Orland Park isn’t seeking a new public works and engineering director to replace Ed Wilmes, whose last day was Feb. 16.
Instead, the Development Services department will take over the Public Works department’s planning functions, Village Trustee Ed Schussler said Monday, following public meetings in which Wilmes was conspicuously absent.
Wilmes had been scheduled to speak Feb. 29 at Mayor Dan McLaughlin’s annual State of the Village address at Silver Lake Country Club.
Schussler, who chairs the Village Board’s public works committee and serves on the board’s development services and planning committee, declined to comment directly on the director’s departure, but referred to a staff analysis made by the Edwardsville-based Matrix Consulting Group.
The analysis, released Jan. 3, calls for placing a consolidated engineering services function within the Development Services department as a short-term response, with a reduced public works department responsible for streets, utilities, fleet and PACE service over a one- to two-year period.
Matrix has recommended eventually replacing the current public works function with an “infrastructure management” department responsible for streets, utilities, building, fleet and parks.
Maintenance functions, currently handled separately by the Public Works and Building Maintenance departments, should also be combined into a single organizational unit “to better focus efforts,” according to the Matrix analysis.
Since joining Orland Park as director in January 2010, Wilmes has overseen projects ranging from the LaGrange Road-143rd Street intersection improvement to establishing rail crossing quiet zones. He and municipal plow operators recently reminisced in the Triblocal about their successful efforts to “slay the dragon” during the February 2011 blizzard.
Wilmes’ state and local transportation experience includes the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, North Texas Tollway Authority and Aurora Township Highway Department. He also chaired the Kane County Landfill Site Selection Committee.
