Every six months or so we like to chat with c and get his view of conditions in the south suburbs. After serving as a Park Forest village trustee and then a state representative, Ostenburg spent 20 years as the mayor of Park Forest before retiring in 2019.
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Ostenburg still maintains his connection with numerous public agencies and is savvy about the workings of government and understands the problems and pressures of life in the south suburbs.
“We are a mixed bag,” he says, and adds that while some larger communities seem to be thriving there are small villages facing substantial infrastructure costs. He mentions the replacement of lead pipe service lines as an example.
There are also great disparities in both income and housing in villages crammed in an ill-shaped triangle between the Indiana state line and Interstate 57, and the hardest-hit communities are the ones with a large minority population.
Massive programs to help create jobs and affordable housing in the area may not work in the era of COVID-19. What may be needed, Ostenburg says, is an alliance of south suburban villages with similar problems to work together. He mentions the 20-year-old SouthCom Combined Dispatch Center, which handles all 911 calls from Matteson, Richton Park, Olympia Fields and Park Forest.
“At first one or two villages kicked and screamed about it,” he recalls, “but now we know this common service benefits everyone.”
This way, he says, communities can enter into agreements with each other and take some big steps toward solving common problems. Consolidating community needs leads to a stronger presence at the bargaining table with government agencies at all levels, he says.
You need to talk to lawmakers who can help, says Ostenburg. It is called lobbying and it is the way things can get done.
Money, and the lack of money, is an unsolved problem. Businesses pay twice as much as homeowners in property taxes and If you live in a town with only a handful of shops, the homeowner must make up the difference. The economic dominoes then begin to fall. Schools cannot pass bond issues to maintain or improve facilities. When you go shopping some other community gets sales tax revenue and the small stores in your village cannot make up the difference.
The news that the Illinois Gaming Board took the first steps to award the combined villages of Homewood and East Hazel Crest as the site for a $440 million gambling casino may lift some boats in neighboring communities.
The Wind Creek casino near the intersection of Halsted Street and Interstate 80 would house 1,300 slot machines and 56 table games and incorporate a 21-story luxury hotel. Once the final permits are granted, it would take another 18 months to complete construction on the site. Nestled next to the interstate, the complex is expected to generate millions of dollars and the developers say the two home suburbs would get some $3 million in tax revenue with another $4 million split among numerous area communities.
All revenue going to improve life in the south suburbs is money well spent but dollars alone may not be the answer.
I know some who harbor the impression that those who make critical decisions affecting the lives of people — those who may wear designer suits to work and may have a need for a three-car garage — see only the north half of the chart when looking at a map of Chicago and its suburbs.
One may imagine what they might say as they peer at the chart from a corner office on the top floor of a high-rise somewhere slightly to the north of Madison Street. Do they envision the diversity that is the hallmark of the area or does the area and the people who live on it look to them as the armpit of the city and thus a part of the community body no one needs to think about?
Jerry Shnay is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.