Forest Preserve District of Cook County - File #: 21-0380

• File #: 21-0380
• Version: 2
• Type: Consent Calendar Resolution
• Status: Approved
• File created: 7/21/2021
• In control: FPD Board of Commissioners
• On agenda: 7/27/2021
• Title: PROPOSED RESOLUTION HONORING THE RETIREMENT OF SECRETARY MATTHEW BENIGNO DELEON WHEREAS, Matthew Benigno DeLeon will be retiring as Secretary to the Forest Preserves of Cook County Board of Commissioners on July 31, 2021; and WHEREAS, Secretary DeLeon served in local government for over 30 years, nearly three years with the City of Chicago and 28 years with Cook County, of which ten (10) of those later years were shared with service to the Forest Preserves; and WHEREAS, Secretary DeLeon's family history reflects much of the Asian American contribution and perseverance of the 20th century. His parents were each part of two different waves of Filipino immigration that were essential to the Asian American experience. His father, Pedro DeLeon, landed in Port Angeles, Washington in 1928, finding work in canneries as a bus boy and on the American railroads which brought him to Chicago. He would go on to serve in the U.S. Army's all-Filipino Regiment which participated in the retaking of...
• Sponsors: TONI PRECKWINKLE (President), FRANK J. AGUILAR, ALMA E. ANAYA, LUIS ARROYO JR., SCOTT R. BRITTON, JOHN P. DALEY, DENNIS DEER, BRIDGET DEGNEN, BRIDGET GAINER, BRANDON JOHNSON, BILL LOWRY, DONNA MILLER, STANLEY MOORE, KEVIN B. MORRISON, SEAN M. MORRISON, PETER N. SILVESTRI, DEBORAH SIMS, LARRY SUFFREDIN

Date	Ver.	Action By	Action	Result
7/27/2021	2	FPD Board of Commissioners	approve on the Consent Agenda	Pass

title
PROPOSED RESOLUTION

HONORING THE RETIREMENT OF SECRETARY MATTHEW BENIGNO DELEON

WHEREAS, Matthew Benigno DeLeon will be retiring as Secretary to the Forest Preserves of Cook County Board of Commissioners on July 31, 2021; and

WHEREAS, Secretary DeLeon served in local government for over 30 years, nearly three years with the City of Chicago and 28 years with Cook County, of which ten (10) of those later years were shared with service to the Forest Preserves; and

WHEREAS, Secretary DeLeon's family history reflects much of the Asian American contribution and perseverance of the 20th century. His parents were each part of two different waves of Filipino immigration that were essential to the Asian American experience. His father, Pedro DeLeon, landed in Port Angeles, Washington in 1928, finding work in canneries as a bus boy and on the American railroads which brought him to Chicago. He would go on to serve in the U.S. Army's all-Filipino Regiment which participated in the retaking of the Philippines during World War II. After returning to Chicago, he worked at the Old Post Office downtown until his retirement in 1975. Secretary DeLeon's mother, Rosal DeLeon, arrived in Jersey City, New Jersey and made her way to Chicago as part of a wave of Filipino nurses that came to this country from the 1950s to the 1970s. She moved from hospital nursing at Illinois Masonic, Thorek and others to become Director of Nursing at a succession of nursing homes on the north side and in Evanston, retiring in 1999; and

WHEREAS, Secretary DeLeon attended Dawes School, Martin Luther King Jr. Laboratory School and Evanston Township High School, graduating in 1987. Interested in government from a young age, he participated in the YMCA Youth & Government program becoming the Youth Mayor of Evanston in 1985 and Youth Governor of Illinois two years later, and was a United States Congressional Page the summer before his junior year of high school, sponsored by Congressman Sidney R. Y...