Oak Brook Village President Gopal Lalmalani said Thursday that he was very disappointed by a letter he received that day from the Illinois Department of Transportation in response to one he sent at the end of January, asking that the red-light cameras at Route 83 and 22nd Street in Oakbrook Terrace be removed.
Lalmalani has contended for a while that the process that led to IDOT granting a permit for the cameras was corrupt. His letter to Omer Osman, acting secretary of transportation for IDOT, was sent three days after former state Sen. Martin Sandoval pleaded guilty to bribery and tax charges. Those stemmed from his involvement with a red-light camera operator, and Sandoval admitted in federal court to taking a bribe from a representative of the red-light camera company, SafeSpeed, which installed and operated cameras just outside of Oakbrook Center.
“I’m very disappointed, it’s not fair,” Lalmalani said about the response from Osman, which failed to mention anything about the corruption charges.
Instead, Osman wrote that crash data for the Route 83/22nd Street intersection was being reviewed, along with data from other red-light intersections, before IDOT decides which red-light permits will continue and which will be revoked.
“I’m not happy at all that they did not address the issue of the corruption, which is why the cameras never should have been installed in the first place,” Lalmalani said. “We’ve already provided them with plenty of data from our police chief (James Kruger), which shows that the cameras actually have made the intersection less safe.”
Osman’s letter stated he was aware that Oak Brook police did a review of crash data, with a conclusion that the red-light cameras did not enhance safety at the intersection.
Oak Brook Village Board member Michael Manzo, who has consistently been very outspoken against the red-light cameras, called Osman’s response letter an insult.
“The corruption was the heart of our letter to him, and there was no mention of it in his response,” Manzo said. “That tells me they don’t want to address this, but it’s not going away.”
State Rep. Deanne Mazzochi, R-47th, Elmhurst, joined the cause for Oak Brook when she sent a letter to Osman April 20. She was sent the same response letter as was Lalmalani.
The red-light cameras were installed and activated in 2017 for southbound traffic on Route 83 and eastbound traffic on 22nd Street.
