In a jab at a political rival, Orland Hills trustees have voted to establish an ad hoc committee to study ways to beautify a median they said has become a village eyesore.
Village Board members voted 5-1 last week to appoint Trustee Mike Hanley as chairman of the committee to come up with ways to improve the median strip at 159th Street and 91st Avenue.
“For four years, it’s been nothing but weeds,” Hanley said after the vote. “It’s embarrassing to the community. At points last summer, I had to go out and cut the weeds down myself because public works was lacking.”
Hanley and other allies of Mayor Kyle Hastings blamed Trustee Marty McGill, chairman of the public works committee, for the median’s condition, saying McGill had promised during an election campaign to take care of the problem.
McGill and Don Bigos are former Hastings allies. Bigos was dumped last month from his chairmanship of the village youth, education and recreation committee by the Hastings faction and replaced by Trustee Art Gnech.
Hanley, who said he also is dissatisfied with the upkeep of baseball fields in town, said the new committee will consider using an outside company rather than municipal public works employees to improve the median.
While the committee was to be composed of Hanley and three residents, its ranks swelled shortly after the vote when Gnech and Trustee Cal Million, who both voted in favor of the panel, volunteered their services. The three residents are yet to be appointed.
“(He) made promises to people at election time (that) this would get done and it hasn’t been done,” Hanley said. “The north side of the village has been neglected.” McGill told trustees he had asked Village Administrator John Daly to place the improvements on agendas for previous meetings to no avail.
When Hastings asked Daly if the situation was his fault, Daly did not answer.
Trustee Dave Diggs said later that this is the second time such action has been taken. “We’ve been down this road before with Marty,” he said.
According to Diggs, another committee was formed a few years ago after concerns about maintenance of a retention pond at 88th Avenue and 169th Street, an issue he said McGill also had promised to resolve.
“Marty likes to make promises but then doesn’t like to come through with them.”
More Top Picks Best In Wall Speakers For Home Theaters
McGill said after the meeting that he made no such promises, an assertion backed up by Bigos, McGill’s lone supporter on the board, who voted against the ad hoc group.
“We cut the weeds (at the median),” McGill said. “We never went over and did a complete landscaping. I don’t run the day-to-day business here. I’m an elected official. I don’t micro-manage any department.
“I’m glad that they’re getting involved in stuff,” he said, when asked why he voted to form the committee. “I’m in favor of people getting involved. I’m 50 years old. I’m a grown adult. I don’t play any kid games.”