Orland Mayor says village faces growing debt created by predecessor
Just over 60 days in office, newly elected Mayor Jim Dodge discusses the challenges predecessor Keith Pekau left through his toxic management and by putting politics over people
By Ray Hanania
FREE/Orland Park, Politics, government/Thursday, July 10, 2025
Orland Park faces a massive and fast-growing debt that could reach $200 million, double what it was only six years ago, newly elected Mayor Jim Dodge said in an exclusive interview just two months after taking office.
Dodge said he is determined to restore Orland Park’s positive image that was severely damaged by his controversial predecessor, former Mayor Keith Pekau, and return community confidence and engagement by re-establishing the community advisory commissions Pekau disbanded.
The new mayor said his commitment is to Orland Park, where he moved with his family in 1986, restoring it as “the Jewel” of the Southwest suburbs by “maximizing services and minimizing costs” to homeowners and businesses.
“I really care about Orland Park, and I want to do what’s best for the people, the businesses, and our village. Restoring respect for our village and rebuilding relationships that can help us grow as we have over the years in a positive and productive way,” Mayor Dodge said.
“We will get there by applying good, open government, transparency, honest and full discussions with the public, and engaging our community to hear their ideas.”
In an exclusive interview this week, Dodge said he is rolling up his sleeves and working with staff to confront the debt, which is currently at $120 million. Dodge believes Pekau’s “bullying style” prevented him from hearing the concerns of village staff professionals who could see the problems but feared retribution by voicing them.
“I was surprised at how deep, pervasive and extensive the damage to Orland Park’s reputation and its financial situation is because of Pekau’s toxicity in dealing with other people outside of the village and with his practice to hide these problems hoping to address them by using other revenues or delaying their exposure until after he planned to leave office,” Dodge said, adding Pekau bred a government atmosphere of bullying, fear and toxicity..
“It was directly attributable to Keith Pekau’s leadership style. He basically turned a lot of senior staff into guessing what the new mandate was or what the mayor wanted, rather than what needed to be done that was best for the village.”
Dodge blamed the mounting debt on Pekau’s inaction and political and election concerns. Dodge defeated Pekau in a decisive landslide in the April 1, 2025, election. Pekau was shocked at his defeat, blaming the loss on the ignorance of the voters rather than on his own failed leadership.
Dodge said Pekau “intentionally” pushed aside mounting debt by shifting revenues earmarked for other village services and projects to cover it.
Many critics said Pekau spent money excessively and paid developers outrageous fees to build his own vision while ignoring the concerns of experts and professional staff. Pekau gave breaks to businesses that funded political PACs he thought would help his re-election, but that backfired and were criticized as being racist.
That included building the Centennial Park West concert venue, which faces losses of more than $500,000, and spending more than $1 million on venue costs the week before leaving office in April.
Pekau spent money to build a new gun range near a school, purchase massive video screens, and gave huge incentives and sales tax breaks to businesses and restaurants to fuel the appearance that Orland Park was growing naturally rather than by purchase.
Money was wasted on paying to have police stop by Pekau’s home 1,400 times, rather than being on the street, critics like investigator Mike Henry have charged. Pekau spent thousands to thwart Henry’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests which exposed Pekau’s hypocrisies.
Pekau also wasted more than $1 million in legal fees for lawsuits that targeted critics in the Orland Park Police Department, paying record amounts to village contractors who then donated tens of thousands to his re-election campaign, Henry has exposed.
Last year, another critic, national TIF expert Tom Tresser, calculated Pekau siphoned more than $47 million from TIF funds to off-set the mounting debt and excessive costs. Click HERE to read that story.
It is one reason why Pekau failed to file several financial audits on time, beginning in 2022, including for 2023 and 2024, Dodge said.
“The late financial audits were a problem in part because of the atmosphere of toxicity Pekau created. People didn’t do what they were supposed to do. Pekau was micro-managing everything himself instead of letting people with expertise address issues and then make recommendations on how to deal with the challenges.”
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza slammed Pekau’s delinquency as irresponsible and threatened Orland Park with fines, further tarnishing Orland Park’s credibility. Orland Park was also criticized by the Illinois Attorney General.
Click HERE to read Mendoza’s statement.
Click HERE to read the statement of the Illinois Attorney General.
Dodge said it was a direct result of Pekau’s “caustic style of government leadership” when he took control of the village six years ago in April 2019 when his trustees took office with a razor thin vote. Click HERE to read story.
“It is all directly attributed to Pekau’s caustic style of government. Toxicity was the outcome. Staff feared challenging him. We have to assume that that staggering amount of debt we face wouldn’t have become such a problem if it had been addressed properly,” Dodge said.
“We are on our way to a $200 million debt. When I was in office, it was $100 million, which was being managed and public, and it was dropping to $60 million, steadily being paid off. Back then, the cost of money was low, maybe 2 and a half percent. Today, the cost of debt is much higher and more costly.”
Dodge compared it to a homeowner paying for a vacation by using money needed to pay other essentials like their mortgage, car loans, or insurance premium costs.
“The key is management of debt, not pushing it aside so that it grows under someone else’s watch or after you leave office. If you fail to manage debt, it impacts your credit rating,” Dodge said, noting he won’t hide it simply to make his administration look good the way his predecessor did.
“What taxpayers need is honesty. Someone who will listen to experts on staff and find solutions, not by shifting money from other necessities.”
Dodge said Pekau allowed the debt to grow to protect his own political image, rather than the needs of the taxpayers.
One of those decisions was Pekau’s refusal to address a decision taken in August 2024 by Gov. J.B. Pritzker to eliminate the state’s 1 percent tax on groceries, which was channeled as revenue to local municipalities.
The change begins on Jan. 1, 2026. The majority of the money was paid to local communities. Now, they don’t get that money, and more than 160 communities are being forced to increase the sales tax on groceries to make up for the loss in state funds. It’s being called the “Pritzker Tax” by critics and budget analysts.
“Orland Park will also have to pass it along, to avoid revenue losses on January 1,” Dodge said, noting that Orland Park will lose $4 million each year if the Pritzker tax loss is not replaced with another revenue source.
“We have no choice. That’s like an 8 percent hole in our budget. We have to bring that issue to the board and determine how we might be able to make cuts by $4 million a year. The previous board and mayor didn’t want to address it before an election. Now we have it and we have to deal with it.”
Dodge said one option is to work more closely with Springfield and restore relations with the legislature that Pekau’s toxicity destroyed.
He also said that he will restore many of the Trustee Committees and Citizen Advisory Committees that Pekau disbanded when he consolidated control in 2019.
“We're going to reconstitute them. And, I am going to ask citizens to join these commissions, these advisory boards. Pekau ignored the advice, but I want the input from the citizens and the trustees, and from everyone,” Dodge said.
For the first time in six years, the mayor of Orland Park is really putting people over politics, and instead of hiding issues is being completely transparent as a strategy to more effectively overcome the challenges caused by the past mayor.
My interview with newly elected Orland Park Mayor Jim Dodge
I have covered politics in the Southwest suburbs for the past 50 years with a special interest in Tinley Park, where I moved in 1980, and Orland Park, where I moved in 1985.
During all that time, I have always had great relations with suburban mayors, and even when we disagreed, they were always respectful of how journalists and columnists would address issues.
I found Pekau to be the worst mayor of them all. Combative and controlling. He resorts to name-calling and attacks when you ask him a question he doesn’t like, the way he responded to the Arab community in February 2024 when they asked him to consider a ceasefire resolution. All Pekau had to say was that he would review it and move on. Instead, he lectured them, insulted them, provoked them, and told them to “go to another country.”
Now, Pekau is in the ugly past, and he has been replaced by a real professional, Jim Dodge.
Obviously, the public sees this in the same light as Dodge received a landslide election mandate over Pekau last April 1. It was a decisive rebuke of Pekau and his policies which have been disrespectful, provocative, and demeaning to the taxpayers.
I got a chance to interview Mayor Dodge this week and you can read the interview in full on my website at Hanania.com.
But he brought out issues that the public needs to be aware of that Pekau was disguising.
In the interview, Dodge acknowledges that the village is facing financial problems. Unlike Pekau, who withheld the financial audits for almost three years beginning in 2022, Dodge is being proactive to address those problems.
When Dodge was in government, Orland faced a $100 million debt that they brought down to $60 million. Since Pekau has taken over, he had driven that debt back up with wasteful and unnecessary spending to the tune of $120 million. Pekau’s financial decisions and wild spending have put that debt on a trajectory towards $200 million.
The interview lists many of the excessive spending and costs driving up the debt.
Dodge also wants to reverse Pakeu’s policy of pushing the public out of the decision-making process, restoring the community advisory commissions and more importantly, being respectful of everyone, including those with whom he disagrees. That’s a dramatic change from Pekau’s style of attacking everyone who criticized him or even questioned him.
Unlike Pekau who made it his priority to focus everything on himself – he ran the village meetings like a tyrant and a bully, responding to every comment he didn’t like and challenging speakers, Dodge treats everyone with respect, including Pekau’s three remaining board minions who did exactly what Pekau told them to do.
Dodge is also working to restore Orland Park’s image as a positive municipal leader in the Chicagoland region, an image Pekau damaged by his many fights with Springfield and the partisan way he approached every issue. Pekau put more emphasis on being a Republican than a non-partisan mayor. And he tried and failed to exploit that selfish politics into a run for Congress, which he humiliatingly lost.
Dodge is a Republican, but he respects everyone, works with everyone for the good of Orland Park and Orland Park taxpayers. That is what Orland Park deserves someone who makes the taxpayers the priority, not his own selfish politics.
When Dodge told me, “I really care about Orland Park, and I want to do what’s best for the people, the businesses, and our village. Restoring respect for our village and rebuilding relationships that can help us grow as we have over the years in a positive and productive way,” he means it.
Dodge won’t convince the Pekau disciples to ease up and refocus on Orland Park’s best interests. That was clear from the election that the majority, 57 percent, chose Dodge over Pekau.
What an embarrassment that is for Pekau’s ego. Only 43 percent of the people cast their vote for the “incumbent,” and he lost.
Orland Park has a lot of challenges left in Pekau’s turbulent wake. Government is never 100 percent perfect. Everyone will disagree about something or be concerned about something else. But we’re lucky we have a professional with experience at the helm.
Dodge and I didn't always agree. But he was always a real professional.
That is an important change for Orland Park.
I have covered mayors from Chicago to Orland Park for more than 45 years and I have to say that Mayor Dodge is probably the most open, transparent and honest mayor I have covered in a long time. Orland Park residents have survived a horrible period under Pekau's bullying and Dodge is refreshing. He will restore Orland Park's once sterling image, very quickly ... what a chance from Mayor Keith the Bully who would attack everyone who questioned his decisions.
Dodge knows he is a public servant and is acting like a leader. Pekau was a dictator who acted like a tyrant
.