By Jeff Vorva
The Gleneagles Country Club is a council vote away from leaving Palos Park.
The Palos Park Village Council was set to vote Monday night to approve a resolution authorizing the execution of a disconnection agreement with the 36-hole country club as a part of a settlement of a pending lawsuit and the village would receive $125,000 in compensation.
There was no vote because there was no meeting. Some council members showed up at the Kaptur Administration Center and were available by phone but there was not enough for a quorum, so the meeting was cancelled. Mayor John Mahoney said a special meeting will be called for next Monday. A time was not announced but meetings are generally held at 7:30 p.m.
The council will likely approve it and if that’s the case, it brings an end to a relationship that started in 2017 when Palos Park annexed the land housing the Cog Hill Country Club, the Gleneagles Country Club and the Mid-Iron Club as Lemont fought hard not to give that area up.
Mahoney said Monday night that Cog Hill and the Mid-Iron Club are not a part of the disconnection.
“They are trying to disconnect and sell their property,” Mahoney said of Gleneagles. “They cannot disconnect their entire parcel, so they are disconnecting about 190 acres and leaving about 39 acres within the village.
“Of course, we are disappointed.”
In October, Village Manager Rich Boehm said one of the reasons Gleneagles wanted to opt out was because of the inability to get them water and sewer utilities and that’s why they sought to disconnect.
Tree City x 28
Palos Park was named 2020 Tree City USA by the Arbor Day foundation in honor of the village’s commitment to effective urban forest management. The village has earned the designation 28 straight years.
The village is planning on hosting an Arbor Day Celebration at 1 p.m. May 16.
Still on the agenda…
Agenda items from the cancelled meeting will carry over to the special meeting.
Those include approving a $14,600 proposal from G & L Construction to repair the flat roof over the Kaptur Center entrance, purchasing two Ford Utility Interceptors from the Suburban Purchasing Cooperative for $69,558 and approving a proposal from Baxter and Woodman not to exceed $58,275 to prepare engineering plans to extend a proposed water main across Bell Road to the Cog Hill property.
A rare cancellation
Palos Park has cancelled meetings in the past, but Mahoney said he can’t remember cancelling at the last possible minute on the day of the scheduled event and he has been on the council since 2003.
“It’s been a strange year and strange things happen,” he said. “If this is the worst thing that happens this year, I will consider myself grateful.”