Park District of La Grange Board President Tim Kelpsas last week apologized to the La Grange Citizens Council for attacks on the organization made by his supporters during last year's Park District election.
"If I have offended you, or anyone in this room, I apologize," Kelpsas told Council Member Rob Pierson, who raised the issue Feb. 10 during a question-and-answer session following a presentation by Kelpsas and Executive Director Dean Bissias regarding the role and operations of the Park District.
Citizens Council Member Rob Pierson told Tim Kelpsas that attacks on the group last year by his supporters were offensive and unwarranted.
Pierson recalled letters published in local newspapers and other communications accusing the Citizens Council of deliberately withholding an endorsement of Kelpsas' re-election bid because of undue influence from its then-chairman, Orlando Coryell, who at the time was actively suing the Park District to prevent the sale of a portion of Gordon Park to developer Atlantic Realty Partners (ARP).
Watch the video at the end of this story to witness the entire exchange between Kelpsas, Pierson and other Citizens Council members.
"It came as a shock to see the blowback from people whom I would view as friendly to the [Park District] commissioners, to see a concerted effort made by some of those people to paint the Citizens Council in a negative light simply because you weren't slated," Pierson told Kelpsas. "That's how it was perceived by a lot of people in this room. The reason you weren't slated is because Orlando had this ongoing feud with the Park District board. You just need to know that was not the case."
Pierson said the lawsuit was never discussed in any of the Council meetings leading up to and including its slating session.
Pierson added that he personally supported the Park District's efforts to sell land from Gordon Park. "I'm definitely not an Orlando apologist," he said, drawing a chuckle from Kelpsas.
Kelpsas acknowledged that some of the people who made the accusations against the Council were affiliated with the Park District and its successful effort to convince district voters in Nov. 2008 to approve by a margin of 55 to 45 perent a referendum authorizing the sale of 2.82 acres of Gordon Park.
Coryell's lawsuit blocked sale of the land to ARP when Cook County Circuit Court Judge Leroy Martin Jr. voided the required public auction that followed the referendum, ruling that ARP, and its La Grange Place redevelopment project proposed for the former Rich Port YMCA site, had been given preferential treatment by the Park District and the Village of La Grange.
But Kelpsas denied that his re-election campaign organization was responsible for the actions of those individuals attacking Coryell and the Council.
"[We] did not organize anybody to detract from the integrity of this organization," Kelpsas said. "As a matter of fact, I received multiple phone calls from lots of influential people in the village that specifically asked me not to.
"I was specifically counseled by a number of people not to hurt this organization, and I personally never did," Kelpsas said. "At least, I don't think I did."
Another Council member in attendance, Tim O'Connell, defended Kelpsas. "I think it's a pretty easy leap for the people who made those accusations, with the leader of the Citizens Council leading the litigation,'" he said. "I can see both sides of the story. It wasn't just the Park District firing the ammo there, I don't think."
"I wasn't firing any ammo," Kelpsas insisted. "I think Orlando acted as a great lightning rod for that controversy ... once it came out that he was suing the Park District, and was also chairman of the slating body that was going to pick candidates."
But Kelpsas also empathized with Pierson's concerns, noting that "it makes me crazy when the public ... crafts an assumption and then runs with it."
Kelpsas said that during the park-sale referendum campaign in 2008, some residents attacked him for supporting ARP's redevelopment plans, wrongly believing that housing in the project would be marketed to tenants they considered undesirable.
"There were people who ran up to me and asked, 'How could you have voted for that? I don't want people moving in that I don't like,'" Kelpsas recalled. "[They] crafted asssumptions that offended me greatly, that were very racist.
"The rumors that start don't make me very happy at all because I would rather have people basing their judgments and the way they execute their values on the veracity of the situation," Kelpsas said.
"So again, my apologies," he said. "I never fired any ammo in that direction."
Related story & video: