Mayor Rory Hoskins has more than a passing interest in growing his political career beyond the confines of Forest Park. Previously, he has run for the state representative seat that went to Illinois Speaker Chris Welch. Just last year, he came quite close to being appointed to the Cook County Board from the 1st District when Brandon Johnson was elected mayor of Chicago. He lost out when Johnson bigfooted Tara Stamps into that prime office.
Mayor Hoskins works his Democratic credentials assiduously and he is candid about the kick he got when he wound up in the Biden White House for an event.
We say good for Hoskins. Nothing wrong with ambition. Nothing wrong with working to rise in the ranks of your chosen profession.
It all comes to mind when we try to figure out why it is so complicated for the full village council to receive ongoing and credible information from the village’s contracted lobbyist, GPG Strategies, aka Michael Axelrod, son of David Axelrod.
Last August, under proper pressure from Commissioner Jessica Voogd, Forest Park paused its $2,000-per-month payments to GPG pending the receipt of a detailed report from the contractor.
GPG sent a report to the council in October, which Voogd found to be more of a promotional piece than a detailed report on the issues Axelrod had been assigned by the village, the calls he made, the meetings he scheduled and the outcomes.
After that, all went quiet with no further payments to GPG until late June, when the village’s routine bimonthly bill list included a $20,000 payment to Axelrod to catch up on paused payments over the past 10 months.
Voogd rightly objected. When she attempted to pull the item off the check register, she got no support from her colleagues.
For his part, Hoskins says GPG has been effective and he lists a handful of successes he credits to Axelrod. That’s good. Forest Park needs outside help to finance its needs.
Our theory is that the politically-focused mayor wants to hold the lobbyist connection close because that brings him closer to regional and state politicians and agencies he enjoys rubbing elbows with. Nothing wrong with that except that it leaves taxpayers who pony up $2,000 a month in the dark regarding this vital aspect of local governance.
It is a bit of a vanity play on the part of Mayor Hoskins. Not his best look.
Focus on funerals
Mayor Hoskins, this time with the help of state Rep. La Shawn Ford, continues to focus on the genuine worries about high-risk funerals passing through the village. In mid-June, a town hall was held in Forest Park to gather input and seek solutions to what has been a chronic issue.
More traffic cameras to record the license plates of bad actors is part of the solution to what is a vexing enforcement issue for police.
In a village of cemeteries, this is a tough problem to fix.