New Lenox Lobbies To Separate Will From Cook In Reopening Plan

NEW LENOX, IL — After a meeting with several local mayors and infectious disease experts, New Lenox Mayor Tim Baldermann said the village board will lobby the Will County Health Department and Gov. J.B. Pritzker to have Will County separated from Cook County in the Restore Illinois plan.

In a video update May 12, Baldermann said six local mayors, including himself, Mayor Steve Streit from Lockport and Mayor John Egofske from Lemont, attended the meeting with an administrator from Silver Cross, as well as two doctors from Silver Cross and the Hedges Clinic in Frankfort.

"We had great conversation, asking for medical data, not getting into the political conversation with our medical professionals," Baldermann said.

Data shared at that meeting indicates a decrease in the number of hospitalizations, Baldermann said, adding that doctors believe the decrease is due to social distancing and universal mask wearing.

"There is a strong belief amongst the medical community that when you are wearing a mask, whether you are known to be sick or could be asymptomatic, that will help with keeping down the spread of the virus," Baldermann said. "Mask wearing is to protect others from you."

After the discussion with mayors and health experts, the village board met Monday, and decided to lobby the Will County Health Department to support the village in its efforts to have the region separated from Cook County. The board will also lobby Gov. J.B. Pritzker to ask him to change the regions of the Restore Illinois plan.

"One of the concerns that we had with that 5-phase plan was that the collar counties, including Will County, are lumped in with the city of Chicago and the Cook County suburbs," Baldermann said.

According to the Restore Illinois plan released by the state, New Lenox and the rest of Will County are in the northeast region, which includes Cook County and the city of Chicago. Data from the Illinois Department of Public Health shows that there is a total of 79,007 cases of the coronavirus in Illinois, as of May 11. There are 31,327 cases in the city of Chicago, followed by 22,054 cases in the rest of Cook County, for a total of 53,381 cases. With those case numbers, Chicago and Cook County make up about 67.5 percent of cases in the entire state. Will County is fourth in number of cases by county, with 3,801 cases and 202 deaths.

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"We all believe there's a very strong case to be made that Will County and the collar counties should not be lumped with the City of Chicago and Cook County," Baldermann said.

Baldermann said the village is also lobbying for more local control in reopening businesses.

"We do have to look at our business community now and making sure they can survive," Baldermann said. "If we stay connected to the city of Chicago and Cook County, I'm concerned many of our businesses will not be open."

Baldermann said the village is looking for a slow reopening of certain businesses, while keeping social distancing and sanitizing protocols in place.

"It is not our intention to 'go rogue,' if you will and have a reopening plan in contrast to what the governor has put out," Baldermann said. He added that the village could have "tremendous liability" if the village violates the governor's order.

"The official position from the village is that we are going to continue to work hard to lobby the governor to separate Will County and the collar counties from Chicago and Cook County, that we are going to continue to lobby the governor to allow us to have a little more local control," Baldermann said.

Read more:

• Illinois Coronavirus Update May 12: 79,007 Cases, 3,459 Deaths