Agency Apologizes For Demolishing Homes

Transportation planners have been working on a third regional airport for Illinois for at least 25 years. Now that the time has come to build, residents of the villages of Beecher and Peotone are evaluating two competing designs for the airport submitted to the FAA. One comes from the state, and one from the Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission.

At a public hearing at Beecher High School Tuesday night, there was no love lost for either plan. Both would require displacement of residents. Two state lawmakers demanded apologies from the Illinois Department of Transportation, which on December 1 demolished two homes on property it bought for the project.

"We want to make it very clear ... neither IDOT nor the Governor's office nor the state of Illinois, has the right to treat the people of this district the way they have been treated in the last few weeks," state Rep. Lisa Dugan said, according to the Daily Journal newspaper.

Mayors Steve Cross of Peotone and Paul Lohmann of Beecher asked for comment periods longer than the 15 days provided by the state. IDOT extended that to 30 days, to allow political bodies to meet and consider the plans after the holidays.

No matter which plan for the airport is chosen, it's hard to imagine everyone being happy about it.

"There's been a severe lack of public participation in this process," Peotone Mayor Steve Cross said.

"Regional cooperation is vital for the protection of the residents of the village of Peotone. We must have a voice in the process."

Both villages extol their peaceful, rural settings near the south termination of the Bishop Ford Freeway, about 40 miles south of Chicago. Their combined population is about 6,000.

FMI: www.dot.state.il.us/