Mokena's Front Porch
This is THE Mokena podcast, with a focus on history and community! A Chicago Suburb of 20,000+, Mokena started as a farming community that grew up after the Rock Island Train line was built through the middle of what would become downtown Mokena in 1852. Follow our website at MokenasFrontPorch.com or on social media!
Matt is a lifelong Mokenian and local historian with 2 books about Mokena as well as a Mokena history blog, Matt's Old Mokena. Many of our episodes are based on the Matt's work collecting the history of our Village.
Israel grew up learning history and real life stories from his WWII grandfathers. His family moved to Mokena in 2016 and live in one of Mokena's Downtown homes that was built in 1916. Getting to know Matt along with Mokena and it's history, Israel worked to make the podcast a reality, through technical challenges and being a first time podcaster. He is a BIG fan of Mokena!
Mokena's Front Porch
Mayor Frank and Laurie Fleischer
Since moving to Mokena in 1977, the Fleischer's have been an active part of the Mokena community. Mayor Fleischer and Mrs. Fleischer sat down with Israel and talked about their lives before Mokena, how they came to Mokena and they impact they have both made since. We discuss Mayor Fleischer's political future and what changes he would like to see for Mokena.
Enjoy Israel's conversation with Mayor Frank and Laurie Fleischer.
The full video is available on our YouTube channel and on our website!
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Find Matt's Blog here: Matt's Old Mokena
Photo & Artwork Credit: Jennifer Medema & Leslie V. Moore Jr.
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Podcast@MokenasFrontPorch.com
Welcome to Molkina's Front Porch a Molkina history podcast with Matt Galick and me, israel Smedley. Okay, mayor Fleischer and Mrs Fleischer, thank you for sitting down with me. This has been a long-awaited conversation, but I'm really happy we got to do it. You know, one of the things that you know I wanted to do is be able to sit down with you know, both the past mayors as many of them are still available as well as yourself being the current mayor. So thank you very much for doing this.
Speaker 2:You're very welcome.
Speaker 1:I think it's a great way to you know you've played a large role in our history and, you know, been around a long time, so great to. I'm excited to kind of hear your story, and both your stories of how you came to Waukena and how we got to know you, so maybe we start with that. Where did you both grow up?
Speaker 2:Go ahead.
Speaker 3:I grew up in Wood River Illinois, basically three doors from Roxanna. So I kind of say I'm from Roxanna too.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And that's where I grew up. I was born in Decatur, though.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:I grew up on the south side of Chicago.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:On 69th Street in the old Italian neighborhood.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I do a lot of D's and O's.
Speaker 1:And how long did you live on the south side of Chicago?
Speaker 2:Until oh really, we lived when Laurie and I got married we lived at Midway Airport, so we really lived on the south side of Chicago until we came out here. And we came out here in 76 and looked around. We were on our way to see Laurie's grandmother in Decatur and we figured we'd take a different way. So we came down LaGrange Road, got over to by Lincoln Way East, turned down Colorado and talked to a developer there. So we talked about a home in Frankfurt which, I'll be honest with you, I'm glad we didn't build there. And then we it was $10,000 more, oh wow.
Speaker 2:And then they said well, we got lots in Mokina in an area, so we drove through here and it was interesting. While we're going down La Porte Road, mr Yunker is bringing the cows across the road. He drives through downtown and says washing a horse bank is prohibited, so that was all set for her. That's all she needed.
Speaker 3:Those two things sold me.
Speaker 2:That's all she needed.
Speaker 1:Wow. So back to a little bit of your earlier life. Tell me, what was childhood like. Do you have siblings?
Speaker 2:I've got a sister and two brothers and, like I said, I was brought up in a pretty tough Italian neighbor in Chicago. It was interesting, it was interesting, it was interesting, it was, but I wouldn't change it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what was a tough? I mean, what does that mean? I don't know that, I understand. Was it a lot of? I mean, did you see crime going on?
Speaker 2:or was it? No, not really. There was never really crime. There was just fights and gangs and stuff like that. But I don't ever remember any crime back then.
Speaker 1:Was it organized crime around there? You think at the time.
Speaker 2:Now, looking back, no, because you got me thinking about this, because I never did. I think everybody was afraid to rob from anybody in that neighborhood, so I never thought about that before. But there really wasn't any crime back then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, funny how people like that keep things in a certain order, right yeah. So are there any friends you ever keep, anybody you keep in touch with?
Speaker 2:from childhood. I have friends with Bob and Mary Ann Lulo. They were brought up in the old neighborhood and I haven't seen Pete and Pam D'Angelo. I stood up for their wedding years ago. No, I run into people every now and then yeah, you went to the one reunion where there were 900 people. Oh my God, oh wow. Years ago we went to a neighborhood get-together oh wow, a neighborhood get-together, oh wow, cool In Hickory Hills and 800-plus people showed up.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:And they had to have police officers there because the name of one of the gangs was still on the books. So because there was a get-together there with this organization, one of the gangs was still on the books, so because there was a get-together there with this organization.
Speaker 1:They had to send cops.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'll tell you what, though I wouldn't change any of that. Yeah, best Italian food I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I bet Any good memories you remember as a child growing up, carnivals.
Speaker 2:Playing ball every day, meeting at the schoolyard to play ball. You stayed there all day. For lunch you had cupcakes or Twinkies and a 12-ounce bottle of Pepsi, and that was it. It was very simple. Back then we were very naive and innocent to a certain point. We just you know there was no internet or anything to tell you what was going on. No baloney with the social media or anything like that. It was just a nice simple way to grow up. You grew up a little bit at a time. Now kids grow up so fast.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's true yeah.
Speaker 2:It's hard for them to me it's hard for them to deal with all that exposure and digest all that stuff at one time when I was young. You learn this one year, this the next year, and I think it was like I said I wouldn't give that up for nothing. Israel. Yeah, it was a very simple life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know you could walk to school. You walk down the alley to school. You were maybe a block and a half away. You know all the teachers. You know I sang in the choir at midnight mass and things like that.
Speaker 1:And did you feel like it was a real community, like you had a tight-knit community that you were a part of there?
Speaker 2:It was a very tight-knit community.
Speaker 1:It was.
Speaker 2:They took care of each other, and not in a bad way.
Speaker 1:they took care of each other sure, and that's what you know, and it's interesting to hear the more people we talk to and that about this and how important the idea of community is and not just you know living in a place, but getting to know who you live around and who the people are around you Exactly, and family was extremely important.
Speaker 2:I mean, we would sit on the front porch in the summertime until sometimes 1, 2 o'clock in the morning. A lot of times we fell asleep and got up when the sun came out the next day and then you had people that came down, you know. Other neighbors came down and they talked with my mom, dad, and it was just. Everybody knew everybody. Now when people come home they pull the car in the garage and you don't see them again. Yeah, till the next morning. They get back in their car, head out to work out of their garage. People just start getting together. People don't know each other like they used to.
Speaker 1:And that's a shame. It is. And you look at it, how do you change that Part of it is just taking a step yourself to reach out and talk to your neighbor. Somebody moves in. You see a moving truck. We were so fortunate when we moved to Mokina Our first weekend. I think we had four to five people from our area just come up and introduce themselves and welcome us.
Speaker 2:When we moved out here we used to come in. The house wasn't built yet. We would drive out and drive down the street and everybody would wave we had a you, we had all over town. This was a real good block because all of us just moved in. There was a lot of kids. We would have little parties.
Speaker 3:Big block parties.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was nice.
Speaker 1:And when you saw this neighborhood in 76, did you say it was?
Speaker 2:76,. We moved in in 77.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what was this area like then? Just a big cornfield.
Speaker 2:On my Facebook page.
Speaker 3:I have a picture of a standing art foundation and the condos were over there but there wasn't anything this way. Nothing. This house was built after us. This house was built after us. This house was built after us. Wow, house next door.
Speaker 1:We were just all by ourselves right here yeah, yeah, that's amazing and you know, I'm sure the same is true for looking at downtown or, you know, all over town well, downtown was interesting.
Speaker 2:we bought our um ski jackets Right.
Speaker 1:I saw you commented on, was that on where the dock is?
Speaker 3:going in there. Bought ski jackets there, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think it's so funny that Mokina had a ski jacket. You know a place you could get ski jackets in town People don't?
Speaker 3:I thought that was really wild and that's why I went in, and bought one.
Speaker 2:People don't realize Now, this was before me, but you talk to people. Downtown had a lot of businesses, yeah, and I talked to a friend of mine, bill Weber, who's been here since 1942. And I asked him why Walnut Park? Why would they put an industrial park there? And he said, well, years ago Mokina was a stop with the cattle. When they were bringing the cattle up, they would stop in Mokina to water the cattle, feed them as well as water themselves. There's a lot of taverns in Mokina back there.
Speaker 1:I've heard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they would go into the stockyards, drop off the cattle, come back and stop in Mokena and spend the night. So there was a lot of interesting. That's why it's industrial over there. There was a lot of activity in this town.
Speaker 3:But you know, when we moved here the old hardware store was hardware on one side and the Hallmark store on the other side, so everybody wanted their hallmark cards. But we also went up and paid our utilities, you could buy a tv out there the hardware store was greatly stocked, and we also had the post office, where you know the nauseous, nauseous.
Speaker 1:Now the resale shop.
Speaker 3:So everybody came downtown, but then more and more people started to drive, more and more people, you know, women are going to work, and you know. Then you get the Internet and you're paying bills and so that kind of dries all that kind of community thing up.
Speaker 2:I remember I used to go into 63rd and Western in Chicago to go to work and everything was so fast. You know, everything was in a hurry and you come out here on vacation. When you're on vacation you live here and you slow down a little bit. You go to. It was Park and Shop at the time, which is Burk Hots now, but the store years ago was Park and Shop. You go through there to check out people. You see a lot of people that you do know walk in the aisles, especially when the kids went to school. That's when you really started knowing a lot of people. Sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's true now, I think, for us coming to town being newer people when school starts, when our son's in that school age, that's when we really got to know the most with sports and school and all those things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, because when we moved here most everybody on the block kids went to Catholic school. So our kids went to public school and so it was interesting because back then, when we first moved here, the public school kids didn't really play that much with the Catholic school kids and that was strange to me. I was like why don't they play together? But it got better and it finally blended where everybody played together.
Speaker 2:Think about Mokino. Look at Mokino. Compared to Frankfurt and New Lenox, it is a better town from the standpoint, as far as I'm concerned, of beauty and woods. You got two creeks Hickory Creek and Marley Creek. You got the Forest Preserve. If you look at some of our subdivisions, they are surrounded by trees. This is a beautiful town and that's why I can't wait until we get the downtown going, because ever since I was a trustee, I thought that we could have a downtown. That's what's been so frustrating. Yeah, I had a lot of people a lot of other elected officials didn't think that we could have a downtown.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that drives me, that drove me crazy.
Speaker 1:So let me hand you the magic wand and you can do anything you want to Front Street. What would your vision for Front Street downtown Mokena be?
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what I wanted to do eight years ago downtown Mokena be. I'll tell you what I wanted to do eight years ago. I brought three firms in consulting firms to give us an RFP on what they would do to our downtown. They gave us a presentation. One of the firms did Frankfurt. One of the firms did Naperville. So these people were good at what they did. Sure, the board didn't want to pay them. Our downtown could have started a while back and the board didn't want to do it. Now we're doing it piecemeal, but you've got to show people that you're serious about the downtown. If you had a million dollars to invest, would you go to an area that wasn't all in, where you wanted to develop? That's what really hurt our downtown. We had to show that we're all in and we never did. Now you've got people like Clancy's, like on a taco place, and now you're going to have Doc's. Those people are the ones that are really rolling the dice. They see something down there. And Gino, yeah, and Gino Patrola. Gino, yes, gino, what he's done.
Speaker 1:it's amazing and it's what's needed. I mean, obviously the village can't come in and do everything. There needs to be private. You know money coming in and hopefully, seeing what Gino's doing in the dock and ZAP and those is spurring more interest in downtown.
Speaker 2:Well, these are the people that I really appreciate. Like I said, they're the ones that are rolling the dice.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They're the ones that are putting down the money first, but so far it seems like it's going well. One thing I like about the trucks on Front Street it's finally showing people that we could have a downtown.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And that's what is really needed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it shows that when there's offerings, people will come down and Tribe had its own issues. I think it could have been run better, could have been done better where it would have thrived, and obviously, if that would have been there.
Speaker 2:Now you want to know how to enhance that. Now you put trails in. All the trails in town should start and then come back to downtown the younger people. When I was growing up it was all cars. The younger people want to do things with their families and go to an area where their friends are going to be out with their kids. That's what downtown should be. We've got the Forest Preserve, mr Yunker's Farm and our downtown. There are towns that would give anything for our setup Anything. We've got to take advantage of that. Israel.
Speaker 1:Talk a little bit about the farm. You know that's something that there's been. You know hesitation there or just maybe a lack of desire from the park side or the village side, I don't know. But why hasn't? What do you think it's been why that property hasn't been developed? Why is that farm kind of sitting empty?
Speaker 2:Money.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're going to have to do it a little at a time. They've got a plan together and I'll tell you what. If anybody's going to do it, it's going to be Greg. He's a good park director. They picked a good park director and we've got a good park board. They'll get that done. But it costs money. People don't realize. Getting back to restaurants again, to open up a restaurant, just talking about your apparatus and stuff like that costs three-quarters of a million dollars. So for these people to come in and do this that's why I said thank you Gino, thank you Traftons, you know, and all these people, clancy's, that are putting money into our downtown because there's no guarantee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it is good. There's definitely positive signs. I mean Clancy's alone. That building was empty as long as we've been in Mokena, and I think longer than that, and the same with the dock. You know the dock was.
Speaker 3:And it said empty because the bank wanted so much money and they wouldn't come down for years and finally they had no choice.
Speaker 2:But you see, clancy came in here with an idea, with something a little different, that there was an atmosphere in Clancy's. That place has become a location for the younger people from Frankfurt and New Lenox to come to, because we were in there talking to some of the younger people and that's what they did. It's a very interesting place. They've done a darn good job with that.
Speaker 1:Mrs Fleischer, maybe talk a little bit about back to kind of growing up and what was your childhood like?
Speaker 3:Well, I have health problems from where I lived, because where I grew up, because I lived, literally the horseshoe was three major refineries Clarksham, standard, oh, wow.
Speaker 3:And I was a tomboy, I was the fastest female at our high school. But back then we had premier grade school, went up a little incline, then had a beautiful pool park setting, beautiful junior high and high school, all built by guess who? The refinery money. So, um, but so we had very good schools. Um, my mother was sick. She died when I was I turned nine, um january 9th, and she died two days later, um, but so I've kind of worked since I was seven years old, so to speak.
Speaker 3:But we still got time to play and, as my husband was saying, it was a whole different thing back then. I mean we played until it got dark and I mean I used to play with bats. I'd take bats off my neighbor and hold them. Going back to that, we played with the neighborhood kids, we played ball, we teepeed, howled, soaked the windows, we did innocent things, but we had fun.
Speaker 3:We used to go down to the vacant lot across on the corner from the corner grocery store and dig tunnels. And it was funny because we learned to support the walls with boards. You know, if we couldn't have a ceiling of dirt, we had a ceiling of boards. I mean you come home, play all day, come home dirty, but you gained the independence you know. You learned, as my husband was saying in his neighborhood, you learned a lot, but I didn't grow up around a big city so it was a lot different. When I came up here and heard their stories I was like when he gets together with different friends, it's like you've got to be kidding me. You guys did what. So ours was much more innocent in its own self, and when I was a kid we had a cabin on the Illinois River, so there again we'd fish. We'd catch crawdads.
Speaker 3:We'd walk into Campsville and to this day I hate catfish because I used to have to go to the barefoot bar and eat catfish on certain nights and uh, you know, learned to water ski.
Speaker 3:you know all that so that was fun, but you know a different time, though for sure losing my mother was was not good and, um, I have two brothers. One is my youngest brother is deceased. My oldest brother lives in North Dakota, okay, but, and my dad was the only child. My mother had a sister and a brother, but they lived in California, so we didn't see a lot of cousins like my husband.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, how did you all meet? I always love a story that starts with a laugh, you know it's going to be a good one.
Speaker 3:I'll tell that story.
Speaker 2:You go ahead and tell the story, okay.
Speaker 3:So I was the supervisor of the vault at Eleanor National Bank in Springfield, in Springfield, and so a friend of his, okay. So Frank was in the Air National Guard and there he met Dino, okay, who actually is a trustee in Itasca.
Speaker 2:Itasca, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:So they had a mutual friend, dennis and Diane.
Speaker 3:So Diane worked at the bank and, and so they used to set Frank up on blind dates and I was like his third one, I think, and one of the gals was a little Italian gal that was before me, and so so they asked me if I wanted to go out with this guy and I won't tell you the picture they showed of him because then I can't talk about it, but they used to play, you know, tricks on each other.
Speaker 3:So anyway, since they showed me this picture, I decided to dress up and I was tall and thin and they had the long dark hair and my picture is on the Facebook, um, so I put on these black and white pants and I wasn't a floral person and found this ugly, ugly floral shirt, put that on, and then I got a short blonde wig and put that on, and so we were picking him up at the train station. So when we got to the train station, he gets in the car on the back and this man in the front. He gets in the car. So I scooted over and was holding on to the doorknob like I was afraid or something. We played this game all the way to the house and he just come back from a trip uh to hawaii with bill right and was it a cruise or a trip?
Speaker 3:no, we just flocked there and stayed so he is passing out perfume, okay, and these little bottles of perfume, and he gave Diane one. Somebody else was there, it might have been gay and so he comes up to me and he does it like this, at a distance.
Speaker 3:I wasn't that bad yeah she was that bad, it was obvious. So we let him suffer for a little while, and then I went in the bathroom and changed clothes, took the wig off and came out in the outfit that I had on, and two weeks later he asked me to marry him wow, two weeks and I told him no so was the two-week proposal, a serious proposal oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, wow, okay, and I told him no. So that was what September of 76, right, yeah, yeah we met in September of 76. And we got married April of 77.
Speaker 2:Wow, it might have been sooner, but I got cold feet in between there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he did. He got cold feet, he chickened out for a short time and then I said bye, bye and left. I was up here when he chickened out and uh went back home and then I ended up moving back up here and we lived for a short time in his apartment by your port, hand over there yeah, and I was spinster on the d because, yeah, she was my spinster on the d because woman couldn't get along and it took a long time to get that change, believe me, and as I told you earlier when he told me about a wedding cost in Chicago, because my first wedding I was married before and that was only like two years and I had to say bye-bye.
Speaker 3:And I wasn't going to stay there In his apartment. There was no way.
Speaker 2:Not on 63rd and Colmar she was sitting like that. A mile away from Midway Airport.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it wasn't going to happen, my stuff, and it was hit early in the morning I think, and it was just wall-to-wall cars. I just that was it, man.
Speaker 2:The only way she got away is she took the dog at the time and went up to the tracks by herself.
Speaker 3:One day I brought home a huge garter snake and brought it into the house, thinking it was going to scare him and he was shaving. But it didn't.
Speaker 1:So how long did you live by Midway then?
Speaker 3:Not long, very short time.
Speaker 1:And where did you go from there Out here you came to. This is when you moved yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So tell me about college you, Mr Mayor, went into the military. Or tell me about your military service?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. I really didn't know what I wanted to do. So I went to Bogan Junior College and while I was in there, on 79th and Cicero, 79th and Pulaski, pulaski, yeah, 79th and Pulaski and while I was in there the National Guard called me up and asked me if I wanted to go to basic training and join the Guard. So I flew off down to Texas and went to basic training. Then I went to basic training in San Antonio and tech school in Wichita Falls. So I was going for about nine months because that was a long course. The technical course was long, but what was nice is.
Speaker 1:I just worked on telephone stuff oh okay, that was your job in the military.
Speaker 2:And that worked out nice. I came back and then we were out of O'Hare. It used to be out of Midway, but they had to move everything out to O'Hare for room, so I stayed in there for nine and a half ten years.
Speaker 1:And so then that would be you would. What was the service Like? How you'd have to do summer and then once a month, or how did that work?
Speaker 2:You have to do 15 days in the summer, okay, and you had to do weekends, one weekend out of the month. And what was nice about what we did is for the two weeks we would go all over the place. I mean, I was out in Sacramento, california, in Colorado there was bases out there and I would go out with somebody else. We would engineer jobs, then we would go out there and put them in and I enjoyed that kind of that job.
Speaker 3:And that trip that you asked me to go on with that's when we decided to get married. Finally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she went with me to South Dakota.
Speaker 3:And I got him on a horse. He'd never been on a horse.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What was that like?
Speaker 2:Not bad, not bad, not bad. But the only problem I made, this is free range riding too. If it wasn't for her, I'd probably be dead, though, because me and the horse took off and I didn't realize that when the horse is Going back, so to go up to the fence and then stop and you go spinning off the horse. So she was yelling to me Pull it in, pull it in.
Speaker 1:I remember as a kid we had friends that had a you know a horse on a farm and I got on that thing and that thing was done. He went right back into the barn with me on it and I'm like ducking pipes and they, when they're done, they're done, but that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:I had a nice, nice, you know. Later on, you know, I got promoted. I was all the way up to E6, which was tech sergeant, which is pretty good for eight years, yeah, you know, and I could have stuck around really, for, you know, I probably was the next in line two years from that to get master sergeant, which was an E7. And that's pretty good pay for weekends and summer camps. But that's when Lori and I got married and we weren't going to mess around with that.
Speaker 1:So once that was done, once you were finished with the National Guard, did you kind of pick anything else up as far as civically or do anything locally?
Speaker 2:When I got back it drove me nuts, so within two weeks I went to apply for Illinois Bell at the time.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Then I went to work for them and after that for a little bit there were some members of the credit union, so I was talking with them. I ended up on the board. I was on that board for about nine years, so I was there and did you go to college at some point?
Speaker 1:Nope or no, okay, nope.
Speaker 2:I just everything I know right now is from just a practical experience. Yeah, and I was lucky. I just, you know, I just was in the right place at the right time, all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anybody at that time, like you know, in that you know younger age there that really influenced you, that made a big effect on you personally.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, George Pape.
Speaker 3:I remember George there, that really influenced you.
Speaker 2:That made a big effect on you personally. Oh yeah, george pape, um, harry walker, all those guys, earl wolf, all those guys over there and what was it like?
Speaker 1:what was it about them that made a influence on you?
Speaker 2:no, we're talking about working. Oh work, okay, we're talking about working, right.
Speaker 1:You know, maybe anybody with you know you think about that. You know, while you're in the military, just after that early career, you know 20s, 30s, like that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, george Pape was a big influence on me. Yeah, because I worked for him and he was also a director at the credit union.
Speaker 1:So tell me about that. What did that mean, how did he influence you and how did it improve you?
Speaker 2:Well, he explained to me things I did or didn't do, and he was a good guy and he did it in a decent way, not to belittle you, just to educate you.
Speaker 1:He spoke the truth. He was willing to tell you.
Speaker 2:But there was more people in George. I was very lucky. I had some really good people as I was growing up, you know, in my 20s Some very, very good people.
Speaker 1:And that was Illinois Bell. You said AT&T, was that the same company? Did they switch over?
Speaker 2:What happened was I went to work for Illinois Bell. At&t was the holding company for Illinois Bell. Okay, then Illinois Bell, along with Ohio, wisconsin, indiana and somebody else I can't remember, formed Ameritech. Then Ameritech went to SBC, then SBC went to AT&T. I never moved my vehicle. I worked for five companies and I never moved my vehicle, yeah, I mean, I just bounced around. Then, when I retired, I went back and instructed for a little bit.
Speaker 1:And where were you going Shortly before you retired? Where were you going to work? Where was your office?
Speaker 2:Right here the phone, the office here in Waukeha.
Speaker 1:Oh, really that's convenient.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying. I was very lucky. But I always ask Israel. You know, that's one thing I've done in my life. You don't ask, you don't get, absolutely so. I asked, and if they said no, well, I didn't have anything to begin with, right, so I would just….
Speaker 3:Before that, you were right down the street in Orland.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was in Orland. It's a garage over there at 167th and LaGrange. It's a garage over there at 167th and LaGrange. I was sitting in an office in Beverly and a guy that worked with me got a phone call from a fellow by the name of Bill Walder. His job had opened up. He was calling up Ken and I said well, what does this job consist of? So Bill explained it to me and we got to talking a little bit and he grabbed me. That's what I'm talking about the right place at the right time. I wasn't trying to screw Ken, but we just hit it off on the phone and I ended up working in that department.
Speaker 1:I mean. That's so true, though, Like the idea of you're never going to get what you don't ask for in a lot of situations.
Speaker 3:And then you finished up consulting and working. How many states?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I worked all the states Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana. I had a nice. I've been very lucky, I've been extremely lucky. I have no complaints.
Speaker 1:And did you enjoy what you did, your work?
Speaker 2:Yes, very much so. What I liked about it is I would go out and work on things. Nobody was with me. If it fell on its ear, I was blamed for it, but when it worked I was also given the credit.
Speaker 1:Thank God, things worked the majority of the time so if you could go back to your first day on the job, what advice would you give yourself?
Speaker 2:what would I tell myself? Well, you know I. I did the same thing I did when I was a trustee. I sat there for three months with my mouth shut because I didn't know anything. So I learned from the people around me so I could do it the right way. Same thing I try to do with everything I do. You went to high school too, yeah, but I just, you can't learn anything talking.
Speaker 1:Good point, yeah, you know. And.
Speaker 2:I was just lucky. I had people that were willing to teach me, and that was it. I've always had that philosophy.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit about Mokena. I mean we have, but so you came to Mokena, you bought the lot here and then you built the house. Do you remember how long it took from when you signed the paper to when you were able to move in?
Speaker 3:I believe we signed in March and moved in. Was it August? Might have been August. Okay, and at that time, michael John built this house.
Speaker 1:Okay, any kids at that time?
Speaker 3:No, no, no, okay we were married two years before we had any children.
Speaker 2:Our daughter was born in 1979.
Speaker 3:We moved in here in 77. Our daughter was born in 79.
Speaker 1:Okay. And then you have your daughter, you have a son, is that right? Our son was born in 81.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I mean, yeah, that's, I mean the same as me, I'm a 79 baby. Oh, are you really the same as me? I'm a 79, uh baby. And uh, yeah, yeah, I always say about moquina I feel like moquina and veroqua, the town I grew up in wisconsin, were like the same town in the 80s. You know the, the small town, the parades, the all the, you know the, the circle clubs, all those things that you know make a community in that. So, uh, I think that's a lot of the reason too I took on so easily to Mokina.
Speaker 2:This is a good town, israel. This is a very good town with good people, and I'm so glad that we picked Mokina to move into. But if you want to talk about what somebody did when you first moved out there, now you want to talk to Laurie, because I probably got elected the first time because of her.
Speaker 1:Because she was involved.
Speaker 2:Go ahead.
Speaker 1:What was your involvement in town?
Speaker 3:Well, my involvement started with PTA and so I worked at the Bank of New Island before we had our children. I worked until two weeks before I had my daughter. And two of my friends also lived out here and they're still my best friends and you know we all worked together at the Bank of Blue Island and moved out here. And Eleanor, who also an old woman who'd already lived out here, she lived over in the homes over here. She passed away Her dad, she and her husband passed away. The daughter lives over here and so you know there was people we knew out here and you know the husbands all got to know each other. So we've been friends for forever out here. And so the three of us, us all our kids, are basically close, very close to the I mean one couple done. Donna's kids are at the same age as our kids. Karen's kids are a year or two older, okay, and that's so very close so we all got involved in PTA, brought a lot of good things to PTA.
Speaker 3:When I got involved on the board I was treasurer, and I got involved because of my banking experience and because you know room, other money sometimes didn't quite get where it was supposed to go, things like that. So that's why I got involved as treasure. And then my kids were finished with grade school, so then I got out, but then the playscape was being built.
Speaker 3:I was asked to come back as treasure. And then they gave me a lifetime pin for PTA because I came back as as treasurer for the for the play scape, okay. So uh, and I think I stayed on for a year or two and then the money from the play stay, can't escape. The PTA then turned over the money we had left after the building. We turned over to the school for the care of it, and whatever happened with the money after that I have no idea, because my kids were, you know long gone.
Speaker 3:But then I also. I also was the chairman of American Cancer here one year and I have to say it was the most money ever collected. But I myself personally walked all of Eastside and 45, which nobody ever bothered to do before. But they were part of Mokena even though they were unincorporated. So we we took in a lot of money. They asked me to be on the cancer board but I turned them down because I had too many other things going on at the time.
Speaker 3:Back in the late 80s I, a friend of mine who's an artist from Frankfurt came over one day and she says would you do a show here at the house for me with her artwork watercolor artist and calligraphy artist? And I looked at her and I said just you. And she said well. And I said well, why don't we do more than just you? So took this house, turned couches on their sides, made them into tables. We used the smallest bedroom upstairs. The kids were a little bit older so they weren't in you know cribs or anything anymore and Marge and I started what was called Country Craft Cupboard and we made no money the money we made at the door because we finally started asking for like a dollar at the door later on and we did six shows on toll, but not here because we got after the I don't know that's too big.
Speaker 3:I don't know if we had one or two shows here, but it got so big that the buses couldn't get through. Wow, so I got in trouble because the buses couldn't get through. So Frank came up with the idea what about model homes? So we went and used Barrington Square, two homes in there. We used one on 104th Avenue In.
Speaker 2:Marley.
Speaker 3:In Marley and then I started having some problems because I was in so much from Alba Hyde so I didn't know why at the time.
Speaker 2:But I was.
Speaker 3:So we went to. I tried to use St Mary's Church but unfortunately they wouldn't let me use it because I wasn't going to use the kitchen. And I said but I'm trying to give you money. You can charge via the door so that you can make money to finish your kitchen. But they wouldn't let me do it, so I went to St John's. I went to St John's at the school. I did want the school too. I remember I went to St John's at the school. I did one at the school too. I might have gone to the school next and used the school one year and then I ended up at. St John's was the last shows and in the. Is that building still there?
Speaker 2:No, that's the old one.
Speaker 3:The old one's gone, where they replaced it with a new, and that was great. That was a great place because I normally had the crafts, but I also brought in antiques to use as decorating pieces, to set. You know, and you know, husbands slept in the model homes to protect them.
Speaker 1:And how many years did you do the show for?
Speaker 3:It might have been six years Okay.
Speaker 2:And you see, these were legitimate homemade crafts, nothing said, made in China. Yeah, they were really some of the nicest stuff you ever want to see.
Speaker 3:We would travel to, like we went to Iowa once to check out an artist. You know we'd go to Indiana. We'd go to people's homes and make sure they were doing it themselves.
Speaker 1:And did you buy any pieces yourself during that time?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, spent a lot of money, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that's great, and what else? I know that. I think the first time I met you was with the Garden Walk, right, yeah, tell me a little bit about that, how long that was going or when that got started.
Speaker 3:The reason I started the garden walk is because everybody was depressed with covid and I knew that the chamber was going down because people don't realize it's a 501c3 so and people are thinking the government's helping everybody else out there. But they got nothing. So one day I called Melissa over to the backyard and you know COVID. So we sat outside in the backyard and I said I've got an idea and I'd already checked out with my one good friend, donna, who's got a beautiful yard across the street from the village hall in the corner there.
Speaker 1:Oh, sure, yeah.
Speaker 3:And another person I talked to. So I knew I had three gardens on my own. I said I've got an idea and I'd already been driving around town. So I said I know how to do all the applications, I know how to do the legalese, except you have to take it to a lawyer and have it fine-tuned. I knew exactly how to do everything. I said the only thing I can do is social media. So so I said and I'll find the gardens, you know, I'll set all this up. And I said are you interested? So she might've said yes that day, but she had to take it back to the board. So they went for it and they made a nice chunk of money, right?
Speaker 1:here and I got to. I volunteered and I got to work at the weber uh estate, the property there. You worked with bill over there uh on the property. He was riding around and I I talked to him back by his pool but what an amazing property. He's an amazing man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bill's an amazing man. I was in shock. Bill's an amazing man.
Speaker 3:The history there. So we did it. Except for so we did it 20, maybe we might have done it 2021, skip 22. Okay, and then I brought it back last year and then this year I had somebody at the last minute was going on vacation. Another one was going on vacation, another one was going on vacation. And I thought, and I went out looking for people Because when I go out looking first I know in my head what I want, because when I set this up, I don't want the same thing, I want different. And this is what last year the compliments were that it was different, the garden went all the same and they loved how I organized it. You know the trip through the whole thing yeah.
Speaker 3:Because, so I have in my head what I want I want to make sure that people are doing the work themselves. So because, oh, there's beautiful gardens, but they're not done by a true gardener.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so believe me, me, I've worked myself to death out here, so that's how it came about I just wanted people to have something to enjoy and they could wear a mask in the gardens, or they didn't have to, it was their choice and like that weber property I mean I drive by it probably most days and to get to walk through it, though, and see the miniature horses back there and things you never never even knew you see the piece of property to the east of it.
Speaker 2:You see the flat piece of property to the east of it yeah that was like that. So bill brought trees in. Wow, he brought dirt in to give it a rolling look. He did all that work. I mean it's he moved out in 1942.
Speaker 1:1942? Wow.
Speaker 2:And he went to Leo High School.
Speaker 1:Leo High School.
Speaker 2:Yep, where I graduated from. Oh my gosh. A little bit after Bill though, yeah, but he would take the train. He would take the Metro or Rock Island into 79th Street. His dad was a teacher at CVS. He taught Dick Buckus.
Speaker 1:Really Exactly.
Speaker 3:But in between the other years, when my kids were still at school, I also a teacher, a third grade teacher was getting sick in the schools and I watched it and our son was sprayed with two Fordionis bare legs as the kids were walking home from school, because back then they just had a janitor spraying pesticides and people didn't realize how dangerous it was. And he came home and was crying and sadly I was in the hospital at the time and he went to a neighbor and you know he, she didn't know what was wrong with him but I was told later and then, um, he started to have some health problems, found that it was caused by this. And so in talking to Mrs Burrs then, because she went in, so that was the end of second grade, may of second grade year, so I had her for third year and she came to me one day and she says you know, your son's missing a lot of school. And I said, well, yeah, because he's constantly got strep throat and different things, and I was able to get some testing done on him and realize what had happened.
Speaker 3:And then that year, again, third grade, they again had treated the fields and he got sick Same way, came home throwing himself on the couch, stomach killing. He was crying, you know he's got flu-like symptoms and anyway, so that, and uh, talking to me about something else, I ended up educating myself on pesticides and clean air and there's books everywhere upstairs is loaded thousands of dollars for the books and I um worked with Illinois Education Pesticide, which is a group of women. The head of that at the time worked for the EPA and we worked on IPM 2000 in schools and we passed that bill and my son and I testifying in Springfield is what was the company? Was it the senator or state rep?
Speaker 2:Senator Bill.
Speaker 3:Bill what.
Speaker 2:I can't remember.
Speaker 3:He said our testimony, pat pushed that bill over and we'd also testified in Wisconsin for another cause, and so then I came back to the schools and was called the Chemical Use Committee and at one time some parents were trying to blame the Chemical Use Committee on the fact that more kids were sick. Interesting enough, the superintendent at the time said okay, laurie, do your thing again. I spent 100 hours in one week and reread everything. Went back and we had a meeting, board meeting, and having run into a respiratory therapist from one of the hospitals downtown who ended up being having a son in the same teachers's class several years later, right, so I got him to also talk to the board and gave him some articles to read before he came to the meeting and his son was also having problems.
Speaker 3:So we did a lot of cleanup at the school. We got rid of what was called disinfected fogging, where they just sprayed doorknobs and everything, because all that stuff's a pesticide and it's there to kill. Anything beside means to kill, but it also is hurting people, and at the time I also was after Roundup that's 30-some-odd years ago but they thought I was totally nuts. And look where Roundup is.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:So she's been a busy lady.
Speaker 1:Let's talk a little bit about when you decided to run for office or what made you first get into politics in Mokena.
Speaker 2:I was always involved in different things. I'm one of those people that I don't believe you should just exist. If you live in a community, you should try to give something back to it. So I'll never forget we were out here what two years.
Speaker 2:And I was talking to Gail O'Connor out in front and I said I said I'm going to run for trustee and he says what the heck that's not the word he used, what the heck do you know? And he chewed me out for about 10 minutes. Wow, you don't just run for trustee. So I waited a little bit longer. My friend, mike Everett, who was the youngest mayor, back then in 1985 he put me on the Zoning and Planning Commission.
Speaker 2:So at the time I was on there with Steve White and we did a lot of changing, got rid of a lot of the multifamily. And we did a lot of changing, got rid of a lot of the multifamily, changed a lot of sizes, from 50, 60, you know, to 100, 100, or to 12,500 square feet Lots. So we did a lot of work. That was a good board. Rob Horace was on there. Mark Schoenweiss that was a good board. Everybody on there knew on there, mark shown weiss that was there was a good board. Everybody on there knew what the heck? You know what was going on. And then, um, then, after a couple years, I figured that I'd want to. Now we're with trustee. So I ran with ron grotowski and Gary Chase. So all of us got on.
Speaker 1:Was that Ron Grotowski when he was running for mayor, or was he as trustee running?
Speaker 2:for trustee. He was trustee, okay, he was running for trustee and I got involved in that.
Speaker 1:And who was the mayor at that time?
Speaker 2:Mike was still a mayor. Mike was mayor, okay, right, and Ron came after Mike, and at the time too I was put on a committee to pick the new administrator. So I was involved with John Downs. I chaired the Comprehensive Planning Commission. I chaired the Boundary Committee. I just got involved in all kinds of stuff. I knew at the time that if we didn't get boundaries, orlin and Tinley and whoever would just eat us up.
Speaker 1:So what does that mean? If we don't get boundaries I mean we had, if we didn't expand the boundaries of Waukena?
Speaker 2:If we didn't set our boundaries, we'd be in trouble so what did the boundary look like at that point?
Speaker 2:uh, that well, you had just a lot of unincorporated mochina you had orland park, you know that was uh, on 179th street over there and they worked their way over to 80. You had tinley park. That was sitting on. They had the water reclamation district north of 191st, west of 80th Avenue. So they would have been moving over this way and they did a little bit because you see how they infringe, you know, into our area on the east side and Frankfurt. I knew it was just a matter of time before Frankfurt and New Lenox would do the same thing down south and they did. They came together down south, so Mokina couldn't go any further. So you know, I talked to the board and told the board that I think it's something we should do and it's a freshman trustee with people like bob burke, bob chazara, ron grotowski, gary chase, and they let me do it. Wow, and thank god we did, because I'll tell you right now, tinley park would be on 191st to LaGrange if we didn't set those boundaries Wow.
Speaker 3:Had you gone to the schooling already.
Speaker 2:No, I went to the schooling. I think in my third term I went to the. There was a course on municipal Third year in that term there was a course at the University of Chicago for municipal excellence. You went one weekend for six months. We went down to Springfield twice, we went to the campus up here in Champaign, urbana, twice and then we went to the McDonald's facility that they had out there and we just learned everything Zoning and planning, running meetings, dealing with the press, everything.
Speaker 1:Was there anybody from those classes that you took it with that? You know of that became other village leaders around the area, tim.
Speaker 2:Balderman, oh really, tim was in the same class. I was, okay, wow, that's kind of so we went into that and learned a lot, learned a heck of a lot, yeah.
Speaker 3:And a trustee that was from Woodrover Illinois. Yeah, that then became she became mayor. Well, he was mayor.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, and she went to school with her Went to high school with her.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Wow, and she would call up and ask me for different things and it was. She was a nice lady to work with.
Speaker 2:Politics becomes a small world, it doesn't but the thing is, all this stuff is important, especially when you're mayor. You cannot live in a vacuum. You've got to go to all of these things. You've got to go. I belong to the Will County Governmental League. I belong to the South Suburban Mayors and Managers. I go to CED meetings.
Speaker 2:I was on, you know I'm on the board of the IED, you know IED Council with the CED, mokina, frankfurt, mokina, orland and Tinley. We have our own IAD committee to market the IAD corridor. I go to different functions and I've gotten a few people to come in here and develop. Mcallister's was a direct result of me meeting somebody and I've gotten a few people to come in here and develop. Mcallister's was a direct result of me meeting somebody in Las Vegas at the CISA what is it? Cisa, icsc, icsc convention and he came up and he wanted to know why it was so hard to work with Mokina and I said what are you talking about? So he explained to me everything. I called up a couple people and they got things moving and that's why McAllister's is out there.
Speaker 1:We just ate there the other day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great place, but that's what you have to do as an elected official. You can't just go to meetings on Monday night. You know, when my kids were growing up, I appreciated the people that were coaching them very much. But if you're not going to learn how to do it right, no thanks. And I feel the same way with elected officials. I think it's great that people want to be elected officials, but if you don't want to learn to do it right, if you don't want to go to conferences and seminars and just come to board meetings, you're hurting the village. Yeah, but the only thing that's the only thing is you is you know you can't go back.
Speaker 2:But all of this stuff took a lot away from my family. Yeah, and thank God that Lori, let me do it.
Speaker 3:But even though she let me do it, she still got stuck doing a lot of stuff. Yeah, but we still went to games and stuff together. Both our kids played for varsity soccer, so they played in all the club teams all summer.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:And we only got to go on a few good vacations like to Colorado and stuff, because you had to be there.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah To practice.
Speaker 2:Because she wrote down a few things here and you know one of them. We talked about coaching. Being on the credit union DeWalt County Center for Community Concerns, chuck Edelman back in 1979, put me on that and I'm still on it Wow, take care of the needy and assist the needy in Will County. Why heap weatherization programs and different things like that, you know, and there's just a.
Speaker 3:You were chairman for 10 years.
Speaker 2:Chairman for 10 years there. So all this stuff yeah.
Speaker 1:So you were a trustee for how many years? 16. Okay, and then tell me what happens next. You decide to run for mayor.
Speaker 2:Well, what happened was is we had a little bit of turmoil here in the village, okay, and you probably heard enough about Home Depot out there on 30. You probably heard people talk about that, that kind of split the town a little bit Okay.
Speaker 1:Because, that was initially potentially coming to Mokena? Is that the?
Speaker 2:story. Yeah, Okay, and that pretty much people wanted to get rid of people on the board. So me, Joseph Winske and Joe Werner all lost that election at the same time as trustees. Two years later was it two years later, Something like that, maybe four years later Joe and I ran against each other for mayor with another person.
Speaker 3:With Vince.
Speaker 2:With Vince Joe won, I lost and Vince lost. But what's really interesting about things is that when I look back at that time, I don't believe I would have been a good mayor because I wasn't ready yet. I was not ready to be mayor.
Speaker 1:What do you think you were missing at that point? Looking back now like, why do you say that? What weren't you ready for?
Speaker 2:I don't know if I was ready for the responsibility. I was horrible at dealing with people, really horrible. I just didn't. You know, I was good dealing with the residents and handling committees because I chaired a neighborhood committee. I was good talking to residents. But if there was something that I wanted to get done and you didn't understand me, I would be.
Speaker 3:Because he'd gone to all the schooling and others had never really gone to anything. Sure, when he was trying to get a point across, he would come home frustrated because they didn't understand what he was talking about. Because he learned municipal government, yeah.
Speaker 2:But there's ways of getting that across to people. Yeah, that's why, when Joe became mayor, that time I think it was a good thing, because he worked at getting the people together. You know he handled that very well.
Speaker 1:We talked when I did the episode about Mayor Werner. We talked about him a little bit and you know, it came a point where you were both running against each other and then he dropped out of the race.
Speaker 2:That I don't understand to this day.
Speaker 1:No, there was never a conversation.
Speaker 2:Nope, I still don't. You know, joe never told me. I don't think he ever told anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nobody that I talked to seemed to really have.
Speaker 2:I don't understand why he dropped out, but do you want to talk about a surreal moment? I was sitting on the floor with the kids Somebody called me up and said Joe dropped out. Right at that point, guess what You're going to be the mayor.
Speaker 1:How's that feel? What's that moment feel like that was very strange.
Speaker 3:It was scary.
Speaker 2:Because it is the old story be careful what you wish for, yeah. So it took me from that point to being sworn in, to be comfortable with myself, to be comfortable doing it.
Speaker 1:And what do you do in that time? What's that transition period look like?
Speaker 2:You mean after Like does anything change?
Speaker 1:Is there any formal process of handing over the?
Speaker 2:mayorship. We were there that night. Joe was, you know, the mayor talks about what they've done and stuff like that. Joe was up there talking when Joe was done. Then I went up and got sworn in.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then I went from there. But I was a trustee for 16 years.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah.
Speaker 2:You're not walking into a new shop, that's it.
Speaker 1:This is, yeah, your home.
Speaker 2:But again, you could be mayor for 100 years and not know what it's like until you get into that position. I knew the mechanics. I knew how to run a meeting because I also was chair on different committees. I was chair on the Will County Center and I dealt with a lot of. I dealt with Roger Clare on that board. I dealt with Renee Kozol on that board. I dealt with different elected officials from the state and I had to run those meetings and that's where I learned how to deal with people, because if I got snippy, I got snippy back and their snippy was worse than my snippy.
Speaker 1:What are some of the biggest challenges that you faced, especially in the early years of being mayor?
Speaker 2:Well, I ran against the guys that eventually still got back on. They were upset that I ran with a certain person. Okay, and so I met with each one of them, one at a time, over a cup of coffee, found out what they were concerned about and told them that I'm just here to work and get stuff done.
Speaker 1:So what was it like then, working with these trustees that ran against you, that were not? You know they were concerned that you didn't have the same vision as them, or whatever it was. Obviously, as you mentioned, you talked to them, but do you feel like there was a good working relationship? Did it take a while At times?
Speaker 2:Yeah, At times we had differences, then we have differences now. That's just the way you look at things. I was not going to when I came back. I was not going to promote from within. After 25, 30 years of having the same administrator, I wanted to bring somebody else in that did things a little differently. Same thing with the chief of police. It's not that I didn't like anybody else, I just needed to bring somebody in.
Speaker 3:Does average administrators only stay at a village? What? Four to five years, sometimes Four to five years Because you need new IDs, you need new blood Sure and it brings different things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was a tough part. I mean I, I. The other thing is Israel. When I learned, when I became an elected official, I learned with a completely different age group group of people. That's where I learned. Now I'm working with different people who, while I was gone for those 12 years, did things different ways. They learned different ways. I don't necessarily agree with the way they learned, but the world still goes around.
Speaker 2:That's the way life is, but the world still goes around. Yeah, that's all. That's the way life is. That doesn't make anybody bad.
Speaker 1:There's just a difference of opinion, and one of the big things that happened this year for the village was the police department, and that was a long time coming. You shared with us that that land was actually purchased back when Joe Werner was the mayor. So that process took a long time to come. But talk a little bit about that and what you think of the results and how we got here.
Speaker 2:There's no doubt we definitely need a new police station. That other police station, as you know, was dangerous. It wasn't set up properly. You don't have the proper lockup cells, you don't have the bad guy away where he can't hurt the good guy. It was very, very dangerous and if the board back in 2008 didn't buy that piece of property, we'd still be looking for a piece of property. So that was be looking for a piece of property. So that was the best thing that anybody could have did, because now we just had to concentrate on the building and what we wanted Didn't have to go out looking for a piece of property. We brought the people in there. We had three different police chiefs give their opinion.
Speaker 1:And why did it take so long to go from 2008 all the way up to 2024?
Speaker 2:Economy and then the sewer treatment plant needed to be upgraded. But sometimes you can be too frugal. We needed that police station. I feel bad with what we put our officers through and thank God nobody got hurt. But we had good people on that committee. Randy stump, our deputy chief commander at the time. He did a marvelous job. He did a fantastic job going to different stations, talking to people, learning what needed to be put in the station, pros and cons for different things. Tim McCarthy was a godsend.
Speaker 1:Oh, was he a big part of it as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he helped us out. After Steve, you know, resigned, we didn't have anybody, we didn't know what to do. So we ended up with, you know, I called up tim. And then john called up tim and he said he'd come over now. Tim went to leo high school also, did he really? I think he graduated a year before me. So tim went there too, so he came over and helped us out. And then John Keating remember when I said early, be careful what you wish for. Well, he became chief and I really do feel that he didn't want to be chief. Oh yeah, he was more of a police officer's chief. Okay, and then call up Tim again. What does Tim do? He gets in touch with Chief Benton, talks to him a little bit. Chief Benton is interested. This guy is the best. Yeah, this guy, he's got to be high on the ladder for some of the best chiefs in Illinois.
Speaker 1:He knows his stuff, he's very easy to get along with he was great when we did the tour of the police station and all of the officers to see the excitement on their face and just glowing of that facility and Chief Benton just had so many great things to say Well, everybody was walking around with their chests out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't know how that hurt me not being able to be there, but it wasn't for me, it was for the residents and it was for the police officers, and they both liked it.
Speaker 1:Well, it was a huge community-wide achievement. I mean it was, as I said, even the excitement in the officers and what they said as far as attracting good talent and people to our police department, what that means for the community.
Speaker 2:Well, what you're exactly right? Because it's going to attract more recruits, and good recruits, but it's also going to help us retain them. Yeah, because not every place has a gun range downstairs. Not every place is using the technology we have. Also, the other thing that's happening is that Chief Benton has different departments or different programs that the people can go to. We're trying to get an officer in DEA, drug enforcement. We're going to have a canine officer. We've got the drone group, which we have people coming in and watching our drone program, learning about the drones through our people.
Speaker 1:That's really an interesting program.
Speaker 2:Oh, that impresses the hell out of me.
Speaker 1:The video of them finding the guys with the heat camera, night vision, whatever it was. That's just amazing. What do you think a mayor?
Speaker 2:feels like when they come from other communities and go to your police station to find out what's going on. We used to go every place else, and now we're doing it here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. So one thing that came up during the walkthrough in kind of sense is that the next thing kind of on the village's books is a potential new village hall yeah, that's going to be important.
Speaker 2:But now I had to put a committee together first to look for the property. So they're going through the different properties out there, looking at them, getting that arranged, figuring out which are the ones that they want to go talk to and, um, figuring about how big we want the piece of property. It's not an easy task. Yeah, we're going to talk about all locations. Everything's going to come up.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good. That's a sign of another growth in our community recognizing that our public buildings need to be matching the village.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 20,000 population is not small.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:It might be small when you look at Orland Park, tinley Park, joliet, rockford, chicago, but we're in the top 25% our size, and there's 1,250 municipalities in's just roughly say 1,250 municipalities in Illinois. So we're not small anymore. We might be compared to some of these other locations, some of these other municipalities, but Mokena is up there now.
Speaker 1:Well, so let me ask you there was word around that you're considering maybe running for mayor again. You want to tell me about that, or what your thoughts are?
Speaker 2:I didn't want to get into politics. I wanted to stay away from that. So far, this has been great, talking about Laurie and myself and different things, but I'm going to run again. I don't care who knows it, but I'm going to run again. Okay, I don't care who knows it, yeah, I'm going to run again. There's a couple more things I want to do. I'm the one that's going to be able to get them done. So then, what do you see?
Speaker 1:as your vision for the next four years for Mokina.
Speaker 2:I touched on it a little bit before. I want to make the town more bicycle accessible. I want trails in town. I want a trail from the Forest Preserve through Mr Yonkers' property going to the downtown. I want to put Willow Street in, connect it to McGovern Street so you have people from the East Area being able to go down Willow and come right into our downtown. I want Mokina to be in the top group of municipalities that are the best areas to live and there's no reason that we can't have that. If you look at what Mokena has with the forest preserve and the lakes or the creeks. Years ago the forest preserve district had plans Mike Pasteris was the director back then and they had plans of putting winter activities in the Forest Preserve here Cross-country skiing, tubing hills, things like that. I want to find out if they're still looking into that. Shame of it is we don't have any snow anymore, right, but I want to see if they're going to do something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that would be great.
Speaker 3:Wasn't Mike involved with the Morton Arboretum?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, years ago we had Dr George Werf in the Morton Arboretum looking at that area and some of the plants in there and stuff are indigenous to this area. Some of the plants in there and stuff are indigenous to this area. I got a developer mad at me years ago because what he was going to do was going to kill part of the forest preserve and that would have been this area. It would have taken out a ravine and it would have destroyed a lot of the forest preserve. I asked Dr Ware to come out from Morton Arboretum. He walked the area and that's what he reported to us that we could possibly lose 100 acres Geez, 100 acres if we allow that subdivision to go in the walking path down, you know down to the bottom to keep on going over the creek and stuff.
Speaker 3:That's the area that would have gotten marked out because that developer got his house in there.
Speaker 1:Oh sure.
Speaker 3:He doesn't live there anymore. I don't think.
Speaker 1:Wow, I was wondering about that property.
Speaker 2:If you're going to ask a question, what is the thing I'm most proud of? That is a big thing. That's one of the things on top that is a big thing. That's one of the things on top. Yeah, that's huge. Just don't ask me, if I had to do it all over again, what I'd take back.
Speaker 1:How about this and we'll wrap this up because this has been a great conversation but what advice would you give to other people that want to get involved in the community as well as want to get involved in politics? Do?
Speaker 2:it it's not. Go Pull out a petition. Get somebody to explain it's got to be filled out a certain way. Don't think you know how to fill it out, go to an attorney or get somebody that has done it before and when you're done filling it out, go back to that attorney to make sure it's filled out the right way. Now I don't know if running for the other taxing bodies is going to cost that much. Running for the village it's going to cost a couple bucks. But if three people want to run, they want to pool the money together. Then they could run, but my name is not etched on the back of my chair. They could run, but my name is not etched on the back of my chair. Etched in that says anytime that Frank Fleischer runs, he's going to be the mayor.
Speaker 2:I've never told somebody not to run for office. I've never got mad at them for running for office. If somebody runs against me and they beat me, so be it. That's why people have the right to run for trustee. If you don't like something in your town, run Do it. Don't sit there and cry about it and complain about it. Put the time in and run for office.
Speaker 3:But he wants to see younger people get involved.
Speaker 2:Oh, please, I want to see some younger people get involved. They don't understand. My generation is done. I want to see younger people get involved so they can put their own town together. That's important. Now you might say, well, what are you running for? I mean, you're 74 years old, Because I would like to be in a position to teach the new trustees before I leave, If in fact, we get some and we've got a comprehensive plan coming up. Don't just complain about what's happening. Go to those comprehensive plan meetings when we make our presentation to what we're doing. Go there and see if you like it. This is your town 20,000 plus people, and there's only seven of us up there that make the decision. I don't like making decisions like that for 20,000 people. I want them to tell me what they want their town to be. We will have time for you. There's going to be. We're going to get.
Speaker 3:Because he headed the company, too, playing years ago. How many years ago?
Speaker 2:Back in 1980, back in 1989, 1990.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow yeah.
Speaker 2:So, but that's where I learned a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I learned a ton doing that.
Speaker 1:Well, it always takes, you know, people stepping up and getting involved in all sorts of ways, whether it be civic organizations or finding a cause or something they're passionate about or running for one of the offices, yeah, yeah, and tagging on to what Matt's been doing for so many years.
Speaker 1:So thank you for your years of service, both of you, and what the time and commitment that you've put into improving Mokina and continue to do today. And I can't thank you enough for sitting down with me tonight. Finally, finally, but you know, like you don't even realize, you know, could, I'm sure, talk for another two hours.
Speaker 2:You know it's uh oh, that's good, that's good um but and thank you for doing this- oh thank you.
Speaker 2:You're taking the time to get a little history about moquina, to get people's feelings and things, and and I think that's a good thing we don't have a newspaper anymore. You basically are the voice, and it's a shame we don't have a newspaper anymore because people don't know what we do. I mean, I hear all this stuff about New Lenox especially. Well, they give their tax money back to their people. Well, guess what? We don't take it in the first place. We don't have a utility tax, we don't have tax on gas, on electricity, and we've got a very small tax on telephone. You're paying 7.5% in sales tax. This is one of the least expensive places to live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the smallest tax base, isn't that right?
Speaker 3:in Will County we hear all the time about people come to Mokena, to Meyers and Ordnance, not Ordnance actually the old names because we're talking old yeah, and they like to come here because they save ordinance. New Lenox, actually, the old name is because we're talking old, yeah, and they like to come here because they save money.
Speaker 2:That's it. Mokena is 7 1⁄2. Frankfurt is 8. New Lenox is 9. And Tiddly and Arlen Park are in the stratosphere somewhere. But this is a good town. We've got a lot of good elected officials over here. Mayors, you don't have to agree with everybody. That's not the way it works. How long have you been out here?
Speaker 1:So August will be eight years.
Speaker 2:You've been out here eight years now. Yeah, would you go anyplace else?
Speaker 1:I love Mokina. I can't imagine I love being in downtown Mokina. I can't imagine I love being in downtown Mokina.
Speaker 2:I can't imagine going anywhere else, because there's a lot of people that leave and come back. There's a lot of young people that get married and come back. It is a good town. It is a very good town with good people well, thank you again this is really good, I appreciate the time.
