First, I want to congratulate the new members of the village board that were sworn in at our last meeting. Welcome to new trustees Sean Kampas, Brian Riordan and Joni Radaszewski as well as the new village clerk, Patrick O’Sullivan. I look forward to working with all of them to keep the village moving forward.
We got off to a great start at their first meeting on May 3rd. We approved a new procedure that will allow development projects to pay for expedited reviews where we will use a third party to conduct these reviews. This gives developers another option when time is of the essence. We also approved Wright and Company to provide a Parks Master Plan for Centennial Park, Centennial Park West, Schussler Park and John Humphrey Complex Phase 3. This process will be on-going for the next several months and will include opportunities for community input as well.
The trustees and I also passed two resolutions that we sent to the governor and our legislators. The first is as follows:
The Village President and Board of Trustees of the Village of Orland Park resolve to encourage the Illinois House and Senate Redistricting Committees to postpone meetings until leaders can ensure that current and accurate data will be available and used for the purposes of redistricting; so that general guidelines and uniform rules are established to ensure members of the public have ample time to prepare to participate in the process; and to incorporate more transparency and accountability into the process; and to guarantee a redistricting free of partisan gerrymandering and ensuring the full enfranchisement of all Illinois residents.
Trustee Kampas had staff provide details on our four state representative, three state senate and two congressional districts. Seven of these districts reach out like tentacles to Chicago. While Chicago represents approximately half of Cook County’s population and about 30% of the metropolitan area and about 20% of the state population, it is a large portion of 8 of 18 congressional districts and over half of the state representative and senate districts. Our poorly managed state government is a direct result of this gerrymandering. The residents of Orland Park and the State of Illinois deserve better.
The second resolution we passed asked the state to restore the Local Government Distributive Fund to the 10% amount that was agreed to in 1969 and has been reduced since 2011. Last year alone, this resulted in the State of Illinois taking an additional $4.05 million from the Village of Orland Park, its residents and businesses. The resolution said the following:
The Village President and the Board of Trustees of the Village of Orland Park resolve to encourage the General Assembly and Governor J.B. Pritzker to protect and preserve existing levels of LGDF revenue and any other state-collected local government revenues that are shared with local municipalities to provide appropriate levels of service to their residents.
The Village President and the Board of Trustees of the Village of Orland Park further resolve to encourage the General Assembly and Governor J.B. Pritzker to completely restore the distribution of LGDF revenue to local governments to the original percentage share of 10% that was agreed to over 50 years ago.
The last thing we did was clean up a couple of ordinances. The first was to allow online ammunition sales to residents of Orland Park. We had an ordinance on the books that was approximately xx years old requiring anyone selling ammunition in Orland Park to have an Orland Park license. Obviously, this was written at a time when the e-commerce marketplace was in its infancy and needed to be changed to keep up with the current reality of on-line sales.
The second was an ordinance that brought our alcohol delivery ordinance in line with the state ordinance. This is another case of the state making “one size fits all” rules for all 1,400+ municipalities in the state. At a time when the legislature refused to weigh in on COVID, they passed more laws increasing the state’s involvement in something that can be handled locally. However, since it was passed, we needed to make sure our ordinance matched it.
Lastly, as a recap of the election, we have observed that the Chicago unions donated almost $300,000 to my opponent. In just our area, they put over a half a million dollars into local races. Why? What was in it for them? It is important for all of us to continue paying attention to the outside groups that are involving themselves in our villages, schools, fire districts, libraries, etc.
Additionally, at a national level, we all have observed the bias of social media and the press. You need to no further that the articles that pop up to see the agenda that is being pushed forward.
This occurs at the local level as well as we witnessed the press coverage of the local elections and more recently the village board. Some local bloggers, local reporters, and supposed community pages have an obvious bias and do not support their positions with facts. They block those with facts from engaging, and even worse, fabricate facts of leave out important context of quotes, etc. I encourage everyone to spend time with reporters that are professional and cover issues fairly. In my opinion, those that have covered the village honestly over the last four years are Jon DePaolis (Prairie and now Richard Free Press), Dermott Connolly (formerly the Regional), Jeff Vorva (Regional and Southtown), and Mike Nolan (Southtown). Please read their articles and support their work because fair and honest coverage of local issues is becoming a thing of the past.
I also want to remind everyone that the Centennial Park West Concert Series tickets are on sale now ($75 for all three concerts through May 23rd for Orland Park residents and for first responders, veterans and medical and healthcare workers).
Lastly, I look forward to seeing everyone and celebrating the recent victory at Elements by The Odyssey, 16235 South LaGrange Road, Orland Park on May 27th from 6 to 8 PM. Purchase tickets here.
