Hollis Caught Lying About Prior Work Experience

The Scott Hollis campaign for Village Trustee in Oak Lawn’s Third District is coming under scrutiny once again for misrepresentation. This time, an exclusive investigation by the Oak Lawn Leaf has found that Hollis lied in his campaign literature stating that he “has prior experience with the Cook Count Forest Preserve Police Department.”

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, which maintains the Police Department, stated otherwise in a response to a Freedom of Information request:

The Forest Preserve District of Cook County does not have any records for Scott Hollis in its employee database.

The latest misrepresentation by Hollis again runs contrary to his promise to serve in an “honest and ethical manner”. The response from the Forest Preserve makes it clear that Hollis never worked for the police or any other division within the Cook County Forest Preserves.

Hollis only recently moved into Oak Lawn and has set his sights on ousting the longest tenured official in the village, Independent Trustee Robert Streit. His campaign, which is being directed by Mayor Sandra Bury’s top political adviser, Tom Phelan, has been criticized for violating the Fair Campaign Practices Act by using fake headlines to attack Streit.  He has also distributed campaign literature that claimed that Hollis volunteered for the Village at Fall on the Green.  As reported previously by the Oak Lawn Leaf, official Village documents prove otherwise.

Hollis is being heavily supported by Mayor Sandra Bury in his race against Streit and John “J.J.” Zurek. DePaul University could not confirm or deny that Hollis ever attended the institution.  He claims that he attended the school but did not graduate.

In fairness, the Oak Lawn Leaf did review Streit’s and Zurek’s claims regarding their educational background and work history. We were able to confirm that Zurek is a licensed real estate broker and retired from the Cook County Sheriff’s office in 2002, where he served as Chief of Operations.

We confirmed that Streit is a graduate of University of Illinois at Chicago. We were also able to verify that Streit is the Managing Member of Illinois Energy Aggregation LLC and the President of Sealtite Roofing and Construction Company.