March 4th, 2025 Mokena's Future Meet & Greet

Tuesday, March 4th, the Mokena's Future slate hosted their 3rd meet and greet at Clancy Bros. Coffee. There next meet and greet will be Tuesday March 18th at Clancy Bros. 

Early voting starts March 17th and election day is April 1st! Be sure to subscribe to our channel and vote on election day!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction at Clancy Brothers
• 1:00 Candidate Introductions and Vision for Mokina
• 4:00 The Importance of Community Engagement
• 9:00 Plans for Downtown Development and Growth
• 15:00 Infrastructure and Traffic Studies Discussion
• 20:00 Closing Remarks and Future Aspirations

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

I'm out here again at Clancy Brothers. Tonight is the third of the candidate meet and greets for the Mocana's Future Slate. So you can see here we are at Clancy's. Let's hear what they have to say and see who came out tonight to hear from these candidates.

Speaker 2: 0:18

Okay, thank you all for coming out tonight. We appreciate it in the crummy weather. It means a lot to all of us that you took the time to come out here tonight and you want to know where we're going to try to take the village of Molina. And one of the trustees is Dick Clancy. The other trustee is Jim Roberts, and Kim Yulsman couldn't make it tonight because she's got parent-teacher zone and that she can't see it. But we were just sitting down yesterday, all of us. We got big plans for Mokina, but I can't do anything unless these trustees get in.

Speaker 2: 1:00

This is the best group of people I've ever run with. This is my 10th campaign and I get sick of people. I'm hearing from some people oh, you've been doing this for so many years. Fine, I've been doing a good job for so many years. There's absolutely no reason to change it right now and bring someone in who's untested, even though he's taking credit for everything we do in Moltena. That's fine. I'm not. I can't do anything without my staff, but I really can't do anything without the board, because I don't vote. I put the agenda together for all of our meetings. I talk to different people, I talk to businesses about coming into Molina, but I don't vote. So my opponent likes to try to blame me for everything that goes on, but I've tried to do things. You saw all the information in front of you. I've been trying to put it downtown together for years, but they have to vote. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to hand it to nick next and let you go.

Speaker 3: 2:14

Awesome, thank, you, mayor, uh, yeah, yeah. Just to echo what the mayor had to say about you guys being here tonight, thank you. It's a rainy Tuesday night, you know. I'm sure a lot of us would rather be in our homes, you know, kicking it up, watching TV, but thank you for coming out and being here. It shows that you actually care about what's happening in your town. So thank you for that. I just want to talk a little bit about just who I am and what kind of motivates me to run and what is special about Mokina and that's kind of a major influence for why I'm up here today.

Speaker 3: 2:53

I'll tell a quick story. About three years ago we, me and my brother we came into Mokina looking for a home for Clancy Brothers Coffee Roasters and we looked down Front Street here in downtown Mokena and my brother, chris, said all right, we can cross Mokena off the list. I said, gee, that was kind of quick, you know. So we kind of just moved on. But my sister, who has lived in Mokena for 14 years, called me back and says you have to see this bank building on the corner of Wolf and the Port. Did you not see this beautiful brick building on the corner of Wolf on the Port. Did you not see this beautiful brick building on the corner of Wolf on the Port? No, I didn't. We just left because the downtown was kind of sad. And so we came back and we looked in this building and I caught this feeling. People say don't make decisions on feelings, but I had a feeling. I said there's something happening here in Mokina that I want to be a part of, and so opening a business is a leap of faith, no matter where you decide to open up your business. But I just knew that we wanted to be on the cusp of what's going to happen here in Mokina, and that, primarily, is with the businesses that we hope to attract here in this amazing town. And we have some big plans for downtown, and so I want to tell another quick story just to kind of give you an idea of what that plan will entail for the downtown.

Speaker 3: 4:14

I was sitting with a friend over coffee, of all things, the other day, and he's in his late 20s and he's planning to build a family. Right, he just got married, and so he sat down with his wife and he said okay, we got two kids and we want to shoot for five. So that means we have to have three more. So we live in this tiny little duplex. So we need to start planning for how we're going to be able to handle this population growth. And so we're going to have to get that minivan. We're going to have to get a minivan. We're going to have to get a bigger house. We're going to have to maybe start working some more hours. You might have to get a second job, right? So all that to say.

Speaker 3: 4:53

When you decide to sit down and grow a family, you plan for it. You sit down and you figure out what you're going to have to do in order to be able to handle that kind of growth. And so what we plan to do, before we even think about growing the population, developing the downtown, is to actually sit down and put a comprehensive plan together. And that's exactly what we've done. We put a plan together to say, okay, we're going to build this beautiful town, this beautiful downtown that's going to attract residents from all over these surrounding towns that come into Mokena. The population is going to go up. Can we handle that? Do we have the framework to accommodate that kind of growth?

Speaker 3: 5:34

And so it's been brought to my attention that things like traffic studies are unnecessary here in Mokina, but that traffic study is actually part of that greater plan to sit down and figure out how are we going to handle an influx of people coming to tour our great town from Tinley and Orland and New Lenox and Homer Glen and all these awesome towns around us.

Speaker 3: 5:56

We have to sit down and be able to know that our roads can handle it and that we're set up for success, and so that's kind of where my mind goes for growing this town is just the downtown and making sure that we're set up for success, and so that's kind of where my mind goes for growing this town is just the downtown and making sure that we're doing things in an orderly manner. And I'm just really excited to not only bring leadership to the table but to be under great leadership. Our mayor has been an amazing leader and he's shared his vision with me enough so that I'm going to run for trustee. If you would have asked me I'm going to run for trustee six months ago I would have told you no, but because of the leadership and the vision that he has and getting to know Jim and just we have a great team here. And so if you believe in the vision that we have, I'd say vote for us, just go ahead and speak through your vote and we'll get to work. So thank you.

Speaker 4: 6:54

Last. I'm Jim Roberts. I've lived in the building since 1990. I moved in with my wife, peggy over here, and my three daughters. At the time my youngest one was three days old. So they've grown up here. They're all married with nine grandkids now. So life in Moketa has been great. Love it here. This is my career, retirement in 2019.

Speaker 4: 7:17

So just to tell you quickly how I got up here, frank and I had been talking about internet services in the village and how expensive they've gotten and that I consider it a utility nowadays, just like we used to think about a phone in a house, kids were learning at home and all that, and they needed the internet. So it's pretty expensive. So how are we going to do that? So I talked to him about classifying as a utility doing a study, whatever it would take. Maybe we could get grant money to figure out how to build an infrastructure for Internet for the people of Molkina. And so we had a few conversations and out of nowhere you know, frank calls and says hey, I got an opening on the board and I was like, wow, that's a solid money number one. So, anyway, so I agreed to do it and on November 11th I was sworn in as a trustee.

Speaker 4: 8:10

So I've been on the board about four months and you know when I then he talked me into this, running also this on top of it. But being on the board for four months, I tell you what it's an eye-opener. People that are in the village that aren't engaged have no idea what's going on in the village. There's stuff being built all over the village. Every corner of the village has got something going on and we've got opponents that say nothing's going on. We need new leadership and I can tell you I've had Frank how many hours have you? And I talked Probably in the hundreds by now right Yesterday myself and Nick came in.

Speaker 2: 8:51

Yeah, yesterday we were here for two hours, and the ideas that we came up with were unbelievable.

Speaker 4: 8:55

Right, and the thing about Nick was, you know, I didn't know Nick and we started talking and found out that Nick thinks the same way we do. You know, I'm like twice his age, probably over twice his age, but here's this guy. He thinks just like we do. So all this made me want to run, yeah, yeah. So I decided to run again and as Nick was talking about traffic studies and other stuff you have to do in the village, you know, in order to get grant money you have to do these studies. Yeah, and these studies take a long time and sometimes it seems like nothing's getting accomplished. But you know, you could do a study and it might take a year to get a study back, maybe longer, and it seems like for a year you've just been sitting on your hands with no progress. But ultimately, if you look at, you know, 191st last year, they resurfaced it that was done with grant money. Their 191st last year they resurfaced it that was done with grant money. Their study's done. We get grant money and we do it. Right now we're getting ready to do this summer we're going to be doing LaForte Road over here. It's the same thing you do a study and you get grant money, because without the grant money we would have to tax at much higher rates than we do to get the infrastructure done all the time.

Speaker 4: 10:09

Over the last couple years, we've redone the water treatment plant. Nobody's taxes went up. We did it. We built a new police department. Nobody's taxes went up. All was saved, all has been paid for. The village is. You know, when I say what am I running, what can I improve? I tell you what. The financial, the physical responsibility in this village is absolutely incredible. That's one of the lowest tax rates of anybody around and everything that goes on in that village the first thing is considered is the residents and the burden that we would put on them. And we have to find ways to pay for stuff without burdening our community. And that's my philosophy, that's Frank's philosophy, nick's philosophy. Everyone here can say our tax bills are too high, our property taxes are too high and as a village we're aware of that.

Speaker 4: 10:59

We're aware of that and we know that we cannot raise taxes. We have to find a way to be physically responsible to get the infrastructure in the village that's needed. Our number one revenue source in the village is sales tax and we are constantly aware of that and constantly knowing that we need more businesses in the village, and the right kind of businesses in the village. You know Front Street. When I moved in in 1990, they were talking about Front Street. You've got to do all this stuff on Front Street. It's going to be gorgeous.

Speaker 4: 11:33

35 years later, you know we've done nothing. I mean I shouldn't say we've done nothing. There's new buildings, there's stuff, and not to the pace that you would think in 35 years. You know, and, as I've told, think in 35 years. You know, and as I told frank and them, you know, as a sitting on the board and being part of the governors of moquina, it's our job to make downtown accessible.

Speaker 4: 11:56

Yeah, for the public, whether they're driving there, they want to ride a bike there, they want to jog there. However, they want to get down there to make it easy for them and their family to go downtown. Myself I prefer to see them walk or ride, so I'm into more bike paths and trails at Yunkers to get us into downtown, yeah, ways people can access downtown as a family easy, and so part of my thought in downtown is opening up the access points, making it easier to get in and out of Mokena, downtown Mokena and hopefully then run some fairs for businesses that we would like to come to see. Come to downtown Mokena and court them, work them as a group, and that's how I envisioned our downtown eventually getting done.

Speaker 4: 12:46

We have a TIF area. If you're not familiar with TIFs, the downtown area is a TIF area. I'm not personally fond of TIFs, but when you have an area that's as distressed as a lot of those buildings, we're just not going to find investors come in and all that stuff. So the TIF is a good way to subsidize that and get people that are interested in coming down. In the next four years, if I'm elected and Nick's elected, that's kind of like what one of our guidances is going to be. So I think that's pretty much where our visions are.

Speaker 2: 13:22

Just to give you an idea, remember when he came to that board meeting.

Speaker 5: 13:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:28

Remember what you said to me afterwards about the downtown, about the boards.

Speaker 3: 13:36

Yeah, you want me to talk about that.

Speaker 2: 13:38

Please. I think it's important that the people know where we're at.

Speaker 3: 13:41

So when we decided that we were going to give Mokina a second shot, a second look, I said I'm going to go to a board meeting, I'm just going to, you know, covertly, just go. I actually sat right next to Jimmy Schlegel. I don't know if you remember that was the first time I met Jim and I heard the mayor talk about having a viable downtown. Because that's what we planned to do. We plan to make Mokena have a viable downtown because the people here deserve it.

Speaker 3: 14:14

I got up, I walked out, called my brother.

Speaker 3: 14:17

I said we're going to come to Mokena.

Speaker 3: 14:20

So that's all I needed to hear is to have a leader who believes in businesses and small businesses and buying local and making the path just a little bit easier for people who have dreams and passions about opening up a business and to know that they have a village that's behind them, is going to be a wind behind them, to give them some momentum because you need some serious momentum when you open up a business for the first time and to know that we not only have received that but we have a mayor who believes in cultivating that and fostering those kind of relationships moving forward.

Speaker 3: 15:00

So I'm really excited, you guys. So I can't wait to see what happens here in April. But, more than anything, I just want to get to work. I want to see who we're going to be working with. I want to see who we're going to be working with, and I think that's super important. Whoever ends up in these spots is only going to be as successful as their ability to collaborate and work with the people that they're in it with, and so I'm really excited about that.

Speaker 2: 15:23

And yeah thank you, I'm glad you brought that up, because now it's election time, so everybody wants a downtown. Yeah, everybody wants a downtown. But the person I'm running against said we'll never have a downtown. We'll never have a downtown. Let the developers come in and decide what they're going to build. Can you imagine that? Let the developers come in and decide what they're going to build in our town and we won't have a plan.

Speaker 2: 15:53

I don't think he's a bad guy. I just don't think he understands how to run a village and we don't need that. We're bringing Molkina into the 20th century, 24th century. Let's not go backwards, into 1990. And I'm telling you that's where they'll bring us, because they have no idea what it takes to move forward in this town.

Speaker 2: 16:21

In the short time I worked with Jim, nick and Kim, they understand it right off the bat. They know exactly what we're talking about. They're on the same page and they've never done this before. So it's not brain surgery, it's just common sense. And if you haven't helped me out to this point, you're never going to help me out. That's why I need, in order to get the job done, I need the three people I'm running with and I promise you you will get a downtown. You will get around downtown, it will get started and we'll move forward on it and it's going to be a good downtown.

Speaker 2: 17:01

Just think about it. How many communities would love to have their downtown next to Mr Younger's farm, next to a forest preserve? Can you imagine that? I mean the setup we have here. We should have started this a long, long time ago. What the heck were they waiting for? I'll tell you they can't make a decision to save their life. That's what it was. They're not bad people. They just can't make decisions. That's all Because we need to move forward. We can't sit here the people in this town.

Speaker 2: 17:35

When I did a poll I did two polls Four years ago. I took a poll 70% of the people wanted a viable downtown. I took a poll four years later 70% of the people want a viable downtown. I don't know where these people got their information or who they were talking to, but they've been 100% wrong for all these years. It's time to get that town free residence. You pay enough in taxes. We've got to give back something. We've got to give back something Someplace to go, someplace to bring your kids to, someplace that you want to ride your bikes to and Some place that you want to ride your bikes to and run into one of your friends there with your family. That's what we need here. We've got to get you a downtown and I promise we'll do that. I might not see the end of it, but I'm going to get it started.

Speaker 4: 18:28

I promise you that.

Speaker 4: 18:30

Nick will see the end of it. You know, when we first moved in my daughters they used to come up to us. They'd go Dad who ordered that? And what would they used to say they want to walk uptown with their friends. You know, uptown and this is the 1990-91, you know we thought uptown there was like a pharmacy and a little store with some candy or whatever, and that was their thing. I would love to have places like that where kids today would say I want to go uptown and get an ice cream or get a candy bar or whatever. I'm not even sure if you'd get a candy bar on Front Street today. Maybe you can, I'm not sure where. But is there a place? No, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 19:17

When Lori and I moved out here 48 years ago, there was actually more business downtown than there is now. We bought ski jackets from a place downtown and there was other things going on down there. People have got to understand. To open up a business now, especially a restaurant, you're paying three quarters of a million dollars to outfit their restaurant. If you don't feel like the board is really, really wants you there, you're not going to invest that money. We've got to let people know that we're serious about the downtown, just like Frankfurt did. That's the way they did it. The board made a commitment. Everybody knew there was a commitment there and Frankfurt's downtown grew. That's what's going to happen to Mokina. We get up there and let people know that we're behind them. We try to give them some forms of incentive to get started and they know that the board is behind them. You'll get downtown. I promise you you'll get downtown we've had conversations.

Speaker 4: 20:24

You know, if we're fortunate to be elected, we're going to put an agenda together on the front side, frank's going to present it at the meeting, and to our administrators which I want to add to present it at the meeting and to our administrators, which I want to add to our administrators in the village. If you don't know them, these are some of the most fantastic people I've known in my life. I have never been around so many people that only know how to smile. You walk in there I'm not kenya whether it's john, our administrator, our, our attorney, uh, the clerkks working behind the counter, they have absolutely phenomenal, phenomenal personalities. Yeah, I tell you what I wish I, whoever hired all those people, I wish I'd have had them back in the day hiring people to work for me. They are, they are really, they are class people.

Speaker 2: 21:08

You know what somebody told me, jim, one thing I've learned over the years if you're in any position like me being the mayor, you get a good number one and he makes you look awful good. And that's what I did. I got somebody that knew what he was doing and I just stood back and watched him do his job. And he hired people, he brought people on and, like Jim says please, this is not a slam at any past staff, but this is the best staff that we've ever had at Mokena.

Speaker 4: 21:40

These people are good.

Speaker 4: 21:42

These are really unbelievable people and coming on the board at the time I did in November, towards the end of a four-year term, I didn't really know. Obviously I wasn't engaged, I didn't know what was going on in the village. All of a sudden I'm sitting on the board and they're wanting me to vote on stuff. But I got John, I got Carl the attorney. They're calling me and they're walking me through the history of the projects that are coming in front of the board. So you know I'm not maybe the brightest guy in the world, but I caught on pretty quickly what they were talking about. They were calling me every week on Friday and talking about next week's agenda. I made sure I read it inside and out a couple times, used the yellow highlighter because I knew I was going to get a call, and they gave me the backstop for all the stuff going on that I was going to see every week to make sure I was fully informed, because I felt to sit up there and just say, well, I don't know enough about that to vote. I thought that was kind of a cop-out. So these guys, they were amazing, absolutely amazing, bringing me up to date into what's going on in the village.

Speaker 4: 22:51

Let me tell you there's so much going on in the village. I mean it's very active Between the executive sessions, the workshop sessions and the other things going on. There's developers. There's people there almost every week talking about what they want to do in the village as far as development. So we're not dying here, we're growing. Unfortunately, some of the areas we're not growing quick enough is what people notice the most and that's downtown. They drive by that and they stop there and they go. Well, it's the same old place. It was 35 years ago. It's improved over the years, but we've got a ways to go there.

Speaker 4: 23:28

I tell you, frank's been in governance of some level for a long time but he's got a good handle on what goes on. It's his agenda that's getting passed. He creates the agenda. I don't do it, nobody else does it, and so the things that happen in the village happen and they go through him. I had some things on my agenda when they put me on the board and I quickly found out through the administrators that anything I want done on my agenda, I got to go to this guy first. So that's how I learned right away that what's going on in the village is because Frank's is putting it out there and he's setting the agenda and he doesn't take credit for stuff he does, but he just stays steady and just does it, and that's the way I like to plan.

Speaker 3: 24:20

Take a few questions.

Speaker 2: 24:22

Yeah, I think it's time.

Speaker 3: 24:23

Yeah, yeah, jim.

Speaker 5: 24:24

Jim Slayton, I'm gonna hope this will be bipartisan right. My goal is, I think I want to see 52% of the registered voters come out and vote.

Speaker 2: 24:35

And.

Speaker 5: 24:36

I think that this is going to be the best election that I think you've ever had in a, and I've always referred to Ed, but every candidate has a qualification. I think is the highest. I would not mind having it for my neighbor. We haven't said that in the past. We wouldn't want them for a neighbor. We make this agreement, but I think everyone, everybody running, would make a great neighbor. They're not a great, whatever.

Speaker 5: 25:09

The other issue is that there's been money spent on this, with signs, with meetings like this. I mean, mokina has never been more engaged in this and I think that the issue is, no matter what side of the fence you are, 80% is for change. The difference is the 20%. How to get to change. That's where the difference is. However, there's going to be like I say I want 52% because there's going to be another person in that ballot that's going to have to win, and normally in elections like this in election years, we want to get 15% to 17% for the registered voters that come out. I think it's going to be a false race. I think if we have a 17 percent turnout, one side wins by 10, one side wins by 7,. We can't have change unless we have people who we believe.

Speaker 2: 26:15

Is there a question in there, Jimmy? I?

Speaker 5: 26:16

understand. We need to get everybody out of the boat.

Speaker 2: 26:20

Understood, understood, but is there a question in there, jimmy?

Speaker 5: 26:24

The question. All I'm saying is we need to get everybody out of the boat.

Speaker 2: 26:28

I don't think anything in there. Absolutely, absolutely, jimmy. I've been saying that for 10 elections, for 10 things Getting the people out, and you're right. I don't know how to get them out. You can't go to a house and pull them out by their ear. Do the best you can, jim. That's all you can do. Does anybody else have a question? Sure, do the best you can, jim. That's all you can do. Does anybody else have a question? Yes, sure, I know you're going to be circling too much on this, but I'm really thinking back to what you said.

Speaker 5: 27:04

How a leader needs to vote for the entire state If some are elected, others are not. How do you plan to handle those difficult conversations? How do you shape your leads during the four weeks and how do you move forward when your school edits?

Speaker 2: 27:24

I've been doing it for 12 years. I've been doing it for 12 years with a board that was very hard to work with. So you learn how to do it. You learn how to get something done. We're not really a slate okay, we're a pack. We're a group of people that feel that we could do a good job. Mokina's future is not a slate, but we're running together because we have respect for each other, so we will not be grouped together on the ballot. So we're going to have Sue and you, jim, on the bottom for the four-year terms, you're going to be the second one on the two-year term and I'll be the second one in the mayor's position. But that's all you can do. You get up there and you do the best you can.

Speaker 3: 28:16

Yeah, I think if I could say something, just having business partners of my own, we don't always see eye to eye and I think what has made that easier for us is shared vision. Before you enter into a new endeavor, you have to have a true north. You have to have something that everyone agrees on, like that's essential. And if you can agree on that vision, then when there's disagreements, we can kind of say if we go this route, is that going to move the needle towards where we want to get to? If we go this route, is that going to move?

Speaker 3: 28:51

And if the answer is no, but somebody says no I think it should be yes then we just need to talk that out and make a decision based on if that's going to bring us to the vision that we've all agreed upon we want to see actualized. So it's not a perfect system, but it's a way for us to at least say hey, this is going to be collaborative, we want it to be collaborative. There are going to be disagreements. We're not going to see eye to eye on everything, but if we can't come to an agreement through conversations and humility, then we vote and that's how we get it done when we can't get it done through conversation, we vote and yeah, so that's a great question.

Speaker 4: 29:33

Yeah, to add to that, just for you know, if, if by chance, we end up with split tickets which possible, who knows what the heck's going to happen?

Speaker 4: 29:40

Yeah, it's still going to be up to the trustees to go to whoever the elected mayor or the mayor that got elected to go to who maybe wasn't on his ticket, to go out and reach out to them, see what their agendas are, how they can work the agenda together, because, at the end of the day, if whoever's elected mayor doesn't bring a solid agenda to the board, then we're talking about status quo for four more years. There has to be an agenda that has to start on day one about what the trustees that are elected and the mayor that's elected, what direction they want to go and what they want to accomplish, because four years is not a lot of time to start talking about things. If you're not locked into well, I'm going to do a traffic study, I want to do this kind of study If you're not locked into doing those things pretty quickly, then a lot of things that we talk about can't happen.

Speaker 4: 30:29

They won't happen, because they can only then happen is if we raised your taxes and paid for it ourselves.

Speaker 2: 30:35

And we talked here the other day and Jim and Nick are right on we need a traffic study to get it started, to fill in everything else. How's that traffic on Wolf Road and LaGrange Road doing for you? Traffic on Wolf Road and LaGrange Road doing for you? And it's going to get nothing but worse unless we have a traffic study that shows us how to move traffic. And again, I'm sorry, I hate to sound like a broken record, but I've been trying to get that traffic study for 12 years but I can't get that traffic study done and that's something that is needed. That traffic study should be first so we know how to fit the comp plan in, and then the downtown. So that's extremely important and I'm getting sick over the years, of taking the blame for something that I can't get the board to do. It's just that simple.

Speaker 2: 31:35

I know the buck stops here, but I can only do so much. I bring it up, you know, as an agenda item. They have to sit there and vote on it. I'm stuck if they don't give me the yes vote and that's got to stop. This has got to be it. I'm telling you this has got to be it because Mokina is at a crossroads, and I'll tell you what the people we're running against will take us backwards. I guarantee that we are not going to go forward anymore. If the four of us lose this election, mokina is going to be in trouble, and I'm not being dramatic, I'm being truthful. It's just that simple, folks.

Speaker 4: 32:20

I just want to thank everybody real quick for coming out tonight. I didn't get a chance to talk to all of you, but I appreciate everyone that's here and it's kind of a cold, rainy night. But we're going to pick our best friends up from the airport here and I don't know how long they'll want to wait for me. But I hate to run out on you without thanking everyone for being here. Thank you.

Speaker 3: 32:43

Two weeks from now.

Speaker 2: 32:48

Yep, I'm a blake. Okay, hold on a second, so yeah.