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Pekau: 'Real leaders don't stand by while crime is on the rise and our kids are at risk'
Mayor Keith Pekau of Orland Park announced that Cook County will allocate $2.6 million to address the opioid epidemic. The problem of opioid addiction has become increasingly worse over the last few years.
"Opioid overdoses in Cook County have spiked over the last few years," Pekau said. "From 2018 to 2020, there were 4,283 opioid-related deaths in Cook County with nearly 82 percent of those deaths from June 6 through December 23, 2020 showing the presence of fentanyl in their systems. In 2021, opioid-related deaths surpassed 1,900 cases, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. In Orland Park, our police department has been doing their part to curb this epidemic. We have seen drug-related arrests increase 25% over the past 5 years and implemented the Mobile Response Unit. Real leaders don’t stand by while crime is on the rise and our kids are at risk. I took it on as Mayor. I am going to Congress to do the same."
Read the full article in South Cook News here.
Pekau: ‘If we don't like the way things are tracking, then we change the rules’
Pekau, who is the mayor of Orland Park, noted inflation is not being properly tracked. He is running in Illinois’ 6th Congressional District.
"This seems to be the standard playbook: If we don't like the way things are tracking, then we change the rules,” Pekau said on Newsmax. “Look at how we've changed the way inflation is tracked. We don't include gasoline or food prices, which is what hits people in the pocketbook the most. If you included those things, we'd have inflation at 17 or 18% right now. So at the end of the day, everyone on this call, as well as everyone that's watching knows what is happening in America, knows that we're facing a recession and that we've been seeing inflation that – essentially, at the rate it's at – takes one month of your pay."
During his term as mayor, Pekau has doubled investments in the village's infrastructure while managing to reduce total operating costs by 14%, according to his website. Pekau also lowered property tax rates and paid down more than $50 million of the village's debt.
Read the full article in South Cook News here.
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