Mayor to Menards: Hire Evergreen Park Workers

Evergreen Park Mayor James Sexton smiled when he heard that the Menards at 91^st and Western is expected to open for business in less than 60 days, but that didn’t stop him from giving a company representative an earful about hiring village residents.

“We have people in this town we need to get to work,” Sexton said to Menards store general manager Juan Horton. “When I walk through your store, I want to see people I know.”

Sexton’s comments were made at Monday night’s village board meeting before village officials and an audience of 18. He said he wants Menards to commit to hiring Evergreen Park residents first “…and our next-door neighbors in Chicago right after that.”

Horton, polite and deferential as he answered questions from village officials, did not provide a direct response about hiring local residents, but in response to a question from Trustee James McQuillan, he estimated that the new Menards should have a staff of about 230. He did not say how many of those will be new hires or how many will be full- or part-time.

Horton noted that the store will begin accepting applications at 9:00 a.m. Wednesday, March 13.

It was noted that before the Walmart in Evergreen Park opened in 2006, over 25,000 people applied for 325 jobs there. (Well over 24,000 of the applicants were Chicago residents.) Horton acknowledged that Menards expects to receive at least 15,000 applications over two weeks for its Evergreen Park store.

Horton said he has had conversations with Evergreen Park Police about adequate security and crowd/traffic control at the site when the thousands of job seekers come and go.

“If you work with us, we’ll work with you,” Sexton said pointedly to Horton, almost in the same breath as mentioning required village inspections and permits.

Other News

During discussion of a request to update the Opticom Traffic Signal Emergency Caption System at 21 intersections in the village, Trustee Mark Marzullo asked if Chicago Fire Department vehicles could be retrofitted with emitters that could trigger the emergency lights at intersections, just as village emergency vehicles do. “At least once a day, Chicago’s fire trucks come blasting through our town [from the firehouse at 8026 S. Kedzie] to get to the other part of the city. It would make sense [if they had the emitters on their trucks],” Marzullo said. 

It was stated that Chicago would have to pay for such a move. In response, Marzullo said the big city could find the funds. “(Mayor) Rahm (Emanuel) could just raise our water rates a little. Oh wait, he did that already,” Marzullo said, his sarcasm drawing chuckles from some in the audience.

Jolene Chulak, director of the Office of Citizen Services, gave a report on the department’s accomplishments, which included fielding 9,000 phone calls in 2012, averaging about 30 phone calls a day. Some of the highlights included serving 6,500 meals through Meals on Wheels last year. The department fed about 25 to 30 clients a day in 2012. The OCS also provided healthcare, economic assistance ferrying passengers to a tune of 12,886 miles via the OCS mini bus. Passengers paid 50 cents a ride.

The department also offers a farmers market. Last year it featured 27 vendors. The market is open from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Thursday June through October at Yukich Field, 89^th Street and Kedzie Avenue.