Tough questions must be asked, answered

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We were out of the room when the money guys changed the rules. Somebody should have told us. In the old days, entrepreneurs sought rewards, took risks and did it with 100 percent of their own money (and their bankers).

The new rules? They get all the rewards, but you (as in, you the taxpayer) take the risk. For the developer with fancy brochures, it’s nice work if they can get it.

Under the new rules, the proposed 295 luxury apartment complex near the 143rd Street Metra station and Crescent Park Circle in Orland Park will be built with village money, perhaps as much as $65 million in bonds.

Bonds are borrowed money with interest. Debt.

What does Orland Park get for its sugar daddy role? That apparently is still being worked out. Queasy yet? We are, too.

So while we appreciate Mayor Dan McLaughlin’s enthusiasm, we are resoundingly not persuaded by McLaughlin’s assertion that “somewhere we’ve got to make a decision that’s good for the village regardless of how many people are gulping.” We’re gulping, too. Enthusiasm is no alternative to due diligence. Somebody needs a very powerful magnifying glass to read the fine print coupled with a skeptical perception.

It’s hard not to hold out hope that this can work because it’s so darn pretty. Plus, the village gets to trade aging boomers for upscale yuppies. (Though we’re still not quite understanding why the village foots the bill to house these upscale yuppies? Or exactly why it was so important to trade off real businesses used by real, existing Orland Park people — think Randy’s Market or Orland Bakery — to lure these yuppies to an “aqua lounge?” Or why we want Orland Park to be another Naperville, a town village leaders kept bandying about?)

This uncertainty is not our alone. The village government needs to be clear with everyone about liability if the project doesn’t produce the anticipated stampede of renters. Banks normally demand and taxpayers deserve some benefit other than being left with someone else’s large sack of dirty laundry. As far as we can tell, developers Flaherty & Collins Properties are assuming no financial risk.

Flaherty & Collins Properties is a big player, mostly successful, in such developments and has tended in recent years to seek to shift its construction costs to partners. That trend ripened in 2009 with a Charlotte, N.C., condo project called “210 Trade” — which would have been the tallest residential building in the Carolinas. It sort of blew up. Court records there say Flaherty & Collins’ subsidiary, Charlotte FC LLC, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation, listing liabilities of $53 million and assets of just $197,492.

Village trustees could vote whether to approve the development at a board meeting next month. The village seems anxious to break ground this fall and be ready to rent by spring 2013.

Before any such approval, tough questions have to asked and answered. They haven’t been up to now. Keep asking, Orland Park villagers. You deserve to know. And ultimately to choose.