Mayor Responds To Resignation Of Homer Glen Trustee

HOMER GLEN, IL — At the May 13 village board meeting, Mayor George Yukich responded to the resignation of trustee Ann Holtz and several newspaper articles which were written about her reasons behind leaving.

"I understand that she is moving out of state to Florida and I do wish her well," Yukich said.

In a previous Homer Glen-Lockport Patch article, Holtz had discussed her reasons for resigning as trustee and cited concerns with the stay-at-home order, financial issues at the village and Heritage Park. She did not disclose her move to Florida.

Yukich said Holtz wanted to not abide by the governor's decision to keep everyone sheltered.

"The problem we had with that is, I'm the mayor, that's all I am," Yukich said. "I don't have the right to override the governor. It's the governor's choice on what's going to happen, and we are going to abide by it until the governor decides something different."

If businesses decide to open despite the stay-at-home order, their licensure could be pulled by the state, Yukich said.

"We have to listen to what they're saying," he said. "It's going to cause too many problems if we just go rogue and do whatever we want."

Yukich said Holtz wanted the board to "forget what Pritzker was saying and go ahead and open the whole community."

"We turned down Trustee Holtz on that one," Yukich said. "She felt again that she was being picked on. She wasn't being picked on, we're trying to watch out for the whole village."

Yukich said the village is trying to get the reopening plan changed to 14 days instead of 28 days to move between phases. The village also doesn't want to be connected to Chicago in the same northeast region of the Restore Illinois plan.

According to a message from Yukich on the village website, he said he will continue to work with the village board, fellow regional mayors, the Will County Public Health Department, the Illinois Municipal League and the Will County Governmental League to "seek common sense changes to the Restore Illinois plan, which do not expose our businesses, residents, and the entire village to punitive state enforcement actions or other unknown liabilities."