Dean Koldenhoven was southwest suburban Palos Heights’ mayor during a time when other city leaders tried to throw up roadblocks to prevent a mosque from buying a church, including offering the mosque $200,000 to drop its plans to buy the property.
Koldenhoven battled aldermen who had opposed the mosque’s plans and he ultimately vetoed their $200,000 offer. For speaking out on the issue, Koldenhoven was awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2002.
Koldenhoven also served as a member of the city’s planning and zoning commission for eight years.
“Dean was very committed to the city of Palos Heights, and the city meant a lot to him,” said former Palos Heights Mayor Bonnie Strack. “He was involved in not only the city government but also was involved in schools and his neighborhood in general. So he was always active in the community.”
Koldenhoven, 91, died of complications from dementia on July 18 at his home, said his son, Dean Koldenhoven II. He had been a Palos Heights resident since 1971.
Born at his parents’ home in the South Side Englewood neighborhood in 1935, Koldenhoven grew up in Englewood until his teen years, when he moved with his family to Alsip. After graduating from Chicago Christian High School in Palos Heights in 1953, Koldenhoven began working as a bricklayer.
In 1957, Koldenhoven started his own bricklaying firm, Koldenhoven Construction, which he owned and ran for 42 years apart from a brief period in 1969 when he moved his family to Scottsdale, Arizona. He returned to Palos Heights the following year and resumed bricklaying work until retiring in 1999. After that, he sold brick for Frankfort-based Tri-State Cut Stone & Brick for another 16 years, until retiring for good around age 80.
Taking an interest in community affairs, Koldenhoven began serving on the city’s planning and zoning commission in 1989. Then, casting himself as an accomplished parliamentarian attempting to smooth the rocky relations that had predated his time on the City Council, Koldenhoven in 1997 ran for and won election as Palos Heights’ mayor. In the role, he resurrected plans for Palos Heights’ very own $5.9 million Metra commuter station, at the corner of 114th Street and Southwest Highway.
“This is a historic moment,” Koldenhoven said at the station’s groundbreaking ceremony in November 2000. “It’s the culmination of years of work, and it’s been long awaited.”
Koldenhoven also presided over the 1998 annexation of the 191-acre Westgate Valley Country Club, which was redeveloped into an upscale residential development, and the 2000 completion of a new police station.
The defining event of Koldenhoven’s time as mayor occurred in 2000, when a Southwest Side Muslim group, the Al-Salam Mosque Foundation, sought to pay $2.1 million to buy a church at 6600 W. 127th St. in Palos Heights and use it as a mosque and a school. Some Palos Heights residents objected to the possibility of a mosque in their community, and the outcry sparked an effort by some City Council members to find a way to persuade Al-Salam officials to go elsewhere.
Some aldermen came up with a plan for the city to buy the church building to provide recreation facilities for the city, even though city officials just two years earlier had rejected the idea of buying the building, citing its insufficient size. The City Council then voted to offer Al-Salam $200,000 to walk away from purchasing the church building so the city could buy it.
A vocal backer of mosque leaders, Koldenhoven strenuously objected to his colleagues’ offer, saying that “it’s degrading, insulting even to ask.” He also told the Tribune that he felt the opposition to the Muslim foundation buying the church site was based on racial and religious discrimination.
Koldenhoven’s colleagues, however, contended that their offer was based solely on the city’s need for recreation space. Koldenhoven sought to smooth things over, attempting to distance city leadership from the opposition to the mosque.
“I’m trying to keep us out of the courts,” he told the Tribune in 2000. “I’m trying to be fair to the Islamic people. This is a real estate transaction, and we have no business in it.”
In July 2000, Koldenhoven decided to veto aldermen’s $200,000 offer, saying that “government has no place in this purchase.” He added that if mosque members nonetheless wanted to back out of their contract to buy the building, “it’s up to them,” but that he had hoped that the mosque would proceed with the purchase.
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Al-Salam ultimately decided not to move to Palos Heights, and the building today is occupied by another church. In 2000, Al-Salam sued Palos Heights and Koldenhoven in federal court, alleging a violation of Muslims’ right to freedom of religion. However, a federal jury held in 2005 that the group’s rights were not violated.
In March 2002, the Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston named Koldenhoven a recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for his political courage in speaking out against those who opposed Al-Salam’s efforts to convert the church into a mosque.
“It’s surreal. I’m overwhelmed at receiving such an honor,” Koldenhoven told the Tribune in 2002.
Koldenhoven ran for reelection in 2001 but lost. The Tribune reported at the time that some aldermen and residents said they thought the mosque controversy was the reason for Koldenhoven’s loss.
Outside of work and community involvement, Koldenhoven enjoyed collecting, rummaging around garage sales, and dialoguing with others on his daily trips to Starbucks, his son said.
“He was a people guy,” his son said.
In addition to his son, Koldenhoven is survived by his wife of 71 years, Ruth; two daughters, Linda Riley and Sharon Vallas; nine grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; and a sister, Elaine Stepinski.
Services were held.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.