Winners and losers in Orland’s elections
By Ray Hanania
FREE/Orland Park, elections/Monday, April 7, 20025
By far, the April 1 local elections were among the dirtiest I have seen in decades.
So much was at stake but some people who wanted power turned to mudslinging rather than issues. Fortunately, they all lost.
Here’s an overview of key races and characters who are winners and losers, or just not that important anymore.
ORLAND PARK MAYORAL RACE
The Arab community was instrumental in ousting bully Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau and electing Jim Dodge.
Several leaders like education activist Mohammed Jaber and Yousif Zegar, and groups like the Arab American Democracy Coalition and Orland United (later expanded to All United) pushed Arab Americans to register after Pekau told them to “go to another country.”
Dodge’s win was crafted by his political guru, Dean Caspar, and the growing anger against Pekau’s increased taxes, increased utility fees, questionable TIF management, and lack of transparency when he failed to file the mandatory annual Orland Park Village Financial Audits for 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Pekau’s election night conduct reflected the same arrogance that did Hillary Clinton in during the 2017 presidential election when she criticized her opponents as “the deplorable.” Pekau basically said the same thing about voters disparaging voters for his loss rather than accepting responsibility for his landslide defeat of his own making.
The other big losers along with Pekau are Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison, who is also the Cook County GOP Chairman, Orland Park Trustee, Cindy Katsenes, the Orland GOP Township Chairperson, and Orland Township Supervisor Paul O’Grady.
GOP CONTINUES TO COLLAPSE UNDER MORRISON AND KATSENES
Morrison resigned as County GOP Chairman Saturday. Katsenes should do the same as Orland GOP Chair.
The presumptive Morrison successor is Palatine GOP Chair Aaron Del Mar, who worked closely in the past with Gorman.
Morrison has been deluged in controversy ever since a manager of his security company was exposed, arrested, charged, and convicted of sexually abusing young girls. Look up the Anthony Martin case files at TheMediaOasis.com.
The Republican Party once dominated the six-county region. It had a strong suburban base that Pekau, Morrison and Katsenes worked hard to destroy.
I’m not arguing Republicans are better than Democrats, or that Democrats are better than Republicans. I’m arguing a “Two-party system” is the foundation of American Democracy on the local level. And in most cases, Republicans and Democrats at the local level are not the same as Republicans and Democrats at the national level. Most local elections are “non-partisan” and party affiliation is more about organizational engagement at the local level than ideological foundations reflected in national elections.
In truth, most Democrats in the Southwest Suburbs are closer to Centrist Republican conservatism than they are to the extreme liberal beliefs of the Democratic Left. The National Democratic Party is in a crisis and is desperate to find a leader who can put principle above personal politics.
Having both parties engaged, and with local influence, forces issues to be debated publicly, not behind partisan doors. It’s needed with the demise of the mainstream news media which doesn’t cover the suburban politics or issues adequately.
Over the years, the Republican voice in the Six County Chicagoland region has nearly collapsed. And you can blame all that in Morrison, who was more of a lap dog for Pekau’s inflated and exaggerated personal ambitions.
Of 17 commissioners on the Cook County Board today, only one, Morrison, is a Republican. It explains why we don’t hear about issues like weakening the war on crime and criminals. When I first covered Chicago politics in the 1970s, the County Board was split between Democrats and Republicans, and issues were fully debated.
The big winner in the Republican Party is centrist Republican Liz Gorman, the former anti-tax hike fighter at the Cook County board. If Liz Gorman gets back into party leadership, the GOP will have its first chance at restoring credibility.
Gorman was a moderate former member of the Cook County Board who consistently and successfully fought against tax hikes. She served there from 2002 until 2015 when she left to take a job in the private sector. And she delivered on her promises, and in this recent election.
While on the Cook County Board, Gorman opposed the Hotel Occupancy Tax and the Food and Beverage Tax in 2003, and again in 2007. She fought against the cigarette tax hike in 2004 and the additional 100 percent hike in 2006.
She literally organized the opposition to the sales tax hike in 2008, which passed but led to the successful repeal of that sales tax reducing it from 1.75 percent to 1.25 percent.
Gorman also served as Chairman of the County GOP from 2007 until 2008 when the Republicans were at their height in the six-county region, and she was the Orland Township Republican Committee Chairman until Katsenes took over in 2022.
When you look at the Cook County vote between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump in November 2024, Harris swept the county with 69.6 percent to Trump’s 28.1 percent. Harris slightly won in four surrounding counties of Kane, DuPage, Will, and Kendall, while Trump took McHenry.
But when you remove Chicago from the presidential vote in Cook County, Republican voters carried more than 65 percent of the votes in suburban Cook. Orland, Palos, Lemont, and Lyons Townships were predominantly Republican.
Liz Gorman’s activism and her dedication to the public interest helped undermine Pekau’s destructive base, forced Morrison out, and raised questions about whether Katsenes can continue to pretend to be a leader when she is not.
When Morrison took over as the county GOP chairman from Liz Gorman, there were 5 Cook County commissioners. Today there is only one, Morrison himself, reflecting his policy to always promote himself first, not Republicans.
Under Gorman, the GOP had strong representation on the county board and helped elect a Republican Governor, Bruce Rauner.
Gorman openly endorsed Dodge’s non-partisan slate, put out endorsement mailers, raised funds, brought voters to the polls, and stayed on message.
Gorman’s wins forced the controversy-plagued Morrison to resign Saturday as the Cook County GOP Chairman.
Katsenes is a political car wreck. Pekau won office twice, both times when Gorman was the Orland Township and County GOP chair. Under Gorman, every Republican candidate won. Under Katsenes, who was appointed by Pekau, Republicans have not won a single election contest.
Katsenes’ demise began in the April 1 election during the final week of early voting when she was caught handing out literature for O’Grady’s Fire District candidates abandoning her own Fire District candidates, Mark Mitchell, Paris Stirrat, and Steven Troglio.
Long-time Republican writer and activist Scott Kaspar worked closely to help rebuild the GOP with Gorman’s Republican Organization of Orland Township.
DESPITE RE-ELECTION, PAUL O’GRADY LOST BIGTIME
Another BIG loser is Paul O’Grady, the Supervisor of Orland Township.
O’Grady spread political lies and mayhem believing it would help his election goals, instead of addressing growing concerns about his administration.
Rather than supporting his own slates, he focused on spreading lies including at the Fire District race. He showed up there twice at the Fire Board demanding a probe of a 2011 contract that took place BEFORE the current board even took office.
O’Grady’s lies did him in. The Board spent 12 years removing politics from the Fire District only to see O’Grady bring it back, berating everyone in order to create a political platform for his candidates.
In the end, like Katsenes, every one of O’Grady’s candidates lost. His slate ran last. In the final weeks, O’Grady saw this impending doom and apparently abandoned his candidates, selfishly focusing on his own race. The new Township board, won by anti-Pekau Republicans, should strip O’Grady of power.
INDEPENDENT FIRE DISTRICT SLATE WINS BIG
Despite the many lies and mudslinging, independent Fiscal Voices Fire candidates Donald “DJ” Jeffers, a Commissioner at the OFPD, Beth Damas Kaspar, a Trustee at the OFPD, and Bridget Eileen Tolan, a former Palos Heights Police CSO, won in a landslide victory. Jeffers, Kaspar, and Tolan avoided the mud, focusing as a team on one message, protecting the district and preventing a political takeover of the district.
When a Mayor (Pekau) and Supervisor (O’Grady) slate and fund candidates in the Fire District election, they have only one goal to TAKE OVER. Call it whatever you want, takeover, merger or consolidation, the move was a serious issue that concerned voters.
Unlike the other candidates, the Fiscal Voices candidates stayed on message and remained as a team. Despite denials, there was ample evidence several politicians, mayors and activists had discussed “mergers and consolidation” of the Fire District.
Jeffers, Kaspar and Tolan represented the existing Fire Board which gave the union its highest-ever pay wage hike, resulting in the best Fire Department in the country, with the highest ISO-1 insurance rating (which lowers insurance costs) and the highest Cardiac Arrest Save Rate, 71 percent compared to 10-15 percent nationally.
First-time candidate Tolan won the highest vote. She, Kaspar and Jeffers persevered through the worst bullying tactics by O’Grady and the minions he later abandoned to save himself.
OTHER BIG WINNERS, LOSERS
Mike Henry who was constantly slandered by Pekau, is another big winner. Henry doggedly exposed Pekau’s lies through hard-to-get FOIAs and facts Pekau tried to hide.
The big Orland Township election winner is first-time candidate and mother-of-four Lena Matariyeh. She ran an issue-focused campaign and avoided personalities. She addressed Township needs, not on expanding power or politics to other governments.
IMPACT OF TIFs ON THE ORLAND ELECTIONS
Another winner is Tom Tresser, the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district expert, who showed how politicians like Pekau can use TIFs to redirect property taxes away from schools and other governments to help the developers who donate to their campaigns.
Tresser’s brilliant TIF disclosures helped elect John Laesch over Mayor Richard Irvin in Aurora.
Tresser is the guest on my podcast this week, which you can view on YouTube at @RayHanania.
OTHER BIG LOSERS
The Patch took a major credibility hit when “reporter” Lauren Traut sided with her political pals to write inaccurate stories about several races.
District 230 candidate Tasneem Amine was the most disliked for her tactics. She received the lowest vote of nine candidates in the High School District 230 race. Amine got media advice and encouragement from Nabeha Zegar, who worked with Pekau for many years and helped O’Grady’s slate lose.