LIVING IN ORLAND PARK

Several years ago I moved and downsized to Orland Park. I had heard many great things to entice me: tax rebates, city water, great shopping and easy access to express and toll ways. Maybe the information was over stated. I moved to a condo and quickly found that the condo was located on a street classified as a private street. This meant the Association has to pay for the snow plowing and maintenance of the street. The street was private because it was designed and approved to have a width less than that of a normal, standard street. .Further down the street is another condo association that uses our private street and faces the same problem... This was a decision made between the village and the developer to save each other money... This type of decision costs many condo and townhome associations a minimum of $4000 a year. On the property we have two ponds that receive overflow from other properties. The Village has twice rejected the proposal to maintain ponds. This costs the association $1200 yearly to maintain the ponds We have 24 units that pay for garbage pickup. The association is charged $60 monthly for a dumpster that has been paid 10 times over... All of these charges were brought to the attention of the Village to no avail. In addition annual inspection fees for fire, elevators and sprinklers have gone up.

This experience led me to believe that the Village was treating condo and townhome owners with a different set of standards... In a short time, I also found that Village policies weren’t always fair and equitable to local businesses. Many of the stores and businesses that I frequented were threatened with eminent domain. The Village said this was in the name of progress to clear a blighted area.. Progress that was to use TIF’s (Tax Incentive Financing) to finance the Metra Triangle Project. This meant taking money from taxing bodies, such as schools, to provide the needed funds to demolish successful businesses to build condos, streets and restaurants. The taxing bodies that approved this action subsequently raised rates and property taxes went up. The Village was relentless in its goal for progress and soon cut the tax rebate. The Village’s financial position was becoming desperate as it instituted a 15 month budget to cover its debt. Debt that includes $100 million for bonds and another $100 million for something called overlapping debt. Debt that the citizens of Orland Park are now responsible for. These figure can be verified on pages 14 and 15 of the June 2008 Speer Financial Analysis of the Villages request for Water and Sewer Bonds. Fees and services were also increased. On top of this it was becoming clear that the village was a satellite of the City of Chicago’s 19th Ward. This isn’t a pretty picture. In my opinion the present administration has taken a once successful Village and led it astray with unrealistic ambitions and greed. Don’t get me wrong, the people and businesses are great. It’s that I expect more from a government that was handed one of the richest and greatest retail treasures in the Southland. You won’t find this story in the nicely packaged brochures that the Administration mailed to your homes in the past few weeks. This is the story you need to hear and why I will be supporting and voting for Gerald Maher and the Concerned Citizens of Orland Park on April 7th.