South Cook News

After months of delays, Tinley Park Mayor Michael Glotz's administration has decided to "start over" rather than push forward on a controversial proposal to grant a special use permit and zoning change needed to build a "Lenny's Gas N Wash" requested by the truck stop chain's owner Leonard McEnery, Glotz’s top political donor.

The Tinley Park Plan commission was set to hold a public hearing on the proposal on Aug. 3. At the meeting, a Glotz administration staff member told the commission that they had scrapped plans for the public hearing.

"This item was scheduled to come to public hearing, um, back and for with the petitioner we just didn't have enough review time, uh, to review it appropriately to get it in front of you, uh, so we're going to move it again to Aug. 17,"  Tinley Park Planning Manager Jason Engberg said.

"Since this was the third delay, we decided let's start over, let's republish. So, we republished in the newspaper, sent out new mailers. … The project isn't starting over, but like, we just wanted to republish for full transparency."

In June, South Cook News reported that a series of "Lenny's Gas N Wash" corporations owned by McEnery had donated $31,270 to the mayor and his One Tinley Park political action committee.

McEnery's proposal to build a third truck stop in Tinley Park was originally slated to be considered at a November meeting of the village's Advisory Commission on Labor and Development.

That meeting was cancelled, and the truck stop proposal seemed stalled.

Over two weeks in February, eight different "Lenny's Gas N Wash" companies donated $2,500 each — a total of $20,000 — to Friends of Glotz and the One Tinley Park political action committee, which lists Glotz as the campaign fund's treasurer.

About three months later, at a May 7 public meeting, Glotz honored Gas N Wash as a "spotlight" business in Tinley Park.

The honor was memorialized on the village of Tinley Park's YouTube channel. 

After accepting the mayor's public praise, the video shows Lenny's Gas N Wash vice president Alex Kugar announcing that the gas station chain's plan to open a new location on LaGrange Road.

On June 1, the Plan Commission discussed plans for the proposed Gas N Wash at 18301 LaGrange Road which call for a gas station with a convenience store, car wash, and two drive-thru restaurant uses.

The Plan commission was originally set to vote on the proposal June 15, but delayed taking action.