Politics & Government

La Grange Park Trustees Debate Lease of Post Office Lot

The La Grange Park Post Office would like to end their lease on a village-owned lot. The post office is offering a $6,000 lump sum payment to break the lease, but trustees are unsure how they want to proceed.

La Grange Park trustees were still unsure how they wanted to proceed on an offer from the La Grange Park Post Office branch to buy out the remainder of their lease on a parking lot owned by the village after an Aug. 9 Village Board Workshop meeting. 

The La Grange Post Office has offered a lump sum of $6,000 to end their lease on Aug. 31 for a parking lot that had for years been used for delivery trucks at the post office. The lease has a total of 34 monthly payments left, totalling $9,916.78.

According to a post office representative who talked with Village Manager Julia Cedillo, the post office has not used the lot in over a year, because delivery vehicles now pick up mail at the La Grange branch.

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However, several trustees said they felt uncomfortable with the timing of the request, considering there has been discussion of the La Grange Park branch closing. The United States Post Office announced in late July that it would be studying 3,700 post offices—including the La Grange Park branch—to determine if there is sufficient need for them to remain open.

Trustee Susan Storcel worried that terminating the lease would send a double message to residents telling them La Grange was willing to terminate the lease, even before upcoming discussion with the public and the post office about keeping it open.

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Village President Jim Discipio said that he believed that the lease issue and whether the post office would close were two separate issues.

Trustee Scott Mesick agreed with the president, and said he remembered the post office talking in the past about not renewing the lease on the lot because the majority of deliveries come out of the La Grange branch.

"My question is, what is it worth?" Mesick asked. "Because we could lease it again and get $6000. Is there a potential worth to that?"

Cedillo replied that she had not received any interest from someone else willing to rent the lot. An alternate use, she said, would be to use it for a public lot. She also added that even if the post office branch were to remain, their representative had told her they did not want to renew a lease on the lot and were looking to save money.

Trustee Patricia Rocco asked the village attorney if they could get an estimate on the going rate for lease buyouts.

Trustee Rimas Kozica was also hesitant to decided anything at the meeting, and said he would like the post office to put something in writing first, as the offer had come during a phone call between the post office representative and Cedillo. 

Another consideration was that even if the board were to take back the lot for public use, it's not located in a prime location for public parking. Also, according to Public Works Director Julius Hansen, the lot would need to be resurfaced as it was in poor condition, which would add to village costs.

Trustee LaVelle Topps said it sounded to him like the village should "take the money and run."

"I'm willing to take the money and run," Storcel replied, "but I'm not willing to get robbed."

In the end, trustees voted against the proposal 2-4 and it will reappear on the agenda at the next Village Board Workshop meeting. 


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