'She Has The Courage To Seek The Truth:' Resident Endorses McCarthy

Dear Residents of Palos Park:

I would like to publicly support the candidacy of Ronette McCarthy for mayor of Palos Park. I was one of the Palos Park residents who attended the special meeting on Monday Feb. 27 regarding whether or not to approve a new parking lot construction for Wu restaurant on 123rd and LaGrange Rd. Similar to many residents of our community, I was not well informed of the particulars of this issue prior to attending the meeting. However, after a short period of time it became quite clear that many errors had occurred that led to this dilemma.

Initially, Mr Wu made an error in judgment to build out his footprint for the restaurant without having adequate parking for his expanded customer base. Secondly, our village commissioners made an error in allowing him to expand his restaurant without adequate parking to meet this new demand.Now that a problem has occurred, Mr Wu is asking the village to change the topography of our landscape with a new parking lot and currently is utilizing Palos Park village hall parking space for overflow parking on busy weekends.

Ronette McCarthy spoke eloquently at the meeting regarding these issues and quickly defined the problem as outlined above. She also asked our village commissioners about the financial arrangements that would allow a private business to utilize our public space for their personal business interests. She described how she has asked for legal documents regarding this agreement, including filing Freedom of Information Act to receive this information, but has been unsuccessful. The village should be transparent in their dealings with a local business and the community and Ms McCarthy has outlined how this is currently not occurring.

Unfortunately, this behavior leads to confusion and mistrust in the community towards our elected officials. Ms. McCarthy is an attorney with vast experience and expertise in government. As demonstrated on Monday Feb 27th she has the ability to quickly define the root cause of a problem and articulate it well. She has the courage and energy to ask tough questions and seek the truth. I believe she would lead our village with honesty, integrity and excellence. I fully support her candidacy for mayor of Palos Park.

Sincerely,

James Flynn Cantorna, MD