Both Orland Park and Tinley Park say they’re offering their help to find a new spot for an Illinois secretary of state driver services office due to close this fall in Orland Township’s offices.
Township trustees voted 3-2 on July 21 to end the secretary of state’s lease.
“We would welcome the DMV in our town and would be willing to assist the Secretary of State’s office in any way that we could, to make this happen” Tinley Park Mayor Michael Glotz said after the township vote.
Orland Park also said last week officials had contacted the secretary of state’s office in part to “advocate for the swift remedy to the possible ceasing of services in the community.”
“We are working closely with Orland Township Supervisor Paul O’Grady to identify a resolution of possible alternate space, ideally within village boundaries, that could once again host a DMV/Secretary of State branch,” the village said Friday.
O’Grady, for now, has abandoned an idea to try to get a referendum on the March ballot next year asking township residents to weigh in on whether the office should remain.
The secretary of state office, 14807 S. Ravinia Ave., provides the “full array” of services, including license and registration renewal, according to Scott Burnham, a spokesman for Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias.
Newly elected trustees Kenneth Duffy, Kenneth Soltis and Frank Williams voted to end the lease, with O’Grady and Trustee Lena Matariyeh opposed.
Township trustees raised questions about safety and parking before voting 3-2 to end the lease, which is for $1 a year, with Williams, in a social media post, calling it “a bald faced lie” that the “patronage machine” at the secretary of state’s office had no money to pay rent.
Williams wrote that O’Grady rejecting increase the rent for the office, and then brought up the state sale of the former mental health center property, which the village of Tinley Park wanted to develop.
“Let me remind you of the taxpayer ripoff in Tinley Park where the state sold 280 acres of prime real estate at 183rd and Harlem to the Tinley Park-Park District for $1 in a cheap political stunt,” Williams wrote, specifically calling out Democratic Sen. Michael Hastings, Rep. Bob Rita, and Gov. JB Pritzker.
“Mayor Mike Glotz’s administration once offered them $4.1 million, which in principle had been accepted, and then Pritzker abruptly rejected it, and pulled the rug out from under them,” Williams said.
O’Grady said last week he was filing petitions to have an advisory referendum placed on the March ballot asking township residents to vote on the issue. A motion made at the July 21 meeting to approve a referendum failed.
O’Grady said in a news release he would also call a special township board meeting and public hearing in August for the referendum. However, not long after that announcement was made on Friday, O’Grady said he was retracting that news release after consultation with the secretary of state’s office.
The supervisor said he will work with the state office “to find a suitable resolution.”
Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said in a statement his office is “working aggressively to find a solution aimed at solving the problem that the township created.”
His office said it is looking at all options, including offers from neighboring communities.
The motor vehicle branch has operated from leased space in the township offices for five years, after previously being located inside Orland Park Village Hall.
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The secretary of state pays $1 a year to lease 1,100 square feet inside the township offices and renewed the lease, for a five-year term, this February, according to Burnham. He said at the time the lease was renewed no complaints or issues about the office were raised.
Under the terms of the lease, the township has to provide 90-day notice to end a lease, so the office would presumably be closing later in October, Burnham said.
The secretary of state office is the 22nd busiest out of 122 locations statewide, and so far this year had conducted more than 42,000 transactions, according to Burnham.
Burnham said the office primarily serves Orland Park residents but also has customers from Orland Hills, Tinley Park and Homer Glen. The secretary of state also has offices at the Bridgeview courthouse and in Midlothian and Joliet.