Pekau intentionally ordered delay in releasing village debt until after election

Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau must have recognized the public would be unhappy with his financial management because he did everything he could to prevent the taxpayers from knowing what he spent

By Ray Hanania

FREE/Orland Park, Growing Debt, Illinois/Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Former Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau intentionally ordered that information about massive mounting debt for projects he was planning in 2024 be withheld and not be made public until AFTER the April 1 elections, his own financial advisers admitted at Monday’s board meeting.

Pekau’s deception was disclosed when he lost in a landslide defeat for mayor to former Orland Park Trustee Jim Dodge. While Pekau’s style was to hide information from the public and deny and resist Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, Dodge’s style has been one of honesty and openness with the public, revealing in an exclusive interview with me last week the shocking mounting debt facing Orland Park.

I give a lot of credit to Mike Henry, a former Pekau ally who broke with him several years ago. Henry has fought hard to get information out of the former Pekau administration, but was thwarted at every turn.

The disclosure of Pekau’s intentional deception to the public was made during a presentation to the Village Board on Monday, July 22, 2025, by PMA Securities Senior Vice President Bob Lewis and Director of Public Finance Andrew Kim. PMA was hired by Pekau in 2020.

Former Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau, who tried to hide the debt he was accumulating

In a presentation to the board, Lewis said the village faces a massive outstanding debt of $250 million, even worse than what newly elected Mayor Jim Dodge had told me during my exclusive interview with him last week.

Incredulously, Pekau’s remaining trustees, Cindy Katsenes, Michael Milani, and William Healy, said they were surprised by the debt plans, insisting that the projects had not been officially approved, and that they were “unaware” of the mounting debt from the projects.

But Lewis responded, saying that all of the projects were underway, even if they had not been formally approved by a vote.

Every Orland Park taxpayer knows that all decisions were made by Pekau, and any plans he outlined would go through and be approved by his rubber-stamp board without question.

PMA officials said that the village had $90.67 million in debt, up from $67 million when Pekau took control of the board in 2019.

PMA Securities Senior Vice President Bob Lewis and Director of Public Finance Andrew Kim.

But plans Pekau put together with his developers, many of whom were donating to his re-election campaigns, would increase by $160 million, including $51.4 million in government projects, $92 million in TIF-related debt borrowing and spending, and $17 million in water, sewer, and storm water projects.

“So, total amount of projects to be financed were in the works were $160 million. Because the 2024 bonds were not issued, we anticipated the 2025 issuances would be about $41 million to cover projects that were started in 2024 -- those started in 2025 and finished in 2025,” Lewis said.

“By the end of 2027, if the village proceeded with all these plans, the total village debt might be as high as $250 million, broken out in $210 million from the GTIF and the TIF revenue sources and $41 million from water, sewer, and storm water.”

Mayor Dodge, who has been open and honest about the village’s growing financial debt, then asked Lewis and Kim, “Why were the bond issues not made in 2024?”

Kim responded, “We were directed to wait until after the election.”

(Remarks in video at about 1:03:20 mark)

The shocking disclosure about Pekau’s deception reflected his style of government. Obfuscating spending. Holding back spending. Making outright false statements about how he was saving taxpayers’ money and how he was burdened by the “prior administration. (Pekau was elected 8 years earlier in 2017 on a claim he wanted “term limits.”)

An honest Mayor, Orland Park’s Jim Dodge

It explains why Pekau did not file the Village’s Financial Audits for 2022, 2023 and 2024 until he was forced to do so just before the election because of public pressure when I disclosed that the reports had not been filed as was required by law.

Pekau didn’t want the public to know what he was doing because he was concerned about his re-election, hoping for a 3^rd term on April 1, 2025.

Worse is that Katsenes, Milani, and Healy remained silent, either knowing what was coming or believing Pekau’s lies about the spending for the lavish projects.

Another example of financial problems Pekau created involved the Illinois Grocery Tax that incompetent Governor J.B. Pritzker decided to end to help bolster his own selfish political ambitions.

The grocery tax was disbursed and shared with every municipality in Illinois. By eliminating the grocery tax on August 5, 2024, to take effect on January 1, 2026, every village was forced to deal with a loss of millions of dollars in state revenues. Orland Park would lose between $4 million and $8 million in state revenues.

Instead of addressing that expected loss, Pekau felt he could just ignore it “until after the election.”

The most disgusting aspect of all this is that Pekau is allegedly associated with a Facebook Page and online platform called “The Open Record.” They were forced to leave the Patch, where they spewed their anonymous lies because they refused to identify themselves. They want to remain anonymous so they can spew inaccurate and unverifiable claims intended to undermine the new mayor and strengthen Pekau’s lies.

The Open Record describes itself as “A civic lens on Orland Park. We highlight what’s said, what’s true, and where you can verify or dig deeper — all drawn from public records, meetings, and a bit of informed observation.”

But in one of their online posts in June, they explain that after the Patch asked them to identify themselves, they decided to move somewhere else.

“Despite contributing articles that were fact-based, clearly sourced, and focused on substantive local issues, we were recently told by a local editor that we must now include the names of individual authors within each post,” they (who I suspect is Pekau and his cronies) wrote on June 24, 2025.

Imagine that! Pekau and his pals constantly complained about anonymous posts, anonymous robocalls, and claimed anonymity was a reflection of deception. Why else would someone hide their identity?

Everything I write is in my name. Identifying yourself adds a foundation of credibility, especially when writing opinions. You don’t have to agree with my opinions, but they reflect what I believe the facts show. My perception. My understanding from my perspective.

It’s refreshing to see Pekau squirming out there, afraid to raise his head above the gutter so people can see him spew his lies and fabrications.

It’s even more refreshing to have someone like Dodge who tells the truth – good, bad, or ugly – knowing that the truth allows you to address challenges effectively and successfully.

That’s why when Pekau's opinions are posted at The Open Record, or in his ridiculous eNewsletter column, “Straight Down the Fairway” – I bet he fudges his golf scores, too – you know he is not being honest about what he did when he was in office with our tax dollars.