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4 | November 17, 2016 | The orland park prairie News opprairie.com Meadow Ridge honors hometown heroes with Veterans Day assembly Laurie Fanelli, Freelance Reporter Staff Sgt. Matthew Tybor shares his experience and advice with Meadow Ridge School students Friday, Nov. 11, during a Veterans Day assembly at the school. Photos by Laurie Fanelli/22nd Century Media Marine Corps veteran Greg Hall — also a custodian at Meadow Ridge — receives “thank you” cards from several students. Veterans Day allows citizens across the United States to honor the brave men and women of the military who have fought for the freedoms we all enjoy. This past Friday, Nov. 11, Meadow Ridge School in Orland Park took the opportunity to say a big “thank you” to local service members with a special assembly. “This is my first year here at Meadow Ridge, and some of the teachers had approached me to bring back a Veterans Day assembly,” Meadow Ridge Assistant Principal Colleen Joyce said. “It’s always something that I’ve done in my past schools, so this year — along with the help of student council — we decided to focus on alumni. A couple of the teachers came up with different blurbs that we sent out to the newspapers, and it took off. The response was great, and here we are today.” Throughout the assembly, which began with members of the fifthgrade choir — directed by music teacher Felicia Burkovskiy — singing the “Star-Spangled Banner,” local military members who graduated from Meadow Ridge shared videos of gratitude with the student body from their current stations with the military. Naval aviator Lt. Patrick DeMatteo thanked the community for its support in a short clip, and encouraged Meadow Ridge students to enjoy their time at the school, because it goes by faster than they think. Several south suburban veterans were on hand at the event, including Meadow Ridge Class of 1999 member Staff Sgt. Matthew Tybor, who shared some of his experiences training and traveling in the Army National Guard. “I’m very honored and very thankful for this opportunity,” he said, prior to taking the podium at the event. “It’s great to make a difference in the community. Most veterans will say if you can make a difference in one, it was all worth it.” Later, during his speech, Tybor emphasized the sacrifice of military families and invited students to thank them for their commitment to the country. His own relatives, including his mother, Nancy, sister Marissa and nieces Courtney and Kaylee were proudly in attendance, as he addressed the assembly. Students lit up when Tybor displayed photographs from his trip to the pyramids, which he considers to be one of the highlights of his military experience, along with the Music teacher Felicia Burkovskiy plays the piano, as all of the student body sings “America the Beautiful.” friendships he made. Before taking questions from students, he left everyone with a few final pieces of advice — “always continue to learn” and “treat everyone with dignity and respect.” These wise words echoed in the minds of those in attendance, as all of Meadow Ridge joined together in song for “This Land Is Your Land” near the end of the presentation.
opprairie.com News the orland park prairie | November 17, 2016 | 5 Orland Park Village Board Expenditures expected to be $147.41 million in 2017 Officials: Levy to remain the same, budget to be balanced Jon DePaolis Freelance Reporter Orland Park’s 2017 budget is one step closer to becoming reality. The Village Board members briefly discussed the budget Nov. 7 during the regular meeting. Originally presented in September, small changes have been made over the course of several special meetings. “Our final revenue budget is $139,517,447,” Finance Director Annmarie Mampe said. “Our final expenditure budget is $147,410,925. The difference between the two is fund balance, which we have every year, in terms of savings of the prior year that we roll into the subsequent year’s budget. We do set aside our reserves that are required by board policy before we start the budget, so these are excess funds that were available that we can utilize for 2017.” Mayor Dan McLaughlin also touched upon the differences in the revenues and expenditures in his comments. “As the year progresses, things that we have put into the budget for the prior year that either don’t get done or come in under bid or other savings … or our income comes in higher than anticipated, any of those excess funds go into our fund balance, our savings account,” McLaughlin said. “By the time we are doing the next year’s budget, our savings account has grown enough to where we can take money out of it to use for projects and other items we want to put into this year’s budget.” Trustee Carole Griffin Ruzich said the budget contains no new revenue sources or taxes. “And the levy is remaining the same, and it’s a balanced budget — things we should all be proud of,” Ruzich said. Mampe said the public hearing and formal approval of the budget is tentatively set for the Dec. 5 meeting. Mampe said the budget will be available at Village Hall for public viewing by Friday, Nov. 18. McLaughlin added that the budget will be viewable online, as well. Liquor license fees going up Unlike the budget, liquor licenses will be seeing a slight change over the next two years. “We just got done saying no new taxes and no new fees, and that is basically true,” McLaughlin said. “But I’m the liquor commissioner, and the liquor license fee has not been raised in many years. We decided to raise the liquor license fee for establishments that serve or sell liquor by 10 percent over the next two years.” He said the fee will go up 5 percent in 2017, and an additional 5 percent in 2018. Village Board members approved the change in a 7-0 vote. Nonresident denied request to use sewer system During the Public Works Committee meeting, a request from a nonresident to tap into the Village’s sewer system was denied. “This is kind of a culmination of monthslong discussions between staff, myself and the Gaskos,” Trustee Michael Carroll said. “They live in unincorporated Palos Township, and they have been asking us to extend mainly sewer services to their property. As has been discussed at a previous meeting, since we bill our sewer based on water rate consumption we couldn’t extend the sewer without the water.” Lenny Gasko had asked trustees at a previous meeting to consider allowing his property to tap into to the Village’s water and sewer lines because of sewage issues during rainstorms. He said he would be willing to pay for the engineering and other costs, citing the emergency nature of his situation. Carroll said the request falls under Ordinance No. 3698, in Section 4-1-4, which states, “No water and/ or sanitary sewer service will be furnished or supplied by the Village to unincorporated areas.” He said Section 4-1-5 talks about certain exceptions, but it was his and staff’s determination that the Gaskos request did not meet those listed. “The first … is that the water and/or sanitary sewer mains, which would serve the property in question, immediately abuts the property and no extension of publically maintained water and/ or sewer mains is required,” Carroll said. “That’s not the case here.” Another exception would be if the extension was necessary and in the best interest of the Village in order to obtain a grant of easement or right of way in favor of Orland Park. “Being that this is unincorporated Palos Township, I think staff has determined this is not the case,” Carroll said. Public Works Director John Ingram provided Carroll with 17 applications that have been made to tap into Orland Park’s water and sewer system since 2002, when the ordinance was adopted. Ingram said there were four denials and Round It Up A brief recap of action and discussion from the Nov. 7 meeting of the Orland Park Village Board and its committees. • The Public Works Committee members, in a 3-0 vote, recommended to the Village Board a transfer of funds and a payment of $41,519.44 to Airy’s Inc., of Tinley Park, for emergency sanitary sewer line repairs. Damage was caused to the sanitary sewer line system by a subcontractor on the LaGrange Road project. Trustee Michael Carroll said Police Chief Tim McCarthy issued citations to the company in order to recoup the funds to pay for the repairs. • During his comments to the board, Mayor Dan McLaughlin noted his mother died this past week. He thanked staff, the board members and the residents of Orland Park for their “overwhelming show of support.” 13 approvals. “But the 13 approvals were all instances in which the water and sanitary did not have to be extended … they were already contiguous to the property,” Ingram said. “The four denials were specifically in instances where the extension needed to occur.” Based on the lack of criteria being met for an exception, Carroll said he had to go by the Village ordinance, as written. “We’re bound by the ordinance, unless we change [it],” Carroll said. Trustee James Dodge asked if there had been any recent discussion about bringing in the entire whole subdivision. Carroll said at previous meetings the Gaskos have told him that the subdivision in which they live was not interested in annexing into the Village, which would allow for the tap into the water system. Gasko disputed that during the committee meeting, stating he had not yet spoken with all the other residents at the time but would do so. “Nobody on the board has given me an answer on what number of a percentage [it] has to be [to be] approved,” Gasko said. “There are a lot of people that want to do it.” He said his whole street is willing to do it; however, staff directed Gasko that 100 percent of the subdivision would have to agree. The committee members voted 3-0 to deny the request. veterans From Page 3 the moment with his sister, but not all who had their names engraved were able to share it with the person who made the engraving happen. United States Army Sgt. Michael Mrdalj, 37, said he was surprised to learn that an anonymous person paid to have his name engraved alongside so many other veterans. Having served two campaigns in Afghanistan, Mrdalj returned and was medically retired in 2014 at 80 percent disabled. “It means the world to me,” Mrdalj said of the recognition. “I wish I could know who it was, just to give them thanks, but at the same time I feel like it was a blessing.” Active military members were in attendance at the ceremony, as well. Rebecca Buhs, a 20-year-old Orland Park resident, enlisted in the army this past year. Buhs is a Private First Class in the 935th Aviation Battalion. “I’ve come every year since eighth grade,” Buhs said of the ceremony. “I come every year on my own. It’s the veterans here that motivated me to join.” Buhs said she received thanks from what seemed like the entire crowd, including some of the veterans at the ceremony. Buhs said she was honored to receive thanks from veterans who are 30 or 40 years her senior. She said it was moments like these that solidified her dedication to the armed forces. “That’s really what gets me tearing up, is when past military [veterans] thank me for my service,” Buhs said. “I always tell them, ‘No, thank you.’”
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Page 48: Orland Park’s Hometown Newspaper

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