Airport rivals gear up

Peotone area: Opponents try to protect landowners; Jackson group wants 'quick take'

Cindy Wojdyla Cain, Joliet Herald

Two Peotone-area airport groups appear to be on a collision course.

Shut This Airport Nightmare Down, a group that opposes the airport, is ramping up its efforts to protect residents who own land in the target area, or the airport "footprint."

They want the Will County Board to prohibit any more land acquisitions in the site until the project gets final federal approval. A resolution calling for a stop to condemnation proceedings will be submitted to the county board for its consideration.

In contrast, an airport commission led by U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Chicago, is pushing hard for the airport to take off and is recommending "quick-take" condemnation action by the state to acquire the airport site. A meeting will be held Monday to discuss the plan.

The Illinois Department of Transportation has been buying land for the airport since 2001. To date, the state has spent almost $20 million to acquire 1,700 of the 4,200 acres needed for the inaugural one-runway airport.

'Preposterous' claim -
The Jackson group is making the "preposterous" claim that it's about to break ground for an airport, said George Ochsenfeld, president of Shut This Airport Nightmare Down, in a written statement. The anti-airport group will ask the county board to prohibit condemnation until the Federal Aviation Administration officially approves the airport, which could take several years, said Bob Heuer, a consultant hired by Will Township to block the project. Heuer said Elk Grove Village and Bensenville, two towns that are part of Jackson's group, successfully sued in federal court to prohibit land acquisition for Chicago's O'Hare International Airport expansion until the FAA gives its final approval for that project. The same courtesy should be afforded the residents of eastern Will County, he said.

Shut This Airport Nightmare Down, or STAND, has proposed a resolution the county board could adopt that would require the county to:

Sponsor hearings in eastern Will County to learn more about how IDOT has been treating landowners in the airport footprint. Landowners say they have been harassed and intimidated.

Direct the Will County assessor to carry out a study that considers infrastructure costs and actual and projected revenue losses from removing up to 35 square miles of county real estate from the tax rolls.

Quick-take push -
Jackson's group, formally called the Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission, will meet at 11 a.m. Monday at the Park Forest Village Hall, 350 Victory Blvd., to discuss the quick-take measure. The commission's agenda lists a motion to discuss terms of transferring land from IDOT to the commission by sale, lease or transfer.

If legislation is necessary for the transfer, the commission would support a bill that supports the state's ability to assemble the site through quick-take authority, according to the agenda.

The group also will discuss a plan to ask the state and towns around the airport site to preserve the airport's 24,000-acre ultimate footprint.

Another motion would urge IDOT to consider hiring SNC-Lavalin/LCOR Joint Venture, the two companies hired by the commission to build the airport, as special consultants "at a nominal fee" to help IDOT with its airport master plan.

The agenda also lists an item urging IDOT to name the proposed airport access road from Illinois 50 after U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Wood Dale. Hyde has opposed O'Hare International Airport expansion and has pushed for the Peotone area airport to be built as an alternative.

The big squeeze -
Two other groups appear to be caught in the middle. The Will County Board is trying to negotiate with IDOT and Jackson's group on governance for the airport. And four "Iron Ring" mayors, a group made up of mayors whose towns circle the airport site, are lobbying for the most representation they can get with either group. In recent months, the state has seemed to take Jackson's side. Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced during his February State of the State address that he was sending Jackson's master plan to the FAA. But the governance plan is still up for grabs. That's why the county board last week authorized County Executive Larry Walsh to negotiate with IDOT and Jackson.

But Jackson's group sent out a press release last week saying the two companies it hired to build the airport will not participate in the project if the commission's plan is changed.

Jackson has said all along that he believes the Peotone airport will be viable and it will generate thousands of jobs and revitalize the economically depressed southern Cook County suburbs he represents.

Numbers don't add up -
Heuer said that with all the talk about the airport, no one seems to realize that even if it's built, it would only be as busy as Gary-Chicago International Airport in Gary, Ind., by 2018. "That's the best-case scenario, a barely used airstrip 13 years from now," he said.

And Will County seems to be getting dragged into the airport push, he added.

In the resolution drafted by STAND it says the county board "has acquiesced to pressure tactics from the state and outside municipalities."

Heuer, who helped block the Interstate 355 extension through Will County for 10 years, was even more direct.

"This is just a pathetic excuse of government being really out of control," he said.

Reporter Cindy Wojdyla Cain can be reached at (815) 729-6044 or via e-mail at ccain@scn1.com.