This one a carbon copy of ’17 race

Incumbent Pekau seeking to fend off ex-mayor McLaughlin

In a rematch of an election four years ago that ultimately hinged on a jump in the mayor’s salary, this year’s mayoral race in Orland Park touches on issues such as public safety in a community that touts its low crime rate, and the economic future of a village that is envied by neighbors for its massive tax-generating commercial base.

First-term Mayor Keith Pekau, 54, heading the People Over Politics ticket, cites numerous business openings over the last four years while the man he ousted in 2017, longtime Mayor Dan McLaughlin, 67, pushes the need to diversify the village’s economy to be less dependent on retail.

McLaughlin, who leads the One Orland slate, says that a concern he has heard repeatedly talking to residents is how safe customers feel shopping at Orland Square mall, which recently imposed a policy restricting access on weekends to unchaperoned teens.

Along with the mayor, salaries for village trustees and clerk will be cut for those who elected April 6, with the clerk’s job and three trustee seats up. Three incumbent trustees, including two who were first elected early in McLaughlin’s tenure, are not seeking reelection.

The mayor’s job now pays $150,000 a year and the mayor also receives $3,000 as liquor commissioner. For whoever is elected, the salary would drop to $40,000 with the pay for liquor commissioner remaining at $3,000. McLaughlin says he would not take the salary.

Months before the 2017 election, the Village Board approved changing the mayor’s job from part-time to full-time, with the added duties of being Orland Park’s lead person on economic development.

The salary hike and the corresponding jump in pension became campaign issues, with both sides together pouring $362,000 into the contest during the final months. Much of the spending came in the final two weeks, with $183,000 spent by political action committee Liberty Principles on an advertising juggernaut targeting McLaughlin, although he was not identified in the ads, over the pay hike and pension issues.

In March 2019, before Pekau gained a majority of votes on the Village Board, trustees changed the position to part-time with a corresponding cut in pay, taking effect with the upcoming election.

McLaughlin says the pay hike contributed to him losing his bid for a seventh term.

“I owned that mistake and I paid for it,” McLaughlin says.

First elected mayor in 1993, McLaughlin was a village trustee from 1983 until 1991.

This past November, Orland Park

voters overwhelmingly approved term limits for the mayor, clerk and trustees, with municipal officers constrained to three fouryear terms starting with those elected in April.

After they are sworn in, village trustees who now receive $13,629 annually will see that cut to $10,350. That new salary would also apply to the clerk, a position that now pays $27,257.

People Over Politics, which elected three trustees in 2019, giving Pekau a majority vote on the board, includes Sean Kampas, Joni Radaszewski and Brian Riordan for trustee and Constantine “Gus” Lekas for clerk. Lekas, 28 is an accountant.

The One Orland Party is made up of trustee candidates Amy Burrell, Chris Kasmer and Derek Rinaldi and Patrick O’Sullivan for village clerk. O’Sullivan, 50, is president of PRO Insurance Services and is a member and has been president of the High School District 230 Board.

McLaughlin says he hears “every day, usually more than once a day” about safety concerns at Orland Square.

One Orland trustee candidate Rinaldi says the “perception of the mall is it’s an unsafe place,” although the village and its police department cite statistics showing otherwise.

For the village overall, according to Federal Bureau of Investigations statistics, the number of index crimes in Orland Park, which includes violent crimes as well as offenses such as burglary and motor vehicle theft, are at their lowest since 1994.

According to police, 98% of crimes reported to the FBI involved offenses such as retail theft or theft from vehicles.

The department has, for a number of years, had uniformed officers at the mall to supplement mall security.

McLaughlin and his slate suggest Orland Square could be improved by making it an open-air shopping center.

One Orland’s Kasmer says “indoor malls are dying for various reasons.” While he acknowledges the mall is an important economic engine for the village, he says should it fail it would not be catastrophic to the village economy.

Kampas, with People Over Politics, says retail spaces, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic that has kept so many people housebound, will remain social gathering spaces and “people still want to see tangible products” at bricksand-mortar stores.

Already possessing an enormous retail base,

Orland Park could see more added under development plans for the remaining village-owned land in the Main Street Triangle.

Orland Park-based Edwards Realty and the village have agreed to set a one-year deadline to negotiate a development agreement covering the property northwest of LaGrange Road and 143rd Street.

The triangle includes the Ninety7Fifty on the Park apartments, University of Chicago Medicine Center for Advanced Care and a multilevel parking garage between the apartments and U. of C.

The triangle “has been a disaster,” Pekau says. Leading up to the 2017 election, he was critical of the village’s decision to try to develop the property and take on significant debt to do so.

“I was left with a failed project,” he says.

McLaughlin says the triangle is a key to diversifying the village’s economy.

“In my four years we will be finished with the downtown,” McLaughlin says.

Pekau was in the Air Force for more than nine years after receiving his degree in aerospace engineering from Arizona State University, and while in the Air Force earned a MBA from Duke University.

McLaughlin was most recently executive director of Chicagoland Associated General Contractors, formed by the merger of the Builders Association and Fox Valley Associated General Contractors.

He had been executive director of the Builders Association, a trade group for the commercial construction industry in the Chicago area, before the merger. He was executive director of the Plumbing Contractors Association of Chicago from 1991 until 2013, and executive director of the Plumbing Council of Chicagoland from 2008 to 2013.

McLaughlin’s connection with organized labor have reaped, in recent weeks, contributions from building trades organizations of about $50,000, according to campaign finance disclosure records.

An in-kind contribution, totaling more than $29,000 for research and polling work, came from the Chicago Federation of Labor & Industrial Union Council’s political action committee.

McLaughlin’s own election committee has pumped at least $55,000 into One Orland’s coffers, and the ticket’s candidates have also contributed more than $20,000 to the slate’s election, according to campaign finance disclosure reports.

People Over Politics and Pekau’s election committee have, in recent weeks, see contributions of more than $28,000.

Campaign spending by committees won’t be disclosed until after first quarter reports are filed with the state later in April.

One Orland Park

Amy Ruth Burrell, 27, has lived in the village for three years and is a researcher at Northwestern University.

Chris Kasmer, 41, has lived in Orland Park since early 2012 and is a business representative with Carpenters union Local 1027. He is in his fourth year as president of Orland Elementary District 135’s Parents for Education organization.

Derek Rinaldi, 38, owns Black Paw Total Home Services, a home inspection business, and has a degree in architecture from University of Illinois at Chicago

People Over Politics

Sean Kampas, 45, has worked as a technology consultant for more than 20 years and chairs the village’s technology commission.

Joni Radaszewski, 48, has lived in the village four years and works as marketing and business development manager at Chicago law firm Novack and Macey LLP.

Brian Riordan, 49, has lived in Orland Park about 10 years and is a shareholder at law firm Clausen Miller and has been with the firm since 1996.