Arlington Heights Trustee Scaletta advises ‘be responsible’ with Bears decision as he looks to exit the Village Board after April election

After 16 years on the Arlington Heights Village Board, Trustee John Scaletta has decided to step down to spend more time with his youngest son.

“I’ve been on the board his entire life,” Scaletta said of his son, Gianni, 13. “He’s going into high school next year and he’s a Boy Scout working toward Eagle Scout status. In four years, he’ll be going away to college and I’d like to use this time to make a difference in his life too.”

Following the election in April and seating of the new board shortly thereafter, Scaletta, who is also a company vice president, will no longer have a Monday Village Board meeting conflict with his son’s scout meetings, the elected leader said. He’ll also be able to spend more time with his wife, Toni, and older son, Tripp.

But his absence as a conservative voice on the board will be noticed.

“I’ll miss him,” said Mayor Tom Hayes. “He’s been an outstanding trustee. No trustee has worked harder than John Scaletta. He really took it to another level.

“He always asked tough questions, was always well prepared and always came to every event,” Hayes said. “He is a role model for others on the board now and in the future. I’ll miss him very much, not just because of the great work he did but his historical perspective.”

Scaletta took some time with Pioneer Press to look back on his time on the Village Board. From such controversial issues that came before the board as recreational marijuana sales to affordable housing, Scaletta weighed in on these issues as well as the Arlington Alfresco outdoor dining venue and the potential move of the Chicago Bears to Arlington Park.

He said he’s most proud of the village always having a balanced budget and advocating in 2013 for a change to the fiscal year.

“That was so important,” Scaletta said. “Now, we’re levying taxes on what we know we’re budgeting.”

Intensity heightened on the board as trustees interviewed candidates for village manager.

“We had to find the right person and we did,” Scaletta said of Randy Recklaus, who was named village manager in 2014. “It is a big town with so much going on all the time. He does a great job in balancing all the issues important to residents and the village board.”

Scaletta remembers early on in his tenure as trustee, he participated in the Citizens Police Academy. He listened to officers who said the state crime lab was continually backed up and investigators wouldn’t get results for up to six months. He advocated on the board to use a private crime lab for evidence – which the police department continues to do today.

Another issue that challenged Scaletta was the ordinance regarding the sale of recreational marijuana in the village. He initially voted against it because he said he did not want it to negatively impact the brand of Arlington Heights or bring in crime. He later supported the measure when residents convinced him they wanted the village to take advantage of the tax revenue and not let it go to surrounding communities.

The village may be facing one of the most transformative issues ever as the Chicago Bears consider a move to the Arlington International Racecourse site. The football team officially purchased the land last month and has proposed a multi-use development on the site that would include a new stadium, residential housing, retail and restaurants.

“I think the Bears coming to Arlington Heights is an exciting opportunity, but with such an enormous development, there come lots of challenges,” Scaletta said. “My biggest concern is impact on the quality of life in Arlington Heights. We have to make sure we look at all of the challenges to our quality of life, including density, the traffic and ultimately, the funding … but it’s definitely not a done deal.”

When Scaletta was first seated on the board, the goal was to keep seniors in town as they looked to downsize, and now for young professionals to live in Arlington Heights where they work or grew up, by providing housing these demographics could afford.

“But people oversimplify affordable housing,” Scaletta said. “Everybody thinks the developer has to provide affordable housing but at the end of the day, it’s the people renting in the same building who will have to pay [a] higher share of someone else’s rent.

When businesses were shut down at the start and height of the COVID-19 pandemic, village planners put forward an idea of closing downtown streets and creating an outdoor dining venue to allow restaurants to open and patrons to dine safely outdoors. The board overwhelmingly supported the plan.

“Arlington Alfresco is a huge success and it saved many businesses and our local economy,” Scaletta said. “Alfresco has become a brand of our downtown and people from all over the northwest suburbs come to Arlington Heights to enjoy Alfresco because of the variety and quality of restaurants we have.”

As Scaletta steps away from the board in April, he offers a bit of advice to members of the next Village Board.

“Continue to be fiscally responsible,” Scaletta said, “listen to residents and stakeholders and be very, very responsible with the decisions that are made regarding the Chicago Bears.”

Elizabeth Owens-Schiele is a freelancer.

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