By Jeff Vorva
Despite a controversy about signage, the Frederick T. Owens Village Hall, the William R. Vogel Civic Center and the Franklin Loebe Recreation Center will continue to be named after those three historic Orland Park men.
“Nothing has changed,” Mayor Keith Pekau said after the May 6 meeting.
But a recent change in some of the signs at Village Hall set off some emotions with the families of Owens, Vogel and Loebe.
Before the families got involved, Pekau and the board were taking a beating from social media enemies, including the Vote Yes Orland Park X (formerly Twitter) account, which took him to task for turning a couple of “Frederick T. Owens Village Hall” signs into the “Village of Orland Park Village Center,” with Pekau’s name on the bottom.
A website story called it “an act of pure personal pettiness” while the Vote Yes post called it “another abuse in power” by the mayor.
Meanwhile Stephanie Owens, granddaughter of former mayor Frederic T. Owens, started a petition on May 1 to bring back the signs and, as of May 7, 667 people had signed it. The families of Vogel and Loebe were concerned because they were told their names would also be removed from signs.
A sign behind the building with Owens’ name was put up earlier this week, which didn’t thrill his foes on this matter.
Pekau explained on his Facebook page that there has been a signage master plan that started in 2017 and with some changes and shifts in buildings in the village since then, the Village Hall area changed.
“A new wayfinding signage was an important element to assist patrons,” he wrote. “All of the signage along Ravinia Avenue has been updated to match the standardized village sign design and to provide actual wayfinding signage for four village facilities of the Village Center.”
Meanwhile during the mayor’s comments at the May 6 meeting, Pekau expressed anger at some of the disrespect and what he called “garbage” that came his way because of the signs. He also said some of the outrage was political as he announced last year that he would be running for a third term, and the election is coming up next year.
“People were pushing stories all over Facebook, Linked In and other social media that were just not true,” he said. “I’ll admit I was mad and I’m sure a few people here [on the board] were mad for a couple of days.
“But I realized that it’s really not normal behavior and many of the people who jumped on this are political hustlers and they do this because they get paid to do it. I said last year at the State of the Village that you would see me attacked personally and the village’s reputation attacked all the way up until February 2025. Sadly. I was right. This is going to continue for another 11 months probably.
No one addressed the board about this topic during the public comments section of the meeting.