After months of mixed signals, Des Plaines leaders will decide Wednesday evening whether to contribute to a $1.4 million campaign to fight expansion plans for O’Hare International Airport.
A special meeting of the City Council will be devoted to a proposal to pay $250,000 to the Suburban O’Hare Commission, the coalition of suburbs opposed to O’Hare expansion.
Des Plaines is the commission’s biggest member and its most ambivalent. In recent months, several Des Plaines City Council members have questioned payments by the Suburban O’Hare Commission to its lawyer, Joe Karaganis, and have argued against paying the city’s quarterly dues to the group.
On Tuesday, Mayor Tony Arredia said he did not want to predict what would happen Wednesday. Much will depend on how the council reacts to a presentation by Karaganis, Arredia said.
Karaganis agreed to waive his hourly fee to make the presentation.
“What the aldermen will vote, I don’t know,” Arredia said. “I think the presentation will answer most of the questions on what will happen to the fund. If we have some more questions from the aldermen, we’ll deal with that if the time comes.”
In June the Des Plaines council deadlocked on the issue of paying the city’s $22,700 quarterly dues to the commission, with Arredia breaking the tie in favor of paying. Last month, the council voted 5-3 to pay the dues.
The stakes will be considerably higher Wednesday evening.
Hoping to counter Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s $6.3 billion expansion plan, announced in June, the Suburban O’Hare Commission is raising money for phone banks, direct mailings and transporting of expansion foes to public meetings and rallies.
Aside from Des Plaines, “Everybody is on board,” Karaganis said Tuesday.
He said the communities closest to the airport, including Des Plaines, are expected to make the largest contributions to the anti-expansion fund.
Arredia assured Suburban O’Hare Commission members at their August meeting that the Des Plaines City Council would approve the additional $250,000 contribution. But after a testy exchange with commission Chairman John Geils, the mayor of Bensenville, Arredia stormed out of that meeting.
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Commission members said they do not think Arredia’s walkout will factor into the Des Plaines council’s decision on the anti-expansion campaign.
“It’s like anything in a family. You are always going to have arguments, but you are still a family,” said Elk Grove Mayor Craig Johnson, the Suburban O’Hare Commission’s vice chairman.
Should the Des Plaines vote turn against commission, it would live with the consequences, Johnson said.
“If we don’t get all the money we hoped for, then we’ll scale back some of the areas we are approaching,” he said.
As residents of the most populous suburb bordering O’Hare, the 59,000 people in Des Plaines feel the full brunt of airplane noise. They also enjoy the economic benefits of having one of the world’s busiest airports nearby.
Those close ties to the airport touch even council members, including Ald. Rosemary Argus, whose 8th Ward is adjacent to the north end of the airport. Argus is retired from a 20-year career at United Airlines, a company that has consistently supported expanding O’Hare.
Since being elected in April, Argus twice voted against paying quarterly dues to the Suburban O’Hare Commission. Homes and businesses in her ward would be demolished under Chicago’s expansion plan.
Karaganis said that other public officials in suburbs that belong to the commission have similar ties to O’Hare but are solid in their opposition to new runways.
Argus could not be reached for comment Tuesday.