Mokena's Front Porch Podcast
Welcome to Mokena’s Front Porch – THE podcast for Mokena history and community!
Nestled in the heart of Chicagoland, Mokena began as a small farming community that flourished after the Rock Island train line arrived in 1852. Today, with a population of over 20,000, its rich past continues to shape its future.
Your hosts:
🔹 Matt – A lifelong Mokenian, local historian, and author of two books on Mokena history. His blog, Matt’s Old Mokena, serves as the foundation for many of our episodes, bringing forgotten stories of the village back to life.
🔹 Israel – A passionate storyteller who grew up hearing firsthand WWII accounts from his grandfathers. Since moving to Mokena in 2016, he has embraced its history, working through technical challenges as a first-time podcaster to bring this show to life. He’s a BIG fan of Mokena!
Join us as we explore the people, places, and moments that make Mokena special. Visit MokenasFrontPorch.com for more stories, updates, and ways to connect. You can also find us on social media!
Pull up a chair, get comfortable, and step back in time with us on Mokena’s Front Porch.
Mokena's Front Porch Podcast
James Roberts - Candidate For Mokena Village Trustee
James Roberts is a retired, having spent his career running grocery stores. He ran for Village Trustee once before back in the early 90's. Get to know James Roberts and be sure to vote BY April 1st! Early voting starts March 17th!
Jim is running with the Mokena's Future Slate. Their website is www.friendsofmokena.com
Be sure to check out our website @ www.MokenasFrontPorch.com
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Find Matt's Blog here: Matt's Old Mokena
Photo & Artwork Credit: Jennifer Medema & Leslie V. Moore Jr.
Do you have a question, comment or maybe an idea for an episode, you can email us at:
MokenasFrontPorch@gmail.com
All right. Trustee Roberts, thank you for joining me tonight. You're not only running, but you were recently appointed to Village Trustee, so thank you for taking the time to sit down. It's a good opportunity to get to know our current trustee as well as a candidate for office, so thank you for spending some time with me tonight. You're welcome. Let's just get started. Maybe tell me a little bit about yourself. Start with, maybe, where you grew up family.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I'm a son of a military career Air Force. My dad was in the Air Force. I was born in the early fifties. I have six brothers and sisters and around 1955, my dad was transferred to France. So at the time there were only five kids. So off to France. We went and we lived in France for about two years until the French decided they wanted the US military out of France. Do you remember any of that time living there? Not a whole lot, I mean, I was born in 52. So I was only like five or so or six when the time we were moved there. Until we moved to Germany.
Speaker 1:Do you remember like did your parents tell you were you speaking French?
Speaker 2:No, no, nothing like that, no no, you know well, you know you're in military housing, so you're really not around the French that much. So in around 1957, we ended up getting transferred to Wiesbaden, germany, and we lived there for about three years and my youngest brother, john, was born in Wiesbaden Germany a few months before we came back in 1960. And I remember a lot more about Germany, but we have a lot of family videos and stuff back then. So I'm not sure if I actually remember it or I remember it lot more about Germany, but we have a lot of family videos and stuff back then. So I'm not sure if I actually remember it or I remember it because I see the videos and things like that.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool that you had videos. Your dad would take videos of your parents.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they used to take the old reel-to-reel tapes, videos, and my dad was pretty active taking it back in those days, so we had a lot of home movies and stuff like that. I've recently had it converted to digital oh, that's great. So I have it all on. I have tons of it. That was converted to one memory stick Wow, and it's amazing. All the totes I had is now on one little stick and it's categorized beautifully where you can hit the chapter you want to watch. But I remember a lot about Germany where we lived. I remember the school I went to. I can visualize all those kind of things. I remember the German fire department behind us every day. They would go out at lunch and they would play soccer and stuff like that. But I don't remember a whole lot of the travels and vacations we took in Germany. But then how?
Speaker 1:long were you?
Speaker 2:there. So we were there about three years. We're in Europe about five years total. So in around 1960 we moved back and we ended up.
Speaker 2:My dad got stationed at Scott Air Force Base in Southern Illinois and we were there until 1968. He retired in the fall of 67 and got a job in Chicago and so when we got out of school in 68, we all moved up here and we moved to Hazelcrest. So I finished high school at Hillcrest High School and I went to South Suburban College for a year and then I was drafted into the Army and I spent two years in the Army, basically at Fort Polk, ait at Fort Sill, oklahoma. Field artillery was my specialty training and from there I was shipped to Germany and I spent about a year and a half in northern Germany and we were stationed with the Dutch Air Force and fantastic life experience being over there. I bought a car, I traveled a lot and you don't make a lot of money but it goes a long way when it's $1, $3.20 on marks. So it kind of felt like you were rich.
Speaker 1:Have you ever gone back again to visit since you left? I?
Speaker 2:haven't, and it's kind of been a dream, and my wife doesn't have any desire to go, so it's not a trip you want to do on your own Sure.
Speaker 1:Wow, what a great experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I got you know, I got. I spent my two years and then I got you know, I got you know, discharged, so to speak, or whatever. After my two years I came back and I love woodworking and crafts and things like that. So I was trying to get into the Worshman Trade School was kind of my goal and things were pretty bad in 74 as far as the schools and the economy. So there was no openings. So in the meantime I had a friend. He says I'll go to Dominic's. So I went to Dominic's and they hired me and um hired me full-time. So I worked there, um, for 32 years.
Speaker 2:What did you start off doing at Dominic's? I started off just throwing cans on the shelf and within a year I was closing the stores. I was like they call him a head clerk. So basically, when the assistant was off, you took his spot. So in about a year or so I got a letter from Worshamer and Trade School that they had some openings for me to apply. By then I was already starting to make a little bit of income, not a lot of money, but a lot. Good enough, I was getting by. So I said, you know, I kind of like what I'm doing. I'm going to stay here, and so we did that.
Speaker 2:So I stayed there and a couple years later, in 76, time moves fast I met my wife in the fall of 76 and we got married in June of 77. It was a short, whatever dating period, so I met her and I just kind of knew she was the one you know I had to convince her of that. That was more challenging. Is she in the area too? She lived in Oak Forest. She's originally from Fort Wayne, indiana. So we come to the spring of 77 and my wife's parents, he, got transferred to Mount Vernon, ohio. So there come the dilemma what are we going to do? I couldn't see her moving there when we were talking about getting married and we were engaged.
Speaker 2:So we moved up our, our wedding to, uh, to June 4th, so we knew each other, probably about eight months between meeting her and getting married. And so now today we, uh, we got married and lived in Tinley for a short period and then we moved to Country Club Hills for a little while and we had two daughters there and in 1990, my daughters were getting to the age then where we had to start thinking about education for them and Country Club Hills schools were already in shambles, so we started looking for places to move in. We ended up moving to Mokena. Three days before we moved to Mokena, my third daughter, megan, was born, so she moved in. We moved in on July 29th of 1990, and she was born on the 26th Wow. So there was a lot going on back then and my career had progressed over the years. As you would expect, I became a co-manager and then eventually a store manager.
Speaker 1:And were you at some of the local stores here?
Speaker 2:Well, the funny thing is is, once I became a manager, I never, ever, worked really in my neighborhood again. Okay, they like to move you. So I became a manager and the closest store I was ever at was the store the old store in Frankfurt or in Mattson on Route 30. Sure, there was an old store there. So I worked there for a little while and I closed it, and then from there they shipped me into the city, worked there for a little while and I closed it, and then from there they shipped me into the city and from there I worked at 47th and Kedzie I worked 31st and Ashland. I worked 71st and Jeffrey.
Speaker 2:So I worked a lot of diverse stores and I spent about 10 years on that little circuit before they finally moved me out of the city. Then they moved me to Joliet. I spent about a year there and from there I went up to Schaumburg, willowbrook, woodridge, and then in Woodridge is when I left in 19, or 2007, 2008 timeframe, and at that time Safeway had bought us. Things were not the same company we'd worked for, so it was time to move on anyway.
Speaker 1:Is it typical to move around that much as a manager?
Speaker 2:Well, if a company's growing, there's a lot of movement. I mean they don't just move to move, but typically they have a store opening, so they're opening a new store, remodeling a new store, so there's shift in personnel with that. So it's kind of typical that you're going to move every couple years, two or three years.
Speaker 1:It's very unusual to stay in a store five, six years. What do you think the biggest? Like what would most people be surprised?
Speaker 2:by of the grocery industry. Oh, my gosh, you know, first of all all if you've never worked it, it's a very, very hard industry, very hard. It's a very demanding area of time. Uh, the customer demands are incredible. They never stop. They always want more, more, more obviously. Uh, price of food even when it's not inflationary, it's always expensive, if you know what I mean. So I think that they would be shocked to see the effort that's put forth to make a store look good every day. You can do $200,000 or $300,000 in a day. I can leave at 6 o'clock at night and the store looks like a tornado went through it. I come in the next day and it looks like you haven't had a customer in a month. I mean, the overnight crews that stock your shelves are phenomenal. They face your store and you got the. You know the maintenance crew comes in, does your floors and you come in the next day and you're ready for business again.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is the low percentage of profits that stores make. I've been in stores that do a million dollars a week that barely make any money. Wow, you know, a lot of our leases are very, very expensive. Utilities are very expensive in the industry and obviously your cost of goods. Nothing's free and labor's expensive. You know we uh, we deal with uh healthcare, we're we're a unionized company. So, uh, you know you're given healthcare, you're given a pretty good wage. I mean my wife is making uh. She worked part-time there. She'd make it like 18 bucks an hour with uh, with benefits, so um. So there's a lot of overhead in grocery stores.
Speaker 1:And what in times, like you know, we've seen over the past couple of years where there's prices are like overnight jumping, how do the grocery stores keep up with that and not be losing money every time they're selling groceries?
Speaker 2:Well, you have a price department that is changing tags almost 24-7. Wow, you know, as suppliers raise prices, we get a new tag and the tag is generated and it goes up the next day. So you're constantly changing tags, not only for that, but also for your sale. Items are going on and off sale, which is happening also every week, is happening also every week. So the price change thing, you know and I would say because obviously I'm not in the business now, but I sure know pricing, the pricing since 2020 on an impact in the grocery business, and a lot of it can be blamed on supply, maybe, but a lot of it's also blamed on the cost of energy.
Speaker 2:There's nothing in a grocery store that doesn't require gas. I mean whether you're heating your building, cooling your building or whatever, getting your vehicles to market your products in your store and things like that. You had semis and they were coming out of Wisconsin and Mariano. So I mean, I look at the price of eggs. I was in the store the other day. A 30-pack of eggs was $30. And I thought I look at the price of eggs.
Speaker 2:I was in the store the other day. A 30-pack of eggs was $30. And I thought it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. I mean, the cheapest dozen is like $7, $6, $7. So they're blaming this, I think, on the bird flu kind of thing more than anything. But I found when prices go up in the industry, they never go down. The first item I ever remember that to be true was probably sugar and then coffee. Back in the 80s, I Think Columbia or somebody had a bad crop. Price went up. Well, can of coffee never went down again. You know. So it's um, so the markets driven by a lot of things, but mostly, you know, mostly, increases uh, come from our suppliers well, I don't want to make this all about groceries I think it's very interesting you're gonna have no, no, I I.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting, um, because it's something everybody deals with. I mean, my wife is at the grocery store right now, yeah, uh, but we don't always understand the workings behind it. And, yeah, I can't imagine thinking about how many kids just go through and throw stuff or push things down and then have to have it clean. It's got to be a tremendous process, and one that we overlook and take for granted.
Speaker 2:Well, I think in a day is what's changed, and it's always been there, but it's nothing like today, and I think that's the retail theft side of things. That's, um, if you go into these stores now and you see the cages and locks on everything, that wasn't the case. I mean, I worked. I worked 71st and Jeffrey, we didn't lock anything up back then. Okay, uh, 47, we didn't lock anything up back then. Yeah, people came in and stole, but not to the volume they do today.
Speaker 2:We used to prosecute everybody who caught stealing. It was $2, because you had to put the message in the you know out there in the neighborhood that we don't have a limit. If you steal and you get caught, you're going to pay, and so that's kind of what we did. Today, though, I mean, people come in and they literally steal whole carts of stuff and just walk right out. Amazing and that margin there. I mean I don't remember what store it was Walmart or Target, someone. Recently, about a year ago, it was announced the retail theft number and it was just a staggering number of missing inventory. Wow.
Speaker 2:So you talked about your family your wife and your daughters, my three daughters.
Speaker 1:So tell us about your family, your wife and your daughters my three- daughters, so tell us about them.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, my oldest is Carrie and when we moved out here she was like in sixth grade. So she went through the Mokena School District to finish that and then went to the split schools back then two years at East, two years at Central. She's married to a Lincoln Way graduate also and they have two daughters. The oldest is a sophomore at Lincoln Way Central now and the youngest is in seventh grade. So they live in Ravinia, off Town Line Road, over here just west of town. Can't vote for me.
Speaker 2:I didn't think about that. Yeah, they can't vote for me. And then my middle daughter, katie. She was born in 1981, and she also married a Lincoln Way graduate. She has four kids, three boys and a girl, and her oldest is a sophomore at Lincoln Way West and she's a good kid. She lives in Elwood and her husband's in the carpentry business, construction stuff like that. So, and then there's my youngest, megan. She was there the other night, she's the redhead, and boy did you.
Speaker 2:You know that Megan also married a Lincoln Way graduate, kevin Connelly, and she actually first started going to school with him in about fifth grade. Oh, wow. So they, they had known each other for years and she put her claws in him pretty early, I think, in life. They pretty much dated all through high school. They went to different colleges and when it was all said and done, they came home and ended up getting married and they have three kids. Their oldest is in second grade, then they got a kindergartner and they got a two-year-old Wow, and they live in Tinley Park. So all good kids. I'm proud of every one of them. And they had good husbands and really good kids. I'm proud of every one of them. They had good husbands and really good families.
Speaker 1:What do the kids think about all this being involved?
Speaker 2:Well, they're used to me doing crazy stuff. So you know, I don't know if I told you this story, but you have so many chapters kind of in your life, pretty much. I retired in 2019 from Mariano's in June of 2019. I knew I was going to do something, but I'm fortunate Peggy and I are huge savers. We don't waste money, we don't spend money. So I didn't really have to go find a paying job to subsidize my income. So I was always looking out for what I could do to keep myself busy. So I joined the health club. I did that, but that's just not enough.
Speaker 2:My wife was meanwhile volunteering at the hospice house in Joliet, and so the COVID came. And then, after COVID and all that, it was kind of over. I was still kind of thinking, like what are you going to do? I thought about taking a part-time job, mostly just for something to do. And that's when the Veterans Garage came on me and so I started getting involved with that in like March of 24. And I came in right about a month before they started their move. So I helped them do the move and everything and spent a lot of time down there helping them set up and do stuff like that and then, as time went on, we did a transformation of the board recently, so I ended up on the board and I also decided that someone needed to keep the books and stuff like that. So I volunteered to be their treasury. So I'm doing that now.
Speaker 1:And Veterans Garage for those who don't know is started by former Mokena Mayor, joe Werner, in this area, and then talk a little bit about how they ended up with the facility they have now.
Speaker 2:well, you know, um, you know, after joe had passed away, there was a lot of talk about, you know, they were gonna have to liquidate the veterans garage. We didn't really seem to have a real driving force of volunteers to keep it going. So, uh, there was a lot of. When I first came on board, that was kind of like, are we going to close, what are we going board? That was kind of like are we going to close, what are we going to do? That was kind of the thoughts. No one really had made a decision.
Speaker 2:And then we have a guy named Bill Vail. He's part of the family and he works down in Mantino's veteran home. So he reached out to them and they offered a space for us. Wow, so at that point in time we all got re-energized, we packed up and we moved to Manteno and they gave us a nice facility. It's rent-free, utility-free, and they also have committed to the museum for us too. So it's absolutely perfect location because we have around three 350 vets there and um, so the military vehicles with the vets, those two things just go hand in hand.
Speaker 1:They're just a perfect combination together and I've seen their facebook posts where the veterans can come down and help and work on the vehicles and what a what an awesome thing to have on site for them there oh yeah, I um.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, when the weather's nice, we'll uh, because a lot of them are wheelchair-bound, we'll lift them up, we'll put them in the trucks and I'll give them a 10-minute ride around the facility and stuff like that. That's great. We take some of them on our events that we go to and things like that, but a lot of them have pretty bad restrictions, unfortunately, but we do what we can to keep them engaged and they literally love the event. That's awesome. We're there.
Speaker 1:So tell us a little bit about what do you do for fun besides Veterans Garage.
Speaker 2:Well, what do I do for fun? Well, I mean I recreational golf. I'm not a great golfer but I hang with my daughters and their family a lot and my wife's family. They live around here and we typically for years we've been going to. Since I retired we started going to Alabama golf shores in the wintertime, so that's kind of it. You know, I cut my own grass. I got an in-ground pool that keeps me busy. So just doing yard work around the house in the summertime and managing the pool and stuff like that, it's kind of what I've done, you know, and you know.
Speaker 2:Then it came to about the middle of the year so I started calling Frank, reaching out to Frank about, you know, the internet services and stuff like that. You heard me tell this before I started thinking about why do we not look at internet as a utility and have the villages negotiate rates like they do for water and other issues water, sewage, garbage pickup and all that? So Frank and I had a couple talks back and forth about that. One day, out of the clear blue, he calls me and goes hey, I got an opening on the board, are you interested in filling it? So that was kind of a gut check moment. I wasn't sure what I should do there and I said why don't we, let's get together and talk?
Speaker 2:So Frank and I got together, we talked for about two hours and, um, I saw I decided that you know, it's something I wanted to do and my wife was supportive. My daughters think I'm crazy, so I um. So then from there he put me in touch and John the administrator, we got together and we talked for another hour and a half and two hours and um, and from there Frank appointed me, the board approved it and I was put on the board on September 11th. And you know, it's like really a golden opportunity.
Speaker 2:I didn't have to run and I get the benefits of actually being behind the scenes of how a village is run and I have a lot of my own ideas about the village and I have a lot of my own ideas about the village. And I think that one reason that I did partner with Frank and agree is because I felt Frank is open to a lot of my thoughts and directions. I think we should be going and I feel like, if we can get elected, that we're going to be able to set an initiative out there in some direction that maybe some things have been talked about for a long, long time. Maybe we can actually make some progress towards them.
Speaker 1:So the internet issue that you brought up is there anything that you've done with that since being appointed?
Speaker 2:Not yet, but Frank and I talked about it and, if you know, god willing, if we're elected, that's something that we've talked about. If I'm elected, we will set up a kind of a commission Let me spearhead it and we'll get involved with all the Internet providers that provide to the village and the ones that don't, and see if this is a doable idea. I mean legally speaking. I don't know whether you've got a leg to stand on, I don't know about stuff like that. You got a leg to stand on? I don't know about stuff like that. But I think if we partner and my idea is we partner with villages around us we need leverage and if we can partner with villages around us, maybe between Frankfurt, new Lenox and Mokina here maybe we can find some way to find a carrier that will lock in rates that are affordable for everyone and find some way to find a carrier that will lock in rates that are affordable for everyone.
Speaker 1:Okay, you talked about that. You'd previously run back in the 90s, right, I did Shortly after you moved in.
Speaker 2:Well, fall of 96, the last one is in 97. Okay, back then I was already starting to formulate a lot of things about the village, what was going on downtown. The traffic was already starting to get pretty bad, and I was also concerned about the homes, subdivisions we're building about. There's no lots, there's only house on top of house. There's plenty of house on top of a house. So my three things I was interested in is making sure that we didn't put a house on less than a half to three quarters of an acre, and do a comprehensive study on traffic to see what we can do with our traffic patterns before it's so bad that we can't do anything. And so those were two of my things. And then the Front Street area was dying, dying a slow death, and I felt that we needed to do something on Front Street to attract some type of business down there. So those were kind of my big things I was looking at back then.
Speaker 1:And do you think, how do you feel? I mean looking at the issues that were important you know what's that? 30 years ago? Yeah, how do you think those issues are now?
Speaker 2:Well, the traffic is definitely much, much worse by the time you do a traffic pattern study. You get people to buy in on it. You can get the state to agree to any change that be made, get the funding for it. These are like 10, 15-year projects. So I look at the traffic now and I say where will we be in 10 or 15 years? Because I see where we are today and I think that the best efforts probably I don't know that the best efforts are going to be able to ease the traffic on us for many years and I think we've passed the window of trying to get ahead of that. Now we just have to figure out if we're going to do anything about it. It's one thing if traffic flows through your city and they stop at your businesses, but they don't. They just flow through and go home and so we're not really gaining anything by the pass-through traffic that we're getting today.
Speaker 2:You know the homes. As far as homes and lots, a lot of the subdivisions they've built since then have been, I think, pretty decent. I mean we got that Whispering. It was called Whispering Springs or Hills Out West here at Whispering Creek. They did a nice job with lot size out there. I think those are pretty nice. So a lot of this stuff. I mean Old Castle Woods. There wasn't a house up when I moved in so they developed that. I think they did a heck of a job up in there. So a lot of what I was thinking about with the lot size. I'm not saying they listened to me because I know they didn't, but someone had the good sense to realize that we didn't want to just build a house at the top of a house, we wanted some yards there.
Speaker 1:So what did that? You know, going through that election and losing. What did that teach you?
Speaker 2:It taught me I was on the wrong side.
Speaker 1:Were you running with a slate at that time?
Speaker 2:I was running with a slate. I had already made a decision to run and then there was a guy named Ed Lark. He had decided he was going to run for mayor. And then we had another gal, a gal, lori Hermanson, and she was running. So we kind of we on the backside we all kind of partnered together and ran as a slate.
Speaker 2:But the people we ran against were the same kind of group as you have today called Friends of Mokena, but they called them back then like Citizens United or they had a different name back then. But they were really heavily supported by the businesses downtown the Tuttle family at the time and the Tuttle family, which I was naive to not understand that you know they didn't want really any change downtown because they owned the only businesses down here. So anyway, I end up losing. We all three lost that year and I guess what I really learned was the way you have to network if you're going to do this. You can't do it alone, and so part of why I'm running now is because I feel we have a network ability that maybe we can reach out and do something with, because I feel we have a network ability that maybe we can reach out and do something with.
Speaker 1:What did you do?
Speaker 2:Did you get involved anywhere after that election? Not really, you know I was. Well, they thought I was crazy. I was already working 10 to 12-hour days.
Speaker 1:Well, I was wondering about that too, and I'm driving.
Speaker 2:Well, at the time I was driving to Joliet one of the closer rides in my life to work. But so another opportunity really didn't come up. You know, I think I don't know, I don't know if you're kind of blackballed once you do something like that run against an establishment kind of thing. But no one really reached out to me after it and it seemed to be a dead end at the time. So from then I just kind of said you know, well, I'm just going to sit in the sidelines and kind of see where we go from here, and years go by and I would see him running.
Speaker 2:I would say they would say the same thing I was saying in 96 and nothing's ever changing, you know. And so when Frank offered me this opportunity, I'm like you know, things come to you in a funny way. But maybe this is my time, maybe this is the time that I should be doing this, and so I jumped into it. And, yeah, it's already been a fascinating experience, much more involved than I thought it was In 96, 97,. If I'd have won, I'm not sure how I would have balanced the type of work and being on a board at the same time, but I'd have figured it out.
Speaker 1:How do you think your work experience and your career has prepared you to be a village trustee?
Speaker 2:career has prepared you to be a village trustee. Well, one is I understand financing incredible financing In the industry. One thing you learn is you learn to tear apart your operating statements monthly, look for all your opportunities. So you look into all the fine lines of your goods and your bad, so that helped me understand the financials and some of the other things I mean. You talk about the utility costs and rents and everything else that you're dealing with. There's a lot going in other than just selling groceries. And then you look at the training side endless training I've trained over the years. I've trained so many managers, and co-managers and other assistant managers were brought in underneath me to learn and train and develop them. So I've learned a lot about training people, a lot about, I'll tell you, working in diverse communities. You know 71st and Jeffrey. I walked in there.
Speaker 2:I was a white man. They didn't like it, but I tell you what I was there for four years and when I walked out, a lot of the ladies were crying and we built a relationship of work together and what I learned was is treat everybody the same. It might be hard, but if you make an exception for one, you make them for all. So my motto was that I didn't make exceptions and I ruled directly down with the policies and the employees. In almost every case they come into line and they understand the expectation and our relationships were fantastic. So when I bring that to the board, I think that we should be able to work together. I think I have a good understanding of how to negotiate things and how to deal with difficult situations. I've listened to some of the disciplinary actions that go on and all this stuff and I think to myself I've dealt with this most of my life, so I think we've got a wide range of that Leadership wise, when I was in the army, I went to SASCOM leadership school.
Speaker 2:I was entered into what's called SCA the quarter take all the custodial agents, guards, basically what we were security of the facilities and I finished third in Europe on a contest there Actually I don't know if it's on the webpage or not I sent in my letters. I got several letters of recommendations and credited for many inspections, and so over my years it's just been little pieces of learning leadership by others that taught me. I mean I had some great, great mentors throughout my life too Probably none better than my dad. He was in the military and until I was about 16 years old, my head was shaved about every Saturday. Finally, one Saturday I said Dad, I want to put a comb in my hair and he says okay. He says then you pay for your own haircuts from now on. So from then on I've had this hairstyle.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you know, I mean every little piece of life brings you to where you are today and you know there's a tremendous staff at the village. I mean they have been absolutely phenomenal in bringing me up to speed on a lot of what's going on in the village, because the village doesn't start and stop when somebody comes on the board. It's a not involving thing. So there's a lot of things that were going on in the village that Terrence had been dealing with and now he's gone and I'm slotted in there and they start talking about this or that project. I mean I'm clueless to it.
Speaker 2:So the village administrators and Carl the attorney those guys have been every one of them have been phenomenal in meeting with me and talking to me on the phone about what's going on and the backdrop history of a lot of this stuff. So when I'm there and I'm making decisions and voting on stuff, I actually have a good understanding of where we started and where we are today, so I give them a lot of credit, for I think they've got me up to speed pretty quickly in a few months. That's great. So, yeah, they're remarkable, remarkable people. They've got their hands full and they take the time from me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people they got their hands full and they take the time from me. So, yeah, so you know, one of the things that's important to everybody is downtown and as well as the businesses that come in. How do you think that Mokina can be more welcoming to businesses that do want to come into town, and what do you think are some real life examples of actions that you can take to grow the village as a trustee?
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, if we want to start with downtown, we can break that down first, because I think that's one that we keep hearing, that people in the village would like to see something evolve downtown. So they've got a project going on called the Franklin House. We don't know what's going to happen with that one. That's been going on for quite a while. But when you really go down Front Street and you look at how many vacant buildings there really are, there's not many vacant buildings. You've got a dentist's office, you've got a doctor's office, you've got lawyers, you've got a resell-it shop, you've got insurance agents. So almost all the buildings are really being rented right now. There might be one or two that isn't I'm not positive on that but almost all of them are rented or leased out to something. So when you look at like, how do you bring business downtown? First of all, where are they going to go? Now what we do have is we have several lots on Front Street that need to be developed. I'm not positive who owns those, but to me we need to reach out to who owns the properties, see what their intent is with the properties and find out if there's something that can be done to develop those properties to kind of move them along. I'm kind of a fan of the of the kind of look of the building they put in the west side of Wolf Road over here, with the apartments or condos above it, with some office space below it. I kind of like that look a little bit. I think that would work along Front Street in the vacant spots. But we have a lot of buildings that need frontal updating and even though we have a TIF program, it doesn't seem like they're interested in doing that and obviously as a village we can't make them do that. So there's only so much sitting on a board that you can do. Our job is to make the village accessible for businesses, make it inviting for businesses. So how do you do that? And on Front Street, I think access is critical to get businesses down here and some ways we can do that is.
Speaker 2:I look at the downtown area, as we need a better walking environment. We need a better walking environment, we need a better biking environment, and I think that the park district could play a huge role if they would put some trails between main park and downtown. I would personally like to see them wrap that farmer's field, yonkers field, with a trail around it with some landscaping et cetera, running into downtown, but not only that. Some people that want to jog could jog the circle. If they want to ride a bike, they could do that, but ultimately downtown. I think that what's going to make it successful is we're going to need almost like an outdoor beer garden kind of look maybe some sushi stores, shops. We're going to need stuff like that. And so, if I'm reelected, what I'd like to do is I'd like to meet with all the people that own the land that isn't developed, see what their intent is as far as developing it and what the village can do to assist them in helping them do that, move that project along and from there, then maybe we can reach out to some of these things.
Speaker 2:Are you familiar with the taco? It's called an avocado theory in Tinley. Are you familiar with that? Well, that guy used to work for me, okay, and I don't know if you've ever been in a store and seen how the guacamole sells when they're making it. Have you ever been in the lines?
Speaker 2:Well, during events like Super Bowl weekend here, there would be 30, 40 people waiting in line because we make it right in front of them, and it would be like going to a subway what do you want in it, how hot, and we would customize it for everybody. But I think that's a really good concept to bring down into Front Street and I personally know the guy and I thought about getting a hold of him and seeing if there's anything down here that would work for him. Sushi is extremely popular nowadays and they make drinks, they make everything avocado. So that's one of my ideas. But I think we have to have a kind of expose of businesses and get together with them and try to put things together with what would work for them and what they'd be interested in. But ultimately, you know 90% of front streets being leased out right now, ultimately 90% of front streets being leased out right now.
Speaker 1:What do you think about the idea of the village purchasing those lots that are vacant on front street?
Speaker 2:Well, not knowing what they cost, I don't know that answer. I'm not sure that buying is my favorite way to go. My favorite way to go would be to put a developer together with a property owner. Is how I'd like to go. Now I know we bought this place over here in the south of the tracks, but ultimately the village's responsibility isn't to build businesses. I don't think it is. I think it's to make sure the environment's there.
Speaker 2:The village has a reputation of regulatory speaking pretty tough to deal with and I think I don't know if Nick expressed that to you when you did his interview. I don't know if Nick expressed that to you when you did his interview, but there was a lot of hoops that the village makes you jump through to do things. Some of them are kind of over-regulation, maybe some of them aren't, but I think they should be looked at. Front Street's going to be a going to be a really hard, hard thing to develop. You know, when you let something go to a certain point, you know deteriorate to a certain level, at that point you can't salvage something anymore, so to speak, and a lot of the buildings and the fronts down there are just so outdated now that they just need really they're gonna need it probably a complete overhaul facial speaking in order to really attract something aggressively new down there.
Speaker 1:Talk about maybe some of the observations. As we said, you were appointed in November as a trustee, so just talk a little bit about your time so far, what you've observed, how well the board works together, anything you've been surprised by.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess I'm surprised by the amount of activity going on. You know, I mean there's a lot of development going on around the village. You know, with homes and condos and townhouses and there's a lot of that stuff happening everywhere. You know, I mean the waterworks just finished over here, doing that you build a police department. I mean the waterworks just finished over here, doing that you build a police department. I mean there's just so much going on.
Speaker 2:It's like every two weeks you have a board meeting and it's like you've got a whole new, you're covering a whole new topic. It's like it's just constantly coming at you and that kind of surprised me, because it's such a small village you wouldn't think it would be like that. It's a lot faster paced than people think. But you know, I think most of our real growth in revenue sources are going to have to come on a lot of the properties along 191st. You know there's a lot of unincorporated areas along Interstate 80 there that somehow we should really probably start thinking about a way to incorporate those properties before it's too late. Someone else orland or someone might grab them if we don't. But, um, I think that's that's one thing we should do. But there's, I think our future revenue uh sources are going to probably come from a lot of warehousing in those areas uh any any areas that you believe the village could uh cut costs or generate additional revenues?
Speaker 2:Well, I uh, I probably would. Uh, I don't want to get too confrontational with Frank here, but you know I I look at a couple things that I um. First of all, I'm not I'm not saying I'm personally for or against, you know. I mean you have to look at what's good for the village, revenue wise, and what isn't good for the village. So when you talk about things like cannabis stores, everybody around us has got them. Half the village is probably using it. We're not getting a penny, you know.
Speaker 2:I looked at the revenue that we're getting from gaming. We have almost no gaming in the village, but the revenue is pretty significant. What we do have, we only have it in three or four places. I think we should look at expanding the gaming. It's not something I use, but there's obviously a drive for it. I go to the VFW in New Lenox. There's always people back there playing them VFW and New Lenox there's always people back there playing them. So I think those are two areas that they can look at to gain revenue in. I think that people in the village are going to. I think they want it. I think they want it. I know people in medical marijuana and stuff like that and even that they're leaving the village to get that stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, because, Mokina had the medical and it was tucked way back in the industrial area and we lost. They left, so whatever revenue we were getting there left to New Lenox, and now New Lenox did probably. What I think is a smarter thing is you put it up front. It's where you're not going to be tucked away and have crime. You know the crime concern.
Speaker 2:They moved it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Actually I did therapy for my knee right next to that place where they moved out over there, but I think what they did is, I think they put I believe didn't they put medical and rare cannabis together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they were able to do both. Yeah, and that's the right combination to do is put them both in the same facility and regulate it and monitor it. Yeah, I mean, if you're thinking of safety issues, it's easier to have it when it's out in front of the public than tucked away in an industrial park area, and I think people have begun to learn that more. But you're right, you see it in New Lenox and Joliet and Orland Hills and Tinley Park.
Speaker 2:You can pull the financials up online on Mokinaorg and look at their budgeting statements where income comes from, and you'll be surprised at how much income we're getting for the little bit of gaming that we have. And, like I said, you know I mean things like marijuana and gaming both of those you know. A lot of people believe they're addictive. There's a lot of people have strong feelings one way or the other for it. But I would be willing to bet if we took a poll in the village. I bet that both of those would pass. I think they'd both pass. Frank is, I think I'm talking about cannabis stores, but I think he's not really into the gaming side at all.
Speaker 1:Well, I know that when it was first being legalized, the village board voted against legalizing recreational in the village. That's why the one store moved out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 2:And, you know, maybe it's something worth. You know nice restaurant down there or a lounge down there. Put some gaming machines in there and open up another business somewhere downtown and put your medical marijuanas in it and your cannabis in it, and your issue might become you don't have enough parking. Very true, it would be a good problem to have right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would be. What do you think are some of the biggest challenges that face our village over the next five to 10 years?
Speaker 2:Well, oh boy, you know, there's a couple things on the front side that I think of, and one is things on the front side that I think of, and one is obviously the traffic is going to get completely brutal. We're almost there now. We're going to be there. We can't get away from that, I think. The second thing is I wonder about funding for pensions, because we don't have really anybody in retirement with pensions right now. There are very little, but pension funding ultimately bankrupts a lot of places and we have a police department that eventually is going to start retiring and there'll be pensions there. Most of our guys, I think, are relatively young, but I but I look longterm thinking about the biggest thing I see financially stress may be, may be the pensions that we're going to be paying one day.
Speaker 1:Okay, Mokina is talking about building a new village hall. I'm not sure how much you've heard, or yeah, I'm in the loop and all that. What would you like to see for a village hall?
Speaker 2:well, you know, I'm very, very, very tight, physically speaking. Um, so I know that the village, the hall, the word now is pretty old, but I think we're at a time when I don't know if I could, I'm not sure how I feel about building and spending that kind of money today.
Speaker 1:What, kind of money. What does that mean?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean we spent 20, we spent 25 million for a fire department, a police department. So I'm going to guess that a village hall would be at least in that ballpark, maybe more because you know what, more, because what did the land cost us? I don't know. But what I'm in for right now is I think that I wouldn't mind seeing us go ahead and secure a piece of property for a future build, but I'm not one that likes to take out bonds and loans and things like that, because you never know what's going to hit tomorrow. So I'm very, very conservative in that. Look, I think, the direction of the board and all that. I think they're kind of committed to probably building a new village hall and I would have to probably learn a lot more about that before I would totally buy into something like that. As far as I know, we haven't got a location yet and once a location comes it'll be game on. I'll have to make a decision if I'm there. But I think they're committed to probably putting a new village hall up.
Speaker 2:And I look around the village and where would you want that? I mean? I look at two locations. One is out there next to the police department on the west side. There there's some land there. I don't know who owns it, I don't know what it costs. And then I also look at the. You know some land over here around the park. Is there something there that could be acquired there? But yeah, I don't know what the residents think about that. I mean, not many people use the Village Hall, so to them, the residents might feel it's not worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's very true to them the residents might feel it's not worth it. Yeah, and that's very true. Village Hall is irrelevant to most residents right now. It's interesting to look at what villages like New Lenox have done. When they built theirs, they made the Village Hall kind of the center.
Speaker 2:The centerpiece.
Speaker 1:Which you know Mokena definitely needs.
Speaker 2:It would be interesting if that was a similar incorporation. But if you do that, if you do that here, you know all the talk about the downtown area. Now, let's just say, you take the Village Hall and you put it over here and you do something like New Lenox did, because they did a hell of a job over there, and you do that. Did you just move the core of your downtown? Sure, it depends on the location. You could, you could have moved it. You could move the core to the downtown area, to where your new location is and, um, you know, so it's um, I don't know, um, the village hall doesn't bother me, but I don't work there all the time.
Speaker 2:Really, you know, and I know, I, you know, I think, I think there could be some people a little bit antsy because we just built this beautiful new police department. It's pretty nice, right, it's beautiful. Um, so, um, ultimately, we're going to have a new village hall and, uh, I don't know when that'll happen, but, um, I guess, um, I guess I might have to be sold it a little bit before we get that far. How we're going to fund it. Maybe if we fund it with cannabis and gaming issues.
Speaker 1:Well you know, another thing I think that you mentioned, because I've heard other ideas have been along that 191st Street area but I thought you know even where the police station is. That's valuable tax dollars of development that we're taking away from, especially our 159 school district, is a thought to consider, you know, should that be developed and bring revenue for our Exactly so?
Speaker 2:You know, and you know they say well, our old village hall, so we build a new one and we tear this one down. And what do they? What do they do with the land then? Do they? Do they make a park out of it? Do they do they sell it off as individual lots for homes? You know, so there's. There can be some revenue offsets by stuff like that. We have a lot of buildings the village owns that we can look at getting rid of. You've got the one little community. Get the little building over here. I forget what it's got community services or something on it. It's on the north side of Front Street over there the Esda building, there, the what?
Speaker 1:The Esda building? That's the original. Yeah, the old jail was there.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes and then across the street you have the former firehouse and police department. Yeah, got that. I was personally not in for using any of that for what we're doing. I thought we should have sold that off for development. So I don't, I don't think, I don't think cities should get into property owning, so to speak. If you look at this place on the tracks over here that they bought, I think that was bought a little bit out of paranoia Because I think they were afraid that there might be another industrial type of building go up in that area, because I think it was, at the time zone, industrial. But you know, like you said, you're showing me there's just so much going on in the village right now and the village hasn't grown for a long time and it seems like there's a lot on its plate right now.
Speaker 1:And that's something I've talked about with other people and it's a challenge With a town like ours. It still has this small-town feel. It's a challenge to grow while maintaining kind of holding on to that feel.
Speaker 2:We don't want to be necessarily New Lenox or Tinley Park, we're our own village, but there is a growth that needs to happen and balancing that the right way Well the need for growth is mostly driven because you need revenue to pay your bills and there's only two ways you're going to get that You're going to get it from your businesses in the community or you're going to get it from your taxpayers and taxpayers. You know, and I know a lot of people in the village, a lot of people are pretty fed up with where their taxes have headed the last few years. You know it's always been slow growth increases on our taxes, but the last couple of years have been dramatic increases and to the point that some people I know have even sold their homes. They can't afford it anymore and I think it's really sad when we get to the point where our tax bills determine where you live. I think we're basically landlocked here. We can't really spread out and grow much, so we have to do what we can with what we have right here.
Speaker 2:You talked about 191st. We put another, we put the village hall over there and you're right, we probably lost a place. It's gonna give us some pretty good revenue. But yeah, I've heard some talk about the village hall. There's a little bit of that going on about little new village hall. I'm not sure what time frame they're looking at or anything like that. It's never come up in front of the village a meeting. So if they're looking for land, I mean eventually it would have to come to the board to decide to purchase or not to start the ball.
Speaker 1:Well, it's an exciting thought, and who knows how far down the road. I mean, it took almost 20 years to get the police station from the time they bought the lot.
Speaker 2:See, I shouldn't even say this while you've got me recording here, but I would have built that village hall or the police department about 10 or 12 years ago when we had zero interest right out there. I wouldn't have saved $20 million with zero interest on it or whatever. I'm sure they made some money, they invested it, but still, and how much more were supplies?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the cost of goods. It was delayed because of the housing or the economy downturn. But you look back now.
Speaker 2:When you get zero interest on something, people jump right. So I probably would have probably liked to have seen it built 10, 12 years ago with zero interest. Payments are very little, but it is what it is.
Speaker 1:So we're going to kind of start to wrap up a little bit, but it's been great, I probably said 10 things I shouldn't have, but okay. I'm about to get fried. If you were talking to a new resident that came into town, what advice would you give them or offer them to get more connected and involved in the community?
Speaker 2:Boy. That is the golden challenge. If there's one thing that frustrates me the most is the fact that no one goes to the village hall meetings. Most people don't have Comcast. They can't even watch the meetings anymore. I've already talked about why are they not on YouTube, why don't we just YouTube them? And hopefully, if I'm reelected, if I'm elected, that we can move that way.
Speaker 2:But I really think we need to find a way to engage and I think it starts with programs like youth programs, kids in school and stuff like that. Bring them into the village more. I know they would do that once a year. They used to do that but I think we should do it more, maybe as trustees and mayor going into some of the junior highs and the high schools and talk about, you know, civic duty and stuff like that. But there has to be an outreach.
Speaker 2:I mean you don't do a trustee's job or even a mayor's job for the money. There's no money in it, you know. I mean, if that's your driving force, you're definitely looking at the wrong spot. But we have to find. We have to find, we have to find younger people to engage, you know. I say I mean I feel like. I feel like I'm sitting here on a board making a decision that's going to be for my grandkids, you know, and I'd rather have my daughters here making those decisions, you know, and I would, I would love, I would love to find someone, you know that's 50 years old, that would jump in and do this tomorrow morning, and there just doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for that. The only time people in the village get upset is when they look at their tax bill right or their water bill.
Speaker 2:Sure yeah, and if they get a little bit more upset about that, maybe they'd actually go out and vote and then actually do something to change. Change is more difficult once you let them raise your taxes.
Speaker 1:Now it's tough to change right, like you said. Once the price of those things goes up, same with our taxes.
Speaker 2:We're not going to see them tick back down.
Speaker 2:Because the departments or whatever the governing body is, once they tax you and they've got this money, they spend it. Yeah, so the next year, if you say, wait, we want you to cut, well that means they've got to cut what was spent last year and nobody does that anymore. We know that. Yeah, nobody does that anymore. We know that. You know. But yeah, it's. But yeah to me, to me I would love to see, I would love, absolutely love to see an engagement by younger kids and stuff like that, or young adults to get into this stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell us what's your favorite restaurant.
Speaker 2:My favorite restaurant. Wow, I'm pretty simple when you come to that restaurant. Wow, I'm pretty simple when you come to that, I would say it used to be Red Lobster, but I think now my wife and I we go to Peppermill a lot, we go there a lot and we go to Beggar's Pizza, and those are probably the two places we kind of go to the most in the village All right.
Speaker 1:If you could instantly master one skill, what would it be? Golf? That's a good one all right, uh, you might answer favorite area restaurant.
Speaker 2:I don't know pepper mill, or well, yeah, I you know, I mean my wife when we do go to pepper mill a lot and she's she always jokes. She walks in, she'll say like they're all seniors and you know she doesn't realize that. I'm 72 and you're going to be 70, okay, we're seniors, peg, but she's in denial of that. But I like the Peppermill. They have good food, they're reasonably priced. They got good service.
Speaker 1:What's your favorite Mokina community event?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think the July 4th parade, probably, probably. I like that a lot. Yeah, that's a good thing I got, I finally, uh, this year I got to drive in it, which was really unique, uh, to actually be on the other side of the ropes for a change.
Speaker 1:It's pretty neat what do you think of that? I had the same thing. I I, with the lions for the first time, walked in the parade. Oh, did you so? Yeah?
Speaker 2:oh it was. You know what I mean it was. It was just I mean I did about 30 events over the summer and so I did a lot of communities. The enthusiasm in Mokina and the kids is incredible. It's just like. It's almost like bring the tears to your eyes. There's just so much. You know, when people say people don't love America, I mean then you go and you do that and they're cheering you and thanking you. They don't know that I'm a veteran. They're cheering you and thanking you and all those things, and it's just really inspiring to see that. I absolutely love doing the parades. This year we did so many events.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's my favorite. We've been coming to that since just before we moved here and we always love that events. Yeah, we've been. That's my favorite. We've been coming to that since, you know, just before we moved here and we always loved that parade. Yeah, all right, let's see what's your go-to coffee order.
Speaker 2:My go-to coffee order is black coffee.
Speaker 1:I knew that was going to be your answer.
Speaker 2:for some reason, I do throw a little cream in it nowadays. I used to not, but I do cream it a little bit now. But yeah, I'm basically a black coffee guy.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that's the last of my hot button questions for you here. So I'll just give you a minute if you want to share. Why should people support you and vote for you this election?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess I can't really give a good answer to that because I'm just probably like all the others. We say what we'd like to do, but we get there and find out that you can't get it done. So I do feel really positive right now with my conversations with Frank and Nick and Kim. I think we're on the same page if we're elected. On the same page if we're elected. We've talked about getting together and actually the four of us putting an agenda together of what we'd like to do in the next four years and stay focused on that. To me, one of the problems with the village and maybe they've done it, but I've never really seen it happen I don't think they get elected and come in with a specific agenda that they would like to get done.
Speaker 2:I don't want to change the world. I don't want to change Mokena. I love the little small town of Mokena. I'd like to tweak a few things. I'd like to make it better in a few spots. I'd like to make sure that whatever the citizens in the village want, that we can try to bring that to them. Other than that, I just go to work every day, that I work for the village and do what I can. That's best for them. Four years down the road, I'll start going back on vacation in the winter.
Speaker 1:Well that's great Well. Trustee Roberts, thank you very much for taking some time with me tonight. Make sure to check out all of our candidate interviews. We'll have the full slates up.
Speaker 2:You can check those out and be sure to vote on April 1st, april 1st or before, or before, that's right by April 1st.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway, thanks, all right, thank you.
