Walking the Transparency Walk on the Triangle Development Plan

A police lieutenant I once knew said, “When you have nothing to hide, you don’t really worry about crafting your message or image. Life’s a lot easier.”

Keeping that in mind it seemed strange that I was the only media member meeting with village staff Thursday, Aug. 4 to hear about the latest Main Street Triangle development plan.

All of the other publications in town already met with Orland Park officials in private, separate meetings organized by village staff. The SouthtownStar already published a story before I even walked in the door.

I’ve since been told this was done because of scheduling, and so we could “ask our questions without a public forum,” Village Manager Paul Grimes said.

A journalist who doesn’t want to ask questions in front of others is as useful as a surgeon who can’t stand the sight of blood. As far as I know, none of the publications asked for this arrangement. This came from a village that just announced its .

When a handful of Patch readers found out about these individual meetings, they were quite disgusted, as were my fellow editors.

We’re supposed to believe staff and the mayor decided to hold the same press meeting four times so journalists could be more comfortable? Please.

Call a press conference. Pick a date and time, and whoever can’t make it, tough luck. We will be fine among our contemporaries. We won’t start wrestling each other.

Why shouldn't we hear each others' questions? If an exchange of information truly is open and transparent, then we should hear each others' questions and those from any willing Orland Park resident.

I’d love to give the village the benefit of the doubt, but there’s a bit of recent history to consider.

At the July 11 special board meeting, village staff had a press release ready announcing the settlement between Orland Park and the Orland Plaza owners…before the final vote even took place.

Seconds after the vote happened, the media was given a pink sheet of paper full of quotes from Mayor Dan McLaughlin and Orland Plaza co-owner Joe Mikan. I don’t remember seeing Mikan at that meeting.

The premature press release and these Triangle meetings are red flags. The Triangle meetings caused problems.

The SouthtownStar’s story about the Ninety 7 Fifty on the Park plan included details that are nearly identical to what was talked about in my meeting, except for one. Bonds.

The paper’s story says the village could use bonds to cover the roughly $65 million cost for this new-fangled apartment complex, with a saltwater pool, “aqua” lounge, fitness facility and yoga studio. Later on Thursday, the village released its own statement that the newspaper’s story had “misleading information that speculates on financial deal terms.”

Naturally when I spoke with Grimes later, he said the same thing as the statement.

Only the SouthtownStar didn’t run a visible correction on their website. The article was updated, but again, no note of a change, and they have since then run two editorials making similar statements about bonds used to finance this thing.

Managing Editor Joe Biesk said they are sticking to their story the village questioned.

“The story tells what was said at the meeting,” Biesk said.

Bonds weren’t talked about at my meeting. If they held one press conference instead of four meetings, all our readers would have gotten the same information and we would know what was really said.

So how do they plan on financing this thing? The village says they will announce it next week. McLaughlin said the village has been studying and analyzing the ins and outs of this project for two years. What's the hold up?

In a down economy, to drop a gut-busting cost like $65 million, and not say how exactly this project will be financed makes as much sense as a paper football helmet. This is where steam should start escaping from Orland Park residents’ ears.

Maybe this wasn’t the time for the announcement. Maybe that little detail should’ve been solidified first.

Saying that the village hired financial experts who assured that the project wouldn’t affect taxpayers, as trustee James Dodge said this past Wednesday night (at, yes, another invite-only meeting with the mayor, village staff and a few residents), doesn't reassure the way cold data can.

We’ll see what happens next week.

For all the governing bodies around here so quick to tell the media how open and transparent they are now being, I’d like to know what took so long?

I can’t remember the last time I heard about a surgeon patting himself or herself on the back for saving a life.