Mayor must be at the table
In his support for Jim Tinaglia for mayor, former Arlington Heights Trustee John Scaletta raises the specter of his candidate bidding on local projects and removing himself from all conversations, discussions and votes and even leaving the room to avoid any appearance of impropriety. While this may be the right thing to do, it is one thing to do it as one of eight trustees, but quite another to do it as mayor.
An example of this issue is Arlington 425, a project on which Tinaglia is the architect that sits undeveloped for over 10 years costing the village an opportunity to earn revenue and fund our budget. The owner gets a tax write-off, contractors get paid and the village gets the shaft.
What happens when Tinaglia bids on projects on or around Arlington Park is more of the same. Except this time if he is mayor, then the village will have no representation at the table when developers are hammering out deals to finance, plan and design a multibillion-dollar project.
Nobody questions Tinaglia’s integrity. Nobody. But we cannot have an absentee mayor during a period when the village will engage in the single largest development project in its history. A project that will define Arlington Heights for decades to come.
What may have worked as trustee for much smaller projects will fail completely as mayor. Take the 3 acres at Arlington 425 and multiply that by over 100 to get the magnitude of the issue.
Our mayor must be at the table or will find ourselves on the menu.
John T. Supplitt
Arlington Heights