They spilled over from the United Steelworkers of America Memorial Hall on Sunday afternoon-an estimated 750 people cheering, jeering and carrying signs stating their opposition to a proposed third airport at Lake Calumet.
But, after the rallying cries faded, a critical question remained: Will opponents of the airport proposal be able to galvanize a community that remains divided on the eve of a crucial decision about the plan.
On Monday a bistate site-selection commission is expected to approve the $10.8 billion project for Lake Calumet.
Neighbors in the area remain divided on the proposal, with opponents saying it will destroy neighborhoods without fairly compensating residents. Supporters, meanwhile, say the airport will bring thousands of jobs to an economically devastated area and clean up one of the most environmentally violated regions of the state.
”I`m charged up,” said Mike Nosich, 44, an East Side resident who attended Sunday`s anti-airport rally in the hall at 11731 S. Avenue O with his parents and his son Tommy, 5. ”I feel less confused than I did before I came in here.”
Nosich, whose son is the third generation of Nosiches residing in the area, said he will ”stay in touch” with Chicago Ald. John Buchanan (10th)
and follow his suggestions for fighting the project.
Pressed for definite steps he will take to defeat the airport plan, Buchanan mentioned recruiting the support of environmental groups and
”getting to the federal level,” but he failed to elaborate.
A few feet from Nosich stood Richard and Michele Rosado, who moved into a custom-made home in the area four years ago. Maps of the proposed airport show their home just outside the boundaries but perilously close to hazardous noise zones.
”It definitely was a lot of hot air,” Michele Rosado said of speakers at the rally. ”They`re just trying to feed the audience. I thought it would be more than just talk. Tell me something concrete.”
Dorothy Savickas, 60, stood close to the stage at the rally, clutching a newspaper with a photograph of Mayor Richard Daley on the front page. A relative had marked the photograph with an ink pen to depict the mayor as Adolf Hitler, and Savickas was showing the newspaper to friends.
”I think we accomplished a lot here because it made people more aware and gave them a feeling of unity,” said Savickas, who has lived in Hegewisch for 29 years. ”With unity you can overcome anything.”
She said opponents must bring the fight to federal agencies and officials and realize that the process of destroying neighborhoods for an airport at Lake Calumet is far from complete.
The nearly hourlong rally included speeches from a handful of elected officials and civic leaders criticizing Daley and Edgar for recommending Lake Calumet as the site. Burnham Mayor Rocky Rudnett received the loudest cheers, a standing ovation for a vulgar insult aimed at Daley, but he failed to offer specific approaches to defeat the proposed airport.
”We all have to work together,” Rudnett said. ”If we don`t work together, we won`t win.”
Former U.S. Atty. Thomas Foran, now a private attorney in the area, offered the only definitive advice to the crowd, and it was rather ominous. He told those in attendance to ”spruce up” then ”get some good pictures” of their homes, inside and out, to show property appraisers.
Still, Foran insisted it was time to ”dig in” for a big fight.
”As small as we are, we can rise to become the large force that we need,” he said.
A few blocks from the Steelworkers Memorial Hall, however, sentiment is much more favorable for a Lake Calumet airport.
Stella Rymus has lived in the South Deering and Hegewisch areas virtually all of her 47 years, she said. She recalled the boom times of 20 and 30 years ago when jobs were plenty.
All that changed dramatically in 1980, when six of her brothers lost their jobs in steel mills, she said. The area has continued sinking economically since, Rymus added.
”It used to be when a kid graduated from high school he knew he could go into the steel mills for work,” Rymus said, ”but now there`s nothing for them.”
She said her frame home would be destroyed if a new airport is built near Lake Calumet, and she hopes she can move to an area with her existing neighbors, but Rymus said she supports the new airport plan.
”There`s just a hopelessness for the kids now,” she said. ”Everything is just dying. People have no hope. We really have to do something to stimulate the economy and this is one way to do it.”
Patrick Carroll has been running the Crow Bar tavern and banquet hall at 106th Street just east of the Indiana line for 11 years. The home he bought nine months ago will be destroyed if a new airport is built. He is uncertain whether his business also will be demolished.
He said he supports a Lake Calumet airport.
”We`re just in the pit of the recession here,” he said. ”The steel industry`s gone. What do we have left?”
Carroll said the airport would bring jobs to the area and revenue to his business, but he worries about tearing apart his neighborhood.
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”These people are afraid they`re going to get hurt,” he said, adding that airport organizers should set aside $1.6 billion for relocation costs.
”I`m pro-airport, but I think the No. 1 thing is to take care of the people.”
The political fallout of the Lake Calumet deal has reached beyond the areas affected by the plan.
Across town, in the suburbs clustered around O`Hare International Airport, a political battle is building over who will speak for suburban interests and, more important, who will be heard.
After last week`s accord between Edgar and Daley that designated Lake Calumet as the site for the region`s third major airport, the governor repeated his stand on new O`Hare runways: There will be none unless the suburbs agree.
Because the support of suburban politicians almost certainly will be required to make Lake Calumet a reality early in the next century, it is a looming caveat. Despite the Edgar-Daley deal, Lake Calumet and the thorny O`Hare noise issue seem inextricably linked.
In the past, the loudest and most recognized suburban voice on the noise issue was that of the Suburban O`Hare Commission, a coalition that includes Du Page County and 12 suburbs near the airport.
But the Suburban O`Hare Commission is bruised from its latest go-around with Chicago, and some say its support in the suburbs is eroding.
The suburbs` refusal to bend on their unconditional no-new-runways stand, a fundamental part of the Suburban O`Hare Commission credo, put them outside the final negotiations between Edgar and Daley. Subsequently the Lake Calumet deal carried no promise of noise relief for O`Hare`s neighbors.
After hearing news of the final Edgar-Daley deal, one Suburban O`Hare Commission member said last week that he was ”shocked, dismayed and frustrated.”
Sunday night the group turned the rhetoric up even higher.
In an eight-page news release, the president of the commission, Bensenville Mayor John C. Geils, chastised Edgar for embracing ”the Big Lie that is being spun by Mayor Daley and his business-airline allies.”
The commission called the Lake Calumet plan ”Edgar`s folly” and charged that the agreement with Daley was ”an abdication of Edgar`s constitutional duty to fairly enforce the laws of the state of Illinois.”
While the commission, with its uncompromising stand against runway expansion, has been the dominant voice from the suburbs around O`Hare, other prominent residents are now making their views known.
Some influential business leaders say the region`s economic future is at risk if O`Hare is not allowed to expand, and some mayors are openly critical of the commission`s approach.
The commission will get another chance to tie O`Hare noise relief to Lake Calumet when the third-airport deal comes before the General Assembly this spring.
While business leaders vow to launch a lobbying effort, the Suburban O`Hare Commission a powerful ally in Senate Minority Leader James ”Pate”
Philip (R-Wood Dale), who was singled out for praise in the news release.
In the past, House Minority Leader Lee Daniels (R-Elmhurst) has also stood behind the commission, but there were signs Sunday night that a split may be brewing.
Commission officials ”expressed deep concern over the preliminary support given the boondoggle Lake Calumet project by” Daniels, according to the release.
”We hope that Daniels will reconsider his position,” the release said.
”These issues are vital to the voters in his district.”
Charles Zettek, vice chairman of the Suburban O`Hare Commission and Elk Grove Village president, conceded his agency`s position may have been weakened.
But ”all the people in the equation, including the governor and the mayor, know they have a long, long way to go,” Zettek said. ”It`s far from over.”
Al Hosticka, Schiller Park representative to the commission, said the group was hurt when it was unable to negotiate a runway ban as part of the Lake Calumet agreement.
”But no one has lost enthusiasm for a runway ban,” Hosticka said.
”We`ll carry it to Gov. Edgar and the legislature in Springfield. The Lake Calumet fiasco hasn`t changed anything at O`Hare.”
Edgar spokesman Mike Lawrence said the O`Hare issues are bound to come up as part of the Lake Calumet debate in the legislature.
”There are issues pending in the legislature on the third airport, and it would be appropriate to try to renew discussions there on O`Hare,” he said.