Village Board To Chart Plan For Reopening Oak Lawn

OAK LAWN, IL — The Oak Lawn Village Board discussed charting a plan to reopen the village amid the coronavirus pandemic during a virtual board meeting on May 12. The state-mandated order to shut down nonessential businesses and other restrictions is set to expire at the end of the month. The village is facing an $8 million to $10 million budget shortfall in lost sales tax revenue due to the shutdown.

Provided that regions can keep new COVID-19 cases below 20 percent for two weeks with no major spikes, and hospitals maintain 14-percent capacity for ICU beds and ventilators for a possible surge in new cases. Testing must also be available to anyone, even for those not showing symptoms of the virus and contact tracing, before offices, barber shops and salons can reopen with capacity limits and other safety precautions under Phase III of the governor’s plan to reopen Illinois.

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Childcare centers, schools, bars and restaurants could reopen in late June under Phase 4, with safety guidelines from the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Tr. Alex Olejniczak (Dist. 2) told board members it was time for the village’s businesses to start seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

“They’re barely keeping their heads above water and making ends meet,” Olejniczak said. “Residents are out of work. There are concerns about what the state government is mandating and if those terms are reasonable. I believe we owe it to our constituents and business community to start questioning the state's requirements.”

Olejniczak said there may be some “wiggle room” in the governor’s binding mandate for the village to exercise its power as a home rule municipality to start getting back to some semblance of normalcy while “making sure we follow good medical practices and social separation.”

“We need to lead at this time,” Olejniczak added. “We need to put pressure on our governor to start making more reasonable accommodations to open this state.”

Trustees Bud Stalker (Dist. 5) and Tom Phelan (Dist. 6) both supported developing a plan to reopen Oak Lawn.

Pritzker has introduced a new tier of punishments for municipalities that open before state restrictions are lifted, including withholding sales tax revenue and other state funding, and yanking state licenses from certain businesses that defy restrictions, such as hair salons, barber shops, liquor stores, and restaurants and bars.

“We have to get businesses open as safely and expeditiously as possible,” Mayor Sandra Bury said. “We have to find a balance with safety and getting things going. .”

Bury and Olejniczak told Patch that the village board is likely to convene a special meeting in village hall in the coming weeks to chart a reopening plan.

With bars and restaurants expected to operate at less than 50-percent of their pre-pandemic seating capacity, Olejniczak said he favored those with parking lots to use some spaces for additional outdoor seating to expand seating capacity as long as they followed social distancing guidelines.

“The governor is not listening to what business people are saying or the state legislature,” Olejniczak said. “We’re elected by the people who have to make difficult decisions, but it’s difficult to make decisions when the decisions are already made. That’s not the America I know.”

More on Patch:

Illinois Coronavirus Update May 18: 96,485 Cases, 4,234 Deaths