My issue isn't with the Chamber inviting him to speak at it. I fully understand that. My issue is that the Mayor is not just giving a "guest speaker" talk at this event. He is giving the State of Orland Park Address at this event. Giving the State of Orland Park Address at a function that requires residents to pay to hear him give that address is wrong! He should give a different speech at the Chamber Event, not the State of Orland Park Address. And airing it on the Comcast community access as an alternative is not sufficient. Not all residents subscribe to Comcast,(AT&T U-verse does not get this channel), let alone any cable - so again, showing it on cable requires residents to still pay to hear it. Residents pay enough tax money that they shouldn't have to pay to attend/hear the State of Village Address.

John Paul - Giving the State of Orland Park address should not be a Chamber or polictial event. It should be a "People of Orland Park" event. I would still be insisting it was wrong if the Governor or President gave their annual State Addresses at a private function that required citizens to pay an admission fee or pay for cable in order to hear their speech. They were elected to represent all citizens in their prespective role, not just those in these individual private groups or those who want to pay to hear it. When giving their State Addresses, they should be given in a way that any citizen who wishes to hear the State Address about their Village, State or Country, can hear it without having to pay.

That's great if you have Comcast.

Thanks Ben! Its nice to know that the Patch understands the importance of making sure the residents have free access to important Village information that affects them :-)

LOL. That was a seriously beautiful piece of advertising...many pretty pictures but lacking substance. Thanks for the tip about the power point..will watch for that on the website.

Ben - Unfortunately, what the village puts out on Comcast Channel 4 with the "Village View" are little more than "puff pieces" and propaganda touting all the nice things the mayor and trustees supposedly do for Orland Park. They apparently think their constituents are all stupid.

Now if they had the "cahones" to actually televise Village Board meetings and create some transparency by keeping people informed that way - I'd be impressed. But then people would see how often they blatantly violate the Open Meetings Act by going into closed-door sessions.

It's more of the same old stuff. Until the people of this village get off their butts, get informed and vote these people out - it will continue as it has. (and don't think that McLaughlin and crew aren't counting on that!)

We'll all be ok here in Orland Park when the Mayor gives a concession speech in 2013 or better yet, when he announces he will not be pursuing a 43rd term.

MS - "The public really doesnt mind and the papers all report it anyway." Really??? The public doesn't mind? Last time I checked...I was part of the "public" & trust me...I do mind!

I can tell from all your previous comments that you 100% support the Mayor and Trustees no matter what they do or say -I'm sure they love you for it. However, you really aren't helping matters as far as I'm concerned...in fact you've just made me raise more questions about how unethical this is.

As I've stated previously, I have no issue with the Mayor being a guest speaker for the Chamber and or talking about Orland at it. Its is the Orland Chamber of Commerce meeting, so it does make sense that he would talk about Orland at the meeting. However, if just a "snappy title", why make it sound like an official speech that a Mayor would give his residents? Makes it look like his intent maybe was make it sound more official on purpose hoping to trick more residents into attending this Chamber meeting, and then pay to hear a speech they normally would have no interest to help out some of his potentially fellow campaign supporters. Again...just the way it looks to me.....

Sue - that's a stretch. I'm not very political at all (except on internet message boards when its expedient for me to be like any other arm chair internet Super PAF -- political action figure LOL). What we're talking about here is absolutely silly. If you want an official state of the town address, then go to a Board meeting and ask for one. Seriously? Just because a speech is titled one way or another doesnt give one license to construct and superimpose a political conspiracy that says they are out to keep the residents of Orland Park in the dark while the political class and the robber barons of commerce hatch their next plot to foil the common man. Oh brother! That about sums up about half the comments ever posted on patch... not bad for 1 sentence. LOL! It's a title! They coulda called it "The Mayor's Speech" for crying out loud but you know, the way things are here in Orland, people would be complaining that the Mayor doesnt even studder to merit such a title... sheesh.

Aside from these evil retailers, what would you prefer to see? Who would you replace all of these people with? What would you like to see them do that's an improvement?

JP, I seem to remember having this discussion last year at this time, but I'm good with a refresher. Attracting, and more importantly retaining, businesses that are going to bring jobs that pay more than minimum wage would be productive - not to mention the diversification and stability it provides to the village revenue base. Yes, I'm going to say it....Andrew! With the $100M+ the village board is spending on the nifty fifty apartments and its saltwater pool, the village could have sweetened the deal and kept Andrew. If memory serves me correctly, it was Trustee Gira that commented during the most recent campaign cycle that they did everything they could to aid in the closure of that deal. Yes, everything they could except throw some part of $100M of taxpayers money at it or better yet, just seize the property for Andrew as they have for Flaherty & Collins.

Dude, you have no idea what you're talking about. "There's absolutely no reason why Orland couldn't have been in the competition for any of those developments." Um, yea there is. And its a really big and OBVIOUS reason. It's called Cook County property taxes. If you havent noticed, ALL of the Tinley Park things you listed in your post are in Will County. Nearly half of Tinley Park sits in Will County, a google map inspection will tell you as much, and that gives them a real huge benefit to diversify when those businesses want to be in Will County rather than Cook County . So if you want to lay blaim on people for Orland Park's inability to diversify, you can lay it at County Hall because Orland Park is victim to County tax policies more so than most cities because we are on the borders. And as far as I see it we dont have nearly as much Will County land as Tinley does to even begin to accomodate similar amounts of development.

MS - The only one to "BLAIM" (sheesh!) in this instance is yourself for not getting your facts straight! ALL of the things I mentioned are in Will County?? HALF of Tinley Park sits in Will County??

Get real. Your reply is so full of inaccuracies and misinformation (let along misspelling) that your credibility is completely shot. Look up Tinley Park on Wikipedia or any other source and see what it says about where the majority of it is located.

What about the parts of Orland that lie within Will County? What about other towns in Cook County that also have diversified economic bases like LaGrange, Arlington Heights, and Northbrook? How do you explain those?

The primary reason Orland Park has been unable to diversify is because in order to do so, leadership, integrity, and trust are required; traits that the elected officials in this town have been lacking for a long, long time.

Hmm... so OP Voter and Tom H are one and the same. You wanna talk about credibility? I think you just shot yerselph in the fut ser. U stack ur comments with alter egos. Do U think I kare about how I spel on the enternit? Go uhead and look up and down Cook County and u'll c just about the same condition everywhere else too. It dont matter if even 1/3 of Tinley Park is in Will County, all the uses both of you described were in WILL COUNTY. Maybe some retial along HARLEM in COOK, but the diversity yer talkin bout is aLL in WILL COUNTY, baby. I said that Orland could never do as much as Tinley because we dont have that much land in will county. U know, I find it really annoying that people like you bully others on these message boards. You latch on to an overstatement (which arguably could have been just a figure of speech but in reality was refering to the unincorporated Tinley Park in will county as well... and besides nothing is never nearly half and half) and then you create this abYsmal arguement that evereething that was stated is to be thrown out because of MISSPELLING? What? You SIR(s) are factually challenged! And by the way, if you're going to accuse me of misspelling, you might want to check your own before you make such a childish accusation!! "(let along misspelling)"??? Seriouslee? Everyone can throw this out cuz my grammar and spelling is off. Pish tosh.

OP Voter and Tom H - for what its worth, I recommend you just give up on trying to prove your point to "MS". He/She always seems too set in his/her way to validate any other opinion other then his/hers (check out any of the past articles on the Metra Triangle/9750/Orland Plaza). Besides, there are many others in Orland who share your same thoughts/concerns, so no use wasting any more time & energy on trying to convince "MS".

Megan -- I wonder why, in your mind, I should be the one to always lower my flag first ALL the time? I worry that your comments more apply to your own positions and those of your credibility challenged message board associates. I am clearly, by far, in the minority on these message boards and so I do not feel compelled at all to lower my flag the moment my comments are challenged by the hysterics of political exagerators, particularly your passive aggressiveness to silence any opposition. I will resolutely defend against that which I see to be obscenely exaggerated... not a mistake, but an exaggeration. I can understand challenging authority. I cannot understand the vitriolic climate of some of these posers. Instead of addressing real issues and problems around town, I am convinced that the lot of you think that a new gaggle of idiots in office will solve all our problems miraculously. And what you don't realize is that the new gaggle of idiots in office will suddenly see the light and start doing the same EXACT thing the old gaggle of idiots in office did. What politico will so change Orland Park to turn down the car dealers and their tax revenues? or the Mall giant? Republican? Democrat? Independent? Ah yes, on closer inspection, when we've had the time to learn all the details, we chart our course, which will not look any more different than the one we are on already. So, yes it irks me, considerably, when the solution is just "throw them out!". Where is the vision? GAH!

So JP, help me understand how a 200+ unit "upscale", high-rise apartment development at an over-developed intersection is going to contribute to Orland Park? McLaughlin talks about "open lands" out of one side of his mouth, and then over-develops the intersection of 143rd and LaGrange while simultaneously causing no end of grief for the existing loyal, tax-paying businesses of Orland Plaza and the customers who depended on them.

Hundreds of millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars in land acquisition and litigation fees have already been dumped into the Metra Triangle deal without any input from Orland citizens and other businesses who will impacted by this mess.

The “tenants" (if they get any) for these units will NOT be paying property taxes and will strain the existing infrastructure including schools, parks, water, roads and the environment with its proximity to McGinnis slough.

That is neither leadership nor smart development. And voters are not going to soon forget how their local government completely ignored and failed them.

We all know that 9750 wasn't the original idea for the triangle. Originally, it was going to be condos over first floor retailers, similar to what you see on Oak Park Av in Tinley near the Metra station. With the condo market being what it is and the overall economy being what it is, 9750 is the best scenario right now.

I'm not sure you can say that this was done without any input from the citizens. This has been going on for a long time, covering numerous election cycles and the same people keep getting re-elected. This was the major issue in 2009 when Mayor McLaughlin got over 60% of the vote. All of the trustees who ran also won.

I'm not sure how this developement will impact the schools. I can't see there being that many families with kids moving into 9750. I'm also not 100% sure how the developement will be taxed. Each tenent will have to pay a water bill just like anyone else unless the property management pays it and includes it in their rent.

Well-stated, Ben. Thanks!