How Pekau and McLaughlin treated homeowners during emergencies

The history of tragedy in Orland Park shows that former Mayor Dan McLaughlin cared about Orland Park home owners while Mayor Keith Pekau ignores them under the fake banner "People Over Politics"

By Ray Hanania

FREE/Politics Chicagoland Suburbs/Monday June 24, 2024

When the homeowners of Orland Park have a problem, you can see who cares more. Former Mayor Dan McLaughlin responded with care and concern in the 1996 floodings while Keith Pekau ignored homeowners after the record hailstorm damage on May 7, 2024.

Although Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau and former Mayor Dan McLaughlin are both politicians from different, rival political organizations, there is an even bigger difference that means more to Orland Park homeowners.

Orland Park government is supposed to be "non-partisan" but in reality it is not. Pekau is a far-right Republican and McLaughlin is a centrist Democrat.

Politics isn't supposed to be a part of Orland Park's government, except during the election process. Candidates basically run as non-partisan independents, although they may come from the two major parties.

Pekau's party is called "People over Politics," which, as the name suggests, claims to make the interests of people a priority over the politics.

But we know that is not true. Pekau doesn't care about people, only politics. In fact, McLaughlin cared more about people than Pekau.

And when you compare what McLaughlin did for Orland Park homeowners during an emergency to what Pekau has failed to do for homeowners during an emergency, the differences are stark.

McLaughlin was always more of a people person. Pekau is not. (In fact, anyone who names their party "People Over Politics" to try to stress they care about people really don't care about people. If you did care about people, you wouldn't have to say it in a label. When you can demonstrate something through genuine actions, to come up with a label or a name that suggests something that you have failed to do.)

Pekau's party has never been about people at all. It has always been about politics.

A good example is in how each one of them responded to a "people's" emergency, one that took place when McLaughlin was mayor in July 1996, and compared to one that took place when Pekau is Mayor just last month, in May 2024.

Hail that slammed hundreds of homes in Orland Park on May 7, 2024

In July 1996 when McLaughlin was mayor, a dozen areas of Orland Park had been slammed by heavy rainstorms and extensive flooding that caused massive property damage.

The Village of Orland Park wasn't responsible for the record-setting rainfalls that slammed the village and destroyed homes that day in July 1996, but McLaughlin and his board were immediately out on the street speaking with homeowners whose properties were damaged by the unprecedented floods.

They showed compassion and concerns for the “people.”

Under McLaughlin, the village provided large expensive dumpsters to help homeowners remove damaged property, free of charge. The village had the dumpsters picked up and removed, again at no cost to the homeowners. The village also provided to every home cases of large bottles of bleach. Flooding causes mold to grow. and the bleach can destroy the mold.

Additionally, McLaughlin waived all of the building permit fees required to rebuild and replace parts of the homes, to ease the burden further on the “people.”

The owners of the several hundred homes that had been damaged were able to save hundreds of dollars each, thanks to the generous support that McLaughlin and the village offered in the wake of the flooding.

Sadly, many homeowners did not have flood insurance, only sewer backup, so the costs of the repairs fell on the shoulders of the homeowners directly. Mayor McLaughlin and the Board declared an emergency and that permitted FEMA to provide low interest loans to help homeowners repair the damage to their homes.

Immediately after, McLaughlin and the Village Board also announced that they would replace water drainage sewer pipes under the streets where the flooding took place. The village set aside millions to cover the new drainage pipes, because they believed that helping these hundreds of flooded homes was in the villages' best interests.

As a result, flooding has not been a major problem ever since, thanks to McLaughlin and the Board.

McLaughlin and village trustees also visited each and every damaged property after the floods that July day in 1996.

It was an amazing demonstration of putting “people over politics” without saying you do that.

McLaughlin, for all his mistakes in his final year as mayor regarding the pension and salary controversies, cared about the people of Orland Park.

You can’t say that about Pekau. Pekau doesn't really care about the “people” of Orland Park at all. He only cares about the “politics,” which is why he uses that fake party label, "People Over Politics."

Last month, on May 7, 2024, hundreds of Orland Park homes suffered extensive damage from a heavy rain and record hailstorm.

Hail the size of quarters, golf balls and, in some cases, baseballs, destroyed roofs, gutters, windows and siding on the homes requiring roofs to be replaced.

In most cases, the roof, siding and gutter damage is covered by insurance, although the deductibles that homeowners had to pay ranged from $500 to $5,000, depending on your policy.

For most homes, the average damage ranged between $25,000, the cost to replace a typical roof, and up to $50,000 for the other miscellaneous gutter, siding repairs.

Where was Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau? The month before, Pekau was overseeing plans to spend $12.7 million in taxpayer money (from the homeowners) to boost up Centennial Park West for "rock concerts."

Pekau did issue a press release the next day "warning" residents to beware of "roof scammers."

Oh, how “considerate” for someone who puts “people” over “politics.”

Pekau never took the time to personally visit homeowners and assess the damaged homes, although I am sure he did check on the homes of his cronies whose properties may have been damaged.

Pekau could have waived the building permit fees to show empathy to the homeowners whose properties were damaged, but he did not. Every home is required to pay the hefty fees for new roofs, siding replacement, gutter replacement and for anything else that had to be reworked.

Here is what Pekau wrote in his June 24, 2024 "Political" Newsletter:

"Due to the May 7th hail-storm there were several roofs damaged.  The village has received well over 10 times the normal roof permit requests. We have worked through almost 1,000 of them and have less than 500 left. Please be patient, we are working through them as fast as we can. We have shifted resources around to accommodate this and have tried to keep other permits moving normally though those have been slowed slightly as well."

If Pekau really cared about residents, he would have waived the costs of the permit fees for the work needed to repair the damage caused by the hailstorm, instead of whining about it all.

Those two major crisis moments in Orland Park history clearly demonstrate who really cares about the "people" in Orland Park and who really cares about the "politics."

McLaughlin lost to Pekau in his re-election bid in 2021 by only 305 votes out of 13,959 votes cast. Pekau is extremely vulnerable in the next election.

Pekau has been damaged politically over the past several years by his failed bid for Congress and by his failed push to eliminate the Village Manager system.

The election in 2025 will be an opportunity to replace Pekau and truly put "People Over Politics," when homeowners need it the most after an emergency, not to give himself a special viewing section at a taxpayer-funded rock concert.