South Cook News

Orland Park Mayor and congressional candidate Keith Pekau recently said that he has lowered property taxes during his time as mayor, despite a claim from Gary Grasso that that's impossible. Grasso and Pekau are running in the same congressional district.

During his term as mayor, Pekau has doubled investments in the village's infrastructure while managing to reduce total operating costs by 14%, according to his website. Pekau also lowered property tax rates and paid down more than $50 million of the village's debt.

"Gary Grasso says that mayors can't lower property taxes and reduce crime, but under my leadership property tax rates were cut by 28% and crime in Orland Park is the lowest in 27 years," Pekau said in a statement. "Just because Gary Grasso couldn't get it done, doesn't mean it isn't possible. As your Congressman, I'll put people over politics and deliver for the 6th District just as I have as Mayor of Orland Park."

When the Village of Orland Park passed its FY 22 budget, Mayor Keith Pekau told Patch, "When I arrived here and sat through my first budget meetings, I realized that frankly, I had inherited a complete mess. Our reserves were projected to be completely depleted by the end of next year. What is scary is that the board had known this for five years prior to that and had not taken any action to fix it. [...] After the end of this budget year, we will have taken $46 million off of our books since the day I arrived, including the money we are spending this year."

Pekau and Grasso will face off in the June 28 GOP primary for Illinois' 6th congressional district, according to Ballotpedia. Niki Conforti, Rob Cruz, Scott Kaspar, and Catherine O'Shea will also be on the ballot.