The fancy upgrade to Schussler Park is the pride and joy of Mayor Keith Pekau and the Orland Park village board.
But not everyone is enamored with it.
At the Sept. 16 village board meeting, resident Mary Beth Griffin said she was representing several other residents who could not attend the meeting to complain about the park, which is being improved in two phases with the second phase yet to take place. Thus, there is a lack of a playground and Griffin was not happy about it.
“I’m really disappointed,” she said. “I just want my voice heard. I want my park back. We all want our park back. It was taken down and we need it replaced.
“If they want to replace it with some inclusive thing and want to add on, great. We want our park back.”
She said she considered trying to set up a petition to try to get the village to finish the project.
“It’s been too many years,” she said. “Everywhere I go they get new parks and ours is non-existent.”
That opened the door for Pekau to boast about the park and give an update on where the second phase is standing.
“We spent $12 million re-doing the park and preventing the flooding,” he said. “We dredged the pond and are doing a ton of work. Twelve million bucks is enough to basically fix every park in the village.”
He said that it’s not a secret that it’s a two-phase project. The first brought in athletic fields to accommodate football and soccer and other sports. The second phase is to include an all-inclusive playground.
“That is expected to be coming in 2025 or 2026,” he said of the second phase. “It takes time to do the construction projects – especially one where you have storm water issues and floods. There were $6 million of flooding issues.
“Our fields were unusable when they flooded. We now store a ton of water underneath. It takes time to get things done. It’s not done overnight.”
He said the village is funding $1.5 million for the playground project but is also waiting on a $600,000 grant to come through.
Trustee Brian Riordan said he has been by the park recently and said that the work on the first phase of the park is “amazing.”
“I understand the frustration about the park for the younger kids but there are [56] parks with playgrounds,” Riordan said. “There are other places.
“The design team [for Schussler Park’s playground] is phenomenal. It’s taking a little time.”
Trustee Michael Milani saw the Orland Park Pioneers use the new fields and said it was “spectacular.”
“I’m glad to see that it’s being used, and that people are happy with that,” Milani said.
