A month after former Trustee Tom Phelan left his position on the Oak Lawn Village Board and began duties as the village administrator, the board is being criticized for inside dealing.
Phelan was appointed as the administrator mid-July at a special meeting. At that same meeting, the board approved Ralph Soch to replace him as the District 6 trustee.
Soch was sworn in at Tuesday’s meeting, but not all were pleased.
One resident, Richard Mason, said the board reflects the membership of the St. Catherine of Alexandria’s Men’s Club of which Soch is president.
“Oak Lawn is not the St. Catherine’s Men’s Club,” Mason said.
He said it seemed like the mayor picked his friend from the club to fill the board position.
“It’s far too incestuous, this thing you have here,” Mason said.
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The Men’s Club is a social and fundraising group and, according to its website, has some 300 members.
Mason vowed to run candidates against Mayor Terry Vorderer and he vowed to run candidates against Soch, too. He also complained that Phelan’s appointment reflected inside dealing.
Trustee William “Bud” Stalker said everyone knew, before the July meeting, the former administrator was retiring and that his replacement would “probably be filled by a trustee.”
“This is not the buddy system and I resent it,” Stalker said.
Vorderer said the whole board voted to approve Soch as well as Phelan to their positions and state law required them to pick both an administrator and a new trustee. The mayor said he stands by his appointments.
“I welcome you to find a candidate to run against me, that’s how the process works,” Vorderer said.
Mason said he knows plenty of qualified candidates in District 6 and he promised he’d get them to run.
Soch did not address the allegations until later in the meeting, after Mason left. When he did, he thanked the mayor and board members for their faith in him.
“The reason I wanted to do this is because I’ve lived in Oak Lawn for 50 of my 55 years, and 50 of those years were in District 6,” he said. “I look forward, with my fellow board members, to make Oak Lawn a great place to live.”
For his part, Phelan said he believes the board acts in the best interest of the community.
“We look at taxes and this board fought hard to make the taxes low,” Phelan said. “Look at your tax bill and you’ll see that his village has done a tough job. We had almost 400, 500 employees at one point and were now under 300. And much of the work is done by people who are working hard, working with less resources.”
He asked resident to look at their property tax bill and what the village takes compared to other taxing bodies such as the school district.
Besides low taxes, Phelan said Oak Lawn is a safe community, with little crime and good emergency response teams.
Phelan said it took three months to fill the administrator’s role and the board and mayor looked at several other candidates, and he only got the job because he’s qualified.
“I’m familiar with (the job) and as the mayor said when he called me, ‘you wouldn’t need a lot of learning curve,'” Phelan said.
Vorderer praised Phelan.
“He will make, in my opinion, an excellent village manager,” Vorderer said. “So let’s work together and make this village an even better place.”
Jesse Wright is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.