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Health & Fitness

Beware of the Faux Republican

Orland Park Trustee candidate John Fotopoulos is attempting to re-invent himself as a Republican, Fotopoulos is no Republican

On Friday when I received my mail, there was a bright red campaign mailer from John Fotopoulos, "Republican" candidate for Orland Park Village Trustee. The headline was "Orland Park incumbents support public financed apartments." This incendiary headline was accompanied by a black & white grainy picture of the Ninety Seven 50 development in the very early stages.

Fotopoulos has been distorting the facts of the Ninety Seven 50 development since Mayor McLaughlin and the village proposed it, for his own political benefit. Fotopoulos continues to paint the picture that the Ninety Seven 50 development is "public housing" and that the village has written a check for untold millions of taxpayer dollars to a developer that is lost forever. Neither of these are true, and Fotopoulos knows it. In fact I urge you to read Mayor Dan McLaughlin's Patch posting correcting the misconceptions furthered by Fotopoulos. http://orlandpark.patch.com/blog_posts/mayor-mclaughlin-provides-update-...

John Fotopoulos has long coveted a seat on the Orland Park Village Board. When I was appointed a commissioner to the Parking & Traffic Board by Mayor McLaughlin in 1994, John Fotopoulos was a sitting commissioner, also appointed by Mayor McLaughlin. Fotopoulos was very open about his desire to be a village trustee. Fotopoulos would routinely attempt to bring attention to himself and not the work of the commission. The commission chair requested Fotopoulos not be re-appointed and he wasn't.

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In 2001, John Fotopoulos was a candidate for village trustee on a slate that was opposing Mayor McLaughlin and the incumbent trustees. There were six trustee candidates between the two slates, and Fotopoulos finished dead last. http://results.cookcountyclerk.com/electionresults/040301/

John took ten years off then ran again for trustee, this time as an independent, he ran his Chicken Little campaign that the village is falling apart when the opposite is true. Nine candidates filed and Fotopoulos finished sixth again. http://results.cookcountyclerk.com/Detail.aspx?eid=040511&rid=150&vfor=3&twpftr=1

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Now, just 2 years later, Fotopoulos found a new vehicle to the Village Board. He will re-invent himself as a Republican. I am a Big Tent Republican. If anyone legitimately embraces the ideals of the Republican Party as I did at age 12, welcome aboard. However, I am casting doubt on John Fotopoulos's sudden preaching of Reagan and Lincoln.

First, John Fotopoulos has voted Democrat in 7 of the last 8 partisan primaries, including just a year ago in March 2012. He doesn't sound like a Republican to me.

Perhaps Fotopoulos converted after the primary in 2012? Sadly, no. As quality Republican candidates were in desperate need of support across the south suburbs and Orland Park last fall, John Fotopoulos was nowhere to be found. Again, doesn't sound like a Republican to me.

I have a theory on John Fotopoulos's sudden embrace of the Republican Party. You see as this election cycle was quickly approaching, John Fotopoulos was telling anyone who would listen he was running for trustee, then mayor, then trustee again. But John needed a gimmick. Something that will make him appealing to voters, because his record, ideas, and campaign wasn't working. I'm sure it wasn't lost on John Fotopoulos that President Obama was trounced in Orland Park during the presidential elections of 2008 and 2012. Orland Park routinely and historically supports Republicans at the top of the ticket.

Also, I am sure that Fotopoulos was aware of the Illinois Election Code that requires major party candidates to be listed at the top of the municipal ballot. Orland Park has a long history of keeping partisan politics out of the village. Our first mayor, John Humphrey, was a Republican state senator who ran with no party affiliation for mayor. No one since Orland Park was incorporated in 1892 has run for village office under a major party label, until John Fotopoulos.

Since John Fotopoulos announced he was running as a Republican, no Republican leaders endorsed him. Not a single one. In fact, last Saturday, the highest elected Republican in Illinois, State Treasurer Dan Rutherford, came to Orland Park to praise our village as a fiscal model for all communities in the state, and to support the candidacy of the real Republican, Trustee Jim Dodge.

Now back to the trash Fotopoulos filled our mailboxes with. I was insulted by it. Fotopoulos was clearly attempting to lead the reader to believe some form of public housing was coming to Orland Park, when he knows better. The development will have high end apartments, but condos and restaurants and shopping. Hardly, "public financed apartments."

I was insulted because the Fotopoulos mailer was trying to say what liberals think Republicans want to hear. The mailer was a parody of a Republican mailer at best, a cynical wicked appeal to our darker side at worst. Either way, the mailer's author is unfit to serve on the Board of our great village.

John Fotopoulos has ambition. Ambition is good. It motivates and inspires. It makes us all better people. However, when ambition dissolves into obsession, the obssesed will say anything to attain their goal. John Fotopoulos is obssesed with being an Orland Park Trustee. Even to the point of painting a development in a near depression economy that is creating jobs and property value as a public housing unit.

I felt compelled to speak out because my party, my village was being painted as something they are not. On April 9th, I will be voting for my friend, Jim Dodge and the First Orland Party because, as Lincoln said, they "appeal to the better angels of our nature."

 

Please join me.

 

 

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