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Pekau uses position on Village board to undermine political rival Kaspar

While Scott Kaspar is trying to do something to stem the threat of crime, Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau and his minions are lying, playing politics and using their taxpayer paid positions to boost their failed election campaigns. The latest lie comes from a Village Board meeting where Mayor Keith Pekau uses the taxpayer funded venue to make a political attack against his political rival, Scott Kaspar, in the battle for the Republican nomination in the June 28 GOP Primary for the 6th Congressional nomination.

By Ray Hanania

Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau urged the removal of Scott Kaspar, one of his rivals in the June 28 Republican Primary election for nomination in the 6th District Congressional district race, from a position on the Village Pension Fund Board at Monday’s (April 4, 2022) village board meeting,

Kaspar was appointed to the board by Pekau back when Pekau backed him in the race for Orland Township Supervisor, but Kaspar has since had a falling out with Pekau recognizing that the mayor is a backstabber whose word is unreliable and political actions are extremely self-serving.

Pekau has the sole power to appoint and remove individuals from the village’s various commission but pretended to not want to be dragged into a political fight by claiming he wanted his trustees to decide if Kaspar should be removed.

Pekau’s action is another example of how the mayor is using his office, which is funded by the taxpayers of Orland Park, to benefit his sluggish candidacy in the 6th District race for Congress. Kaspar has mounted a formidable campaign that could easily eclipse Pekau, who is one of the most disliked mayors Orland Park has ever had.

Pekau asserted falsely in claims parroted by his underlings on the village board that he wanted Kaspar removed because Kaspar allegedly attacked and criticized the Orland Park Police Department.

The claim is in fact an outright lie. Kaspar has never attacked the Police Department. What Kaspar has done is warn that crime is rising throughout the Southwest Suburbs in a large part because of the failed policies of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. But unlike Pekau, who has thrown empty words at Foxx, Kaspar actually is doing something to fight crime, including creating a task Force headed by one of the nation’s most respected crime fighters, Bernard Kerik, the former Police Chief of New York City at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Kerik has endorsed Kaspar while Pekau has received endorsements from people who received their salaries from the village.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the Kaspar campaign charged “Kaspar was removed from the Orland Park Police Pension Fund Board by his congressional opponent Mayor Keith Pekau. Mayor Pekau then orchestrated last night, a vote by the Orland Park Village Board to give cover to his politically motivated decision earlier in the day.”

Kaspar’s appointment to the Pension board made last June 2021 by Pekau, was set to expire on June 1. The appointments generally are automatically renewed until the Mayor decides to not re-appoint and select someone else to take the position.

Pekau blasted Kaspar in one of his “Mayoral eNewsletters” which basically are campaign literature promoting his candidacy for Congress.

On March 27, 2022, Pekau led his eNewsletter with this false claim: “Just the other week, one of my opponents in the Republican primary decided to attack our Orland Park Police Department in a political ad. What was said in the video were flat-out lies and I wasn’t going to sit by and let baseless claims and attacks be made against our police.”

Pekau added, “Attacking our police department’s performance and our Chiefs’ integrity for personal and political gain is as distasteful as it is unacceptable.”

In fact, Kaspar never attacked the Orland Park Police. He attacked the impending threat of crime in Orland Park and the Southwest Suburbs including in all of the communities in the South Suburbs. Kaspar said what everyone can see, that crime has increased in Orland Park.

(Pekau also continuously attacks me with lies and bullying.
But I live in Orland Park, since 1986, and I am an Orland Park taxpayer
who pays his salary and I have the absolute right to speak out
as an Orland Park citizen against his bullying and his falsehoods.)

The Orland Park Police are doing a great job in responding to the crime and everyone I know praises the Orland Park police.

But when you don’t have any creative ideas or solutions to crime, you start exaggerating your own worth and attacking others personally. And Pekau is attacking Kaspar personally because he can’t speak to the issues at all. Pekau is lying about Kaspar in the hopes that he can confuse voters into believing Kaspar doesn’t support the police.

But Kaspar has stressed repeatedly his support for the Orland Park Police, but also the need to do more to support the fight against crime. That’s why Kaspar announced last month the formation of the Task Force Against Crime headed by Kerik, to find ways to stop rising crime.

See for yourself that Pekau is lying and that his minions, who carry his water like Cindy Katsenes, is doing this purely for political reasons, for their candidacies, putting “Politics Over People,” and making a mockery of Pekau’s empty political party slogan, “People Over Politics.”

Kaspar wrote on his website: “We just released a video where I am putting a focus on the real problem of crime in Illinois’ 6th Congressional district and indeed all the the Chicago Suburbs. The failures of Chicago and the negligence of Cook County Prosecutor Kim Foxx and some of our local officials are creating a crisis we must address now.”

Here is the video. Watch it and decide for yourself. Don’t listen to the lies of Pekau or his minions like Katsenes who told the Chicago Tribune’s reporter Mike Nolan that Kaspar has “attacked and disparaged” the “village and specifically Orland Park Police.”

Kaspar’s comments, Katsenes said to the Tribune, are “improper and unbecoming of an individual appointed to those positions.”

If the alleged comments were true, that might be. But they are not true. And Katsenes’ lies are “improper and unbecoming” of an individual who is trying to seek higher office hoping to represent the Orland Township Republican Party trying to unseat the more dignified Liz Gorman who has an impeccable record fighting against unjustified tax hikes.

Here is Kaspar’s video on Youtube explaining how the Task Force can help confront rising crime that everyone in Orland Park and the 6th District can see.

Click here to view the video on Youtube or use the video widget below.

The Orland Park Police are doing a great job and the only real assertion Pekau can make is to lie and falsely assert Kaspar is “attacking” the Orland Park police. It’s just not true.

Pekau’s political campaign assertions against Kaspar made at a taxpayer funded venue like the Orland Park Village Board meeting is improver, but worse, an outright lie!

Here’s the rest of Kaspar’s statement:

On March 21, 2022, the Kaspar for Congress campaign released a 39-second video highlighting the fact that despite crime being at a 27-year low in Orland Park, crime is still out of control. The video features news articles titled “Another convicted felon arrested with a handgun” and “2 Carjacked at Gunpoint in Orland Park Jewel-Osco Parking Lot.” Both the Mayor and Orland Park Trustees took offense to the video highlighting a crime wave within the community.

But just a few weeks earlier during a March 7, 2022, Village of Orland Park Board Meeting, Village Trustee Brian J. Riordan said that every Friday night he gets a crime report for Orland Park. “We are on the precipice; our police officers are stressed in terms of the encounters they have with individuals with unbelievable amount of weapons.” Trustee Riordan concluded his remarks by saying, “with these kinds of statistics, every single Friday we look at this, it’s impossible this is not going to end badly for us, for our officers and for who knows who surrounding the area.”

Trustee Sean Kampos echoed comments made by his colleague. “We see stats, like one stat that rings in my mind is this past week…21 confiscated guns in 18 days. That’s guns in the hands of convicted felons.” Trustee Kampos concluded his remarks by saying, “this is our police force finding people with illegal weapons before they have the opportunity to commit another serious crime.”

Mayor Pekau concluded by saying, “and as pointed out, this will end badly somewhere in Cook County or DuPage County or Will County or Lake County; one of the neighboring counties and it will all stem from Cook County. This is gonna end badly somewhere. The numbers; they speak for themselves.”

During a January 17, 2022, Village of Orland Park Board Meeting, Chief of Police Joe Mitchell presented a PowerPoint presentation where he highlighted the following statistics: In 2021, the Orland Park Police Department made 71 firearms arrests. This equates to a firearm arrest once every 5 days. The police chief also highlighted in graphs, the steep rise in the average number of weapon arrests per week. In 2019, its very low, but in 2021, its skyrocketing. The presentation also included photos of the weapons seized by the police department – handguns and semi-automatic guns – very dangerous guns that were seized right here in Orland Park. The presentation concluded with Stolen Motor Vehicles 10 Year Review. In 2014, 8 vehicles were stolen. In 2021, 31 vehicles.

The crime data that the Village of Orland Park Trustees and the Mayor are receiving every Friday is alarming – and it’s why I have created a Public Safety Task Force chaired by former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who on September 11, 2001, oversaw the largest rescue and recovery effort in U.S. history. Commissioner Kerik also lost an astounding 23 police officers that day. Commissioner Kerik remains the most decorated police commissioner in the history of the New York City Police Department.

To learn more about the Public Safety Task Force, please visit www.kasparforcongress.com.

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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