TIFs Taxes Orland Park

Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau continues to lie and exaggerate to cover up his failed financial management of the Village finances. Pekau claims that some 75 other communities failed to file audits but they only picked on Orland Park.

That's out of more than 7,000 municipalities that are required to file financial audits.

Pekau is hiding the village's weak financials and their financial mismanagement. The village has failed to file financial audits for two years in order to delay their release until after the election in April 2025.

Mendoza acted because Orland Park is only one of a small handful of villages (out of 7,000) that have failed to file audits.

Orland Park isn't "late." Orland Park is delinquent. Delinquent for two years and will be delinquent for next year's audit 2024, which will also be late.

And Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison defending Pekau is shameful considering Morrison also defended a pe*****le who worked for his security company. Click this link for that info:
https://thedailyhookah.com/anthony-martin-case-files/

PART 2 video of TIF presentation, Q&A

TIF expert Tom Tresser takes questions from the audience at the TIF presentation on Wednesday Oct. 30, 2024.

The audience was enthralled by how property tax money is taken and redirected by a TIF away from local schools (thebiggest losers) and other local governments.

There was only one obstreperous person (a Pekau minion) who tried to disrupt the meeting, but his questions and statements were FULLY answered and his disruptions and yelling were ignored by everyone. (We didn't treat him the way Pekau bullies people at Board meetings) LOL

Please share this link so other residents can understand how harmful the 3 NEW TIFs will be to local property taxes and to our schools, the biggest losers who depend on 67 percent of the property taxes collected in Orland Park.

PART 1 VIDEO, on TIFs

Thank you to the Orland Park residents who came out Wednesday night to listen to a presentation on the Orland Park TIFs that Mayor Keith Pekau refuses to provide.

The video provides an overview of TIFs, and then a focus on the Orland Park TIFs.

The meeting was opened by Mohammed Jaber, and then the presentation was made by Tom Tresser, a recognized authority on TIFs.

Here are some of the shocking highlights:

1 - The Triangle TIF has taken more than $15.6 million from the taxpayers (between 2004 and 2023) that would have gone to off-set property taxes (with $1.7 million in expenses just from 2020 and $1.2 million of that for unitemized "debt service.")

2 - The Triangle TIF, which has taken $15.6 million from property tax payers, (with $1.87 taken in 2022 and $1.52 taken in 2023). But worse, the TIF is an astonishing $27 million in debt, a debt that is unaccounted for. How was it spent? That is $47 million in property tax money that is unaccounted for that would have gone to off-set property taxes but instead is being used for unknown spending.

3 - Mayor Pekau has failed not only to file the Village FInancial Audits for 2022 and 2023, but he has ALSO failed to file the TIF audits for the Triangle TIF for 2021, 2022 and 2023.

4 - TIF funding is collected from property taxes in the TIF district. But, after the base (1st year) the property taxes DO NOT GO to fund local government. They are put in a special fund controlled by the mayor and spent any way he wants. And with no disclosure; that spending becomes concerning.

5 - Money collected in TIFs is often accumulated in an account controlled by the mayor. If the TIF did not exist, property taxes on our homes would decrease 15 percent.

6 - There are 3 NEW TIFs being considered by the mayor. One is the proposed Andrew site TIF that Pekau asserts is far from being a proposal, but that has a detailed development plan to build more than 500 homes.

All of the property taxes on those NEW homes will go to the Mayor's controlled TIF fund INSTEAD OF GOING to cover the costs 500 new homes will place on local governments like schools for a minimum 23 year period and as much as 34 years. The biggest losers in Orland Park are our students and schools, which receive 67 percent of all property taxes collected in Orland Park. The TIF will redirect all property taxes away from the schools, which will have to absorb more students from those homes.

7 - Developers are among the biggest benefactors of a TIF district. The developers involved have been among the biggest donors to Mayor Pekau's political campaign.

8 - The purpose of a TIF is to address a "Blighted Area" in a community, meaning that developers cannot attract retail businesses or residential homes to the area. None of the areas targeted for TIFs in affluent Orland Park are blighted.

TIF specialist Tom Tresser said at the meeting he has never seen a TIF like the one in Orland Park and has NEVER heard of a TIF having any deficit, let alone $27 million.

"Creating three new TIFs in a town that has not been reporting its required financial data for THREE years is scary!" Tresser told the attendees.

Watch the video presentation. And remember, your property taxes would be on average 15 percent less if developers were forced to finance their own developments without using public funds taken from TIFs.

This is Part 1. Part 2 is the question and answer session which will be posted next