Mayoral race focus: Water and downtown
3 are running to fill open position
The possibility of retail sales of the village’s water, economic development and creating a downtown entertainment district are among some of the issues being discussed by candidates running for mayor in Park Forest.
First elected mayor in 1999, JohnOstenburg is not seeking re- election Tuesday, with current village trustees Mae Brandon and Jonathan Vanderbilt, along with former trustee JeRome Brown on the ballot. Running as write-in candidates are Renee Hawthorne and Sean Hightower.
Elected trustee in 2003, Brandon said Ostenburg has done a fine job as mayor, and “when he said he was
not going to run, I felt itwas an opportunity” to take a shot at the job.
Brandon, 73, who works as an occupational therapist and served as president of the village’s Kiwanis organization, said Park Forest has “been a financially conservative village,” relying almost exclusively on property tax revenue to fund operations.
“We’ve never had to borrow money to pay our bills, and that’s important,” she said.
She agrees that building up the village’s commercial base is important to bring in more revenue, but Brandon said Park Forest isn’t going to attract large retailers and should focus more on nurturing small start-ups instead.
She cites the recent opening in the village of Poppin Plates, a culinary incubator that will offer cooking classes and where residents could get certification in food handling. Also, the village’s downtown area is home to the SouthWorks MakerLab, which offers workshops in subjects such as electronics, 3-D printing and welding, and provides equipment for entrepreneurs to make prototypes of products that could be produced on a larger scale and offered for sale.
“They’reworking on getting more use out of it,” Brandon said of the facility.
Vanderbilt said theMakerLab could be put to use as part of his idea to offer for sale large jugs, whichwould fit in water dispensers, of villagewater.
“We are producing topqualitywater,” said Vanderbilt, elected two years ago and in the middle of his first term as trustee.
Park Forest relies on a system ofwells for itswater, which have garnered awards fromthe South SuburbanWaterWorks Association and the Illinois section of the AmericanWater Works Association for having the best-tastingwater in the south suburbs. Vanderbilt said MakerLab could produce the large-size 5gallon containers.
It’s an idea that Brandon and Brown dismiss as unrealistic, but Vanderbilt said that as Park Forest has lost population, water costs have goneupas the expense of maintaining the water treatment and distribution system is being spread over a smaller base of users. Selling bottled water to consumers outside of the village could be a potential revenue source, he said.
Vanderbilt, 34, said he studied history and political science and works as a union flooring installer. He said business development would be a key focus for him if elected, saying the village needs to do a better job of offering incentives to attract business.
Brown said the village has to “come up with our own signature” destination, and he proposes focusing on developing an entertainment district in the downtown area, with a venue offering live jazz and blues. He said that the current Theater 47 performing arts facility is a start to build on, and that there is interest in reopening the downtown movie theater.
“There would be a real museum about Park Forest too, about why the town was built, for veterans returning from World War II,” Brownsaid.
Brown, 52, served one term as trustee, losing reelection in 2017.
He ran for mayor against Ostenburg in 2011 and 2015 and works as a job developer for a nonprofit organization on Chicago’s South Side.
He said that high property taxes are a major issue, and that apart from boosting revenue from other sources, such as sales taxes, the village needs to “trim the fat” in the municipal payroll.
Whileschool districts are a big contributor to property tax bills, Brandon said “we (village officials) have to understand what’s in our control” as far as the tax bill.
Brandonsaid that “everything needs to be explored” as far as expanding the village’s commercial tax base and generating more revenue, but that “it’s not an overnight solution, there is no overnight solution.”