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Health & Fitness

Suspension of belief

Revisionist History in the Village of Oak Lawn

During the last Board of trustees meeting in Oak Lawn, I watched a meeting that lasted 4 hours. The Mayor could not control the meeting as usual and then he wonders why there is so much disruption at board meetings. Trustees attacked each other all night accusations were thrown about like footballs and even the audience including myself, got involved.

The meetings back in the mid 90's used to be like this all the time,so I caught myself waxing a bit nostalgic for the old days at the old village hall,where there were no cameras and fights where the norm not the exception

It amazes me how The Mayor and certain trustees in my opinion, can lie about previous board meeting events and positions,that I was in attendance for, and actually believe no one will call them out on it. I kept on saying to the resident sitting next to me, was I at the same meeting these guys were at when they said the exact opposite of what they are saying now to score political points for an upcoming election??

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Trustees who voted on record for certain items in the past ,all of a sudden now say " I didn't vote for that" or that wasn't my position!! They must know there is a record of their votes. Of course now that board power has shifted some memories have become faded whether by accident or choice. Hypocrisy has abounded at the board table for many years but last meeting was the worst. I think the theme of the night was do as I say not as I do.

You have the mayor all of a sudden worrying about taxpayer money supposedly lost at the annual fall on the green event when for the last 7 years, he hasn't said a word. Of course he was friends with the trustee who used to run the event but now is his political enemy so now the Mayor all of a sudden cares. He certainly didn't worry about the law firm he hired over-billing the taxpayers at least $500,000 dollars. 

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You have a mayor who interferes with legal investigations, Has secret meetings with developers, Tries to run the hiring of legal staff all of a sudden accuses a trustee of being too "involved " with an event that his committee ran!! He accuses the village manager of meeting with developers( which is the managers job by the way) The mayor tried to sabotage a proposed development at the Beatty lumber property months ago Now he has had at least 4 meetings with developers for the Beatty Lumber site but it is okay for the Mayor because it involves his buddies at Advocate Medical Center ( Who presented the Mayor with a man of the year award last year) coincidence??  Oh yes, by the way this proposed development would allow advocate to back out of the proposed payment to the Village of over 1.7 Million dollars in impact fees that the manager had already negotiated on behalf of the residents before the mayor interfered. The proposed senior center would look good on his re-election mailers to be sent out next year too by the way.The Mayor playing politcs?? Say it isn't so, Who cares that if the hospital becomes involved we would lose the property taxes for that development,The non-for profit hospital has already taken over 35 parcels of land off the villages tax rolls. Conservative estimates say the Village loses over 2 million a year in lost property tax revenue.

Yet the mayor and his new majority looks into the cameras and believe they can erase the past hypocrisy and flip-flopping by just repeating lies over and over again

I kept using the term suspension of belief at the meeting that I was at, it was like a bizzaro world where everything was backwards. I know what I saw and heard at the past meetings. Smiling into the camera and hoping everyone has instant amnesia is not going to work Mr. Mayor

 

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