The Rundown | 3/15
Westchester forum takeaways, IL AG says D209 failed to comply with FOIA law, Maywood's low tax collection rates, Hillside mayor talks development, more ....
Top of mind
Candidates for Westchester village president pose for a photo at Saturday’s candidates forum. They include (left to right): Lowell Seida, David Galandak, Edward Lezza Jr., Tracy Jennings, Daniel Maldonado, Kevin McDermott and Greg Hribal.
Some takeaways from Saturday’s Westchester candidates forum
Saturday’s candidates forum at Westchester Community Church (which you can watch here) was revealing in several ways. Voters learned a few things.
Westchester’s village hall likely won’t be on Enterprise Drive. Roughly two years after the village board voted to borrow roughly $4.6 million in a plan to purchase two buildings at 2305 and 2315 Enterprise Drive and retrofit them into the village’s new municipal campus, all seven candidates for village president either expressed doubt about the plan’s feasibility or dismissed it outright.
Candidates said the location’s bad and the renovation would be costly, with multiple candidates entertaining the possibility that the village put the property back on the market.
Greg Hribal, Westchester’s former acting village manager and a write-in candidate, made some news when he said the developer looking to turn Westchester’s current village hall into a retail campus once the village moved to Enterprise has “[pulled] from the deal and a new development deal is being discussed.”
Hribal said that the planned move to Enterprise Drive needs “to be looked at and reviewed.” Westchester Trustee Tracy Jennings was more frank in his assessment of the Enterprise Drive plan, saying there “was no written plan” in the first place and claiming that cost projections for the move have risen from $2 million to $13 million — “a 550% increase over what they said it would be in there first place.”
Kevin McDermott claimed it’s costing the village around $14,000 a month to hold the Enterprise Drive properties while David Galandak said the village should “try to find a good renter — a medical service like [Lurie Children’s Hospital]” so the building can be sold at a profit and not a loss.
One candidate broke with consensus on Wolf Road development. Most candidates agreed that the 15 acres of land adjacent the 80-acre Wolf Road Prairie Nature Preserve and the 43-acre Hickory Lane buffer lands is either unfeasible to develop or should be off-limits to developers due to its environmental benefits. Ed Lezza even suggested that the village use the 15 acres to extend the prairie.
The one exception was Daniel Maldonado, who criticized an attempt by developers in 2021 to turn the property into luxury condos. Maldonado, a former planning and zoning commissioner, said the process may not have been done “correctly” before adding “the reality is we do need revenue” and “if there is a development that were there to come forward [my approach would be to] to take a good look at it. That way we can try to make both sides happy. But I think it’s important that we try to take advantage of the potential revenue that can come from that [while] respecting the environmental groups.”
Lowell Seida’s hypothesis notwithstanding, everyone was courteous. The candidates were all respectful, so were the audience members who packed the church’s lower level. Write-in candidate Lowell Martin Seida injected some awkwardness into Saturday’s solemn gathering when, in response to a question about Westchester’s growing diversity (as reflected in CMAP data), he claimed that “there are no white people in Westchester. There never has been a white person anywhere on this planet. There’s a whole lot of pink people and I am a pink person. Pink is a color and children are supposed to know that pink is a color before they enter kindergarten.
“These [CMAP] statistics are bogus. What is the meaning of Hispanic? Does it mean Spanish heritage? If so, call it Spanish heritage. It used to be called that. Who made up this term Hispanic? A Mexican billionaire. He did it. He wanted to mess up the demographics, have every Spanish heritage person under the umbrella using a new term and I think we need to go back to the proper anthropological term for the human races.”
To which one audience member, breaking with what had otherwise been a rather quiet affair, shouted, “That’s racial.” And that’s putting it kindly.
Attorney General: D209 failed to comply with public access law
Last week, I was directed to the fact that the Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul's office issued a binding opinion that Proviso Township High School District 209 violated a section of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by failing to timely respond to a resident’s request for documents. The opinion was issued Jan. 12 and you can read it below or click here.
Pappas highlights Maywood’s low tax collection rates
Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ debut newsletter, Pappas Portal, has put a spotlight on in an often obscured reality in Cook County: High property tax collections mask a “little-known fact,” which is that “collections in many economically struggling, mostly minority south suburbs are perilously low.”
Mixed in with south suburbs like Harvey, Dolton and Dixmoor is Maywood. Compared with Ford Heights, which has the lowest tax collection rate of just 29%, Maywood’s 84% rate is robust. But compared to nearby west suburbs like North Riverside (99%), River Forest (98%) and Northlake (98%), Maywood’s rate is low.
Pappas’ office concludes that these low collection rates:
“severely limit their ability to provide basic services to mostly minority, low-income residents — revealing yet another inequity in the property tax system.
“That means there's less money for education, public safety and other vital services. Much of the problem is fueled by wide swaths of tax-delinquent vacant and abandoned land.
“Public policy makers should step up efforts to return vacant and abandoned properties to productive use and consider finding other funding mechanisms for schools and local governments.”
The Pappas newsletter is worth exploring in full here. Hat tip to Chris Donovan for bringing this to my attention.
Economic Development
Hillside mayor gives update on Wolf Point 290, planned senior housing
At a committee of the whole meeting on March 13, Hillside Mayor Joe Tamburino updated residents on the status of two major planned developments in town.
The mayor said plans by developers to bring a warehouse complex to 13 acres west of CarMax at 101 N. Wolf Rd., the site of the old Menards that developers are calling Wolf Point 290, are far from finalized.
“This board is not done with any decision nor have we met to talk about anything,” the mayor said. “This property hasn’t been vacant for lack of trying to do something with it.”
Tamburino said the village has fielded interest from developers seeking to build senior housing, a recreation center and even a ski hill but those prospective developers haven’t been able to agree with the property owner about a purchase price.
Last year, Newcastle Partners, LP, which owns the 13-acre site, modified their proposal after the mayor and other residents expressed concerns about light manufacturing and the trucking traffic that might accompany it.
“There’s a lot of stuff that still has to be considered,” the mayor said on March 13.
At Monday’s meeting, the mayor also reminded residents that the purchase of 241 Oakridge Ave. for $290,000 to turn it into senior housing may have been on the meeting agenda but no votes are binding at committee of the whole meetings. A final vote on the purchase will be at a regular board meeting in the future.
People and promotions
Broadview Baptist installing new pastor
Broadview Missionary Baptist Church, 2100 S. 25th Ave. in Broadview, has been conducting pastoral installation services for new Pastor Jasper Paul Taylor since March 12. Taylor is the church’s fourth senior pastor in 54 years. For more info on the installation services, which will take place through March 19, click here.
Hillside swears in new police officers, chief touts Flock-aided arrest
At a March 13 committee of the whole meeting, Hillside swore in three new police officers: Saul Navarette, Nicolas Rodriguez and Lynette Velez.
A humorous tidbit: During the meeting, Hillside Mayor Joe Tamburino joked that one vigilant rookie officer refused to let him inside Village Hall because the officer didn’t recognize the mayor and Tamburino didn’t have his credentials. Hillside Police Chief Daniel Murphy joked that it won’t happen again and the rookie cop’s fellow officers won’t allow the person to live the moment down.
At the meeting, Chief Murphy also reported that detectives were able to arrest a suspect who burglarized a new business that’s currently under construction, a spa that’s going in at 460 Mannheim Rd. The thief stole “at least seven large screen TVs and a bunch of tools,” the chief said.
The detectives search the department’s Flock license plate readers, “which led them to the offender’s house because he used his own car.” The alleged burglar, who lives in Addison, also confessed to a robbery in Stone Park. After a search warrant on his home, police recovered lots of stolen power tools and equipment. Chief Murphy said police are currently cataloguing the stolen items and the man “is sitting in a jail cell pending burglary charges because of the good work of detectives in Hillside.”
The chief attributed “about two dozen arrests so far” to the use of Flock license plate readers, which the village acquired last year.
In Memoriam
Greg Foster, Olympic silver medalist and Proviso East track star, dies at 64
Aaliyah Lewis, a sophomore track and field athlete at Proviso East High School, receives advice from Greg Foster, far right, during the annual Greg Foster Invitational in 2020. | File
Greg Foster, a Proviso East track star who, as Sports Illustrated reports, went on to become a “three-time world champion and Olympic silver medalist in the 110-meter hurdles,” died last month due to amyloidosis. He was 64.
died Sunday after being diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare disease that causes the buildup of the protein amyloid in vital organs. He was 64.
In 2020, I interviewed Foster at the annual Greg Foster Invitational at Proviso West High School in Hillside. You can read that interview here.