1st to August 31st there were 297 cases, or 9.6 cases per day. I don’t about you, but in 2nd or 3rd grade we learned that 9.1 is less than 9.6. The truth is, we have held concerts, sports tournaments and other events and cases are down slightly per day. That tells me that the right decisions have been made, people are returning to more normal lives and we have done things safely. As I continue to say, we can both open and keep people safe. Orland Park is the example of this. I am hopeful that schools will continue to open and our children will be allowed to play school sports. Here is what I know. My entire platform from 2017 remains online (https://www.keithpekau.com/on-the-issues/) and I have either done or started almost everything that I said I would from almost 4 years ago, including lowering my pay for the next term, not taking a pension and putting term limits on the ballot (Vote Yes for Term Limits this November!). I challenge any of the career politicians attacking me to match that record. They can’t – so they make things up. I stand by what has been accomplished since I took office and look forward to being your Mayor for the next 4 years. |
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