Crawford resigns as Kankakee-area land bank leader

Working two full-time jobs just became too exhausting for the Rev. Montele Crawford, who recently submitted his resignation as executive director of the Kankakee Regional Land Bank Authority.

“For me, the church has always been first and foremost,” said Crawford, who is the senior pastor at Morning Star Baptist Church in Kankakee. “That’s the reason why I came to Kankakee. My aim was to take on this, to help get things rolling, get it started. Basically, [it was] getting to the point where I couldn’t handle it anymore.”

Crawford’s resignation is effective Oct. 31. His said his goal as executive director was to get the land bank to where it is now.

“We’ve been able to lay a pretty good foundation,” he said. “And with where we are, in these next stages of property acquisition, I think it’d be a great time for someone else to come in, because now we have so much more in place than when we first started.”

Crawford, 50, was hired as the executive director in May 2023. The land bank is an intergovernmental agreement between Kankakee County and the city of Kankakee to revitalize neighborhoods by returning vacant and abandoned properties back to productive use, according to its website.

Under Crawford’s leadership, the land bank returned a duplex on South Washington Avenue in Kankakee into active use, demolished two abandoned rural properties and sold the land to adjacent homeowners, and is just weeks away from getting the former Jaffe Drugs building at 217 E. Court St. up for sale to potential investors.

“Anytime you start something from the ground up, it’s pretty exhausting,” Crawford said. “I began to take a look at myself on my quality of life, and I’m getting a little bit too exhausted.”

At the beginning of Tuesday’s monthly land bank meeting, board Chairwoman Lisa Sanford thanked Crawford for his hard work.

“It’s been a learning process for the board and for [Crawford] to do all of this,” she said. “Now we are going to take it as an opportunity to say, ‘What have we done right? And where we want to go from here.’”

Crawford, of Bourbonnais, said Morning Star Baptist Church has grown to more than 300 members, which requires more of his time.

“That demand now is getting back to where it was pre-COVID days, believe it or not,” he said. “A lot of churches are still recovering in some way from the shutdowns of COVID. And now with things picking up the way they are, and just changes in life, I mean, I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Crawford and his wife, Camille, are parents of three children: Cayla, 21; Maya, 18; and Nathan, 9.

While land bank executive director, Crawford paused teaching a Christian Justice course at Olivet Nazarene University and writing his second book.

“I would like to pick those things back up,” he said. “Those things are important to me.”

The land bank’s executive director salary is $75,000, which is paid for by the city, while the county is paying benefits as a county employee.

Sanford said the board will communicate with city and county leaders to determine when it will hire a new director.

“We’re just going to look at the entire process and what do we want to do from here,” she said. “We’re taking this opportunity to just assess our whole process and what’s going to be best for the county as a whole.”