Power Move? Orland Mayor Wants To Overturn Longtime Government Model

ORLAND PARK, IL — Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau and trustees last week agreed to ask voters in April to shift village government away from its decades-old way of doing things.

A referendum question will ask voters to consider a change from a government that gives a village manager final decision-making ability in many matters, to one that returns that authority largely to the mayor, with a board of trustees also weighing in.

The question will specifically ask:

Shall the Village of Orland Park retain the managerial form of municipal government?

"When I was elected mayor, like you, I thought those responsibilities rested with the mayor — who is elected and accountable to the people," Pekau wrote in a campaign email sent to supporters. "I quickly found out that the trustees could hire someone who could, among other things, lock me out of buildings and block my email access.

"In fact, after my first election, one former trustee said to me 'you have no authority, you are only here to cut ribbons.' Personally, I don’t think that is what residents believe, or expect, and I think that is unacceptable."

The Village Board approved the ordinance authorizing the referendum Jan. 16, and concerns arose quickly regarding the delineation of authority and decision-making ability within the village administration. Under the current model, the village manager's duties include the "appointment and removal of all officers not required to be elected."

The manager is not an elected position and so “not directly accountable to the electorate,” as detailed in the ordinance calling for the referendum. The manager also "exercises the final authority for critical administrative and operational decisionmaking," according to the ordinance.

The change would mean the mayor and board of trustees would "be responsible for the principle final executive and administrative decisions of the Village and be accountable to the voters."

The shift from current "manager/council" form to a basic "trustee/village" format would not eliminate the role of village manager, Pekau stressed in his email, but would mean the mayor and board would "create ordinances that create a village manager’s position along with delegated roles and responsibilities that will be virtually the same as they are currently," Pekau contended in the email.

Voters first elected the managerial form of government by referendum in November 1983, according to the Village of Orland Park website. A description on the website of how the format functions notes that an "elected board represents their community and develops a long-range vision for its future. They establish policies that affect the overall operation of the community and are responsive to residents’ needs and wishes.

"To ensure that these policies are carried out and that the entire community is equitably served, the governing body appoints a highly trained professional manager on the basis of his/her education, experience, skills, and abilities (and not their political allegiances). If the manager is not responsive to the governing body, it has the authority to terminate the manager at any time."

The description notes that, "oversight of the day-to-day operations of the community resides with the village manager," and that he or she "carries out the policies established by the elected governing body with an emphasis on effective, efficient, and equitable service delivery."

Pekau in his email said that the desire to move back to a previous format "in no way reflects upon the job that our current Village Manager does. He works closely with me and the board and we have a great working relationship."

Current Village Manager George Koczwara was hired in 2019.

Pekau said in his email that the aim of the current system to bring in a manager to run the operations of the village "could have been done simply by hiring a village manager and delegating authority to them without stripping the mayor of legal accountability."

Some residents expressed concern that the shift would ultimately entail making the mayor's role full-time, a claim that Pekau refutes in his email.

"I will make perfectly clear that this will not happen on my watch," he wrote.

Pekau also noted the reduction of the role to part-time was a move he spearheaded in 2019, with an accompanying salary reduction from $150,000 to $40,000.

Pekau in his email said he has "personally lived in the scenario where the trustees and village manager conspired to make the mayor irrelevant, which is ONLY POSSIBLE in the current form of government."

The referendum will appear on the ballot April 4, 2023.