The City Council unanimously rejected an invitation Wednesday to join the Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission in its effort to build and operate a commercial airport in eastern Will County.
Instead, city officials endorsed Will County’s plan for building and developing the proposed facility near Peotone, which “includes governance, finance, marketing and land-use planning to build, own and operate the proposed airport according to local, state and federal law.”
Will County’s plan is also credited as promoting “regional cooperation by working with communities, business and labor from Will, Cook and Kankakee Counties.”
Before the 7-0 vote, City Manager John Mezera said the ALNAC plan for the Peotone facility vests control “in municipalities that are not even in Will County.”
Mezera was underscoring a resolution point alleging that ALNAC’s intergovernmental agreement “gives complete authority over all decisions to Elk Grove Village, University Park and Park Forest, regardless of any number of other member communities’ positions on matters related to ownership, financing and operations of the airport.”
The Will County Governmental League originated the nine-point resolution, which also slaps at ALNAC’s plan to tap into home-rule municipalities’ powers to “extra-territorially zone land, condemn land and procure developers for a project that is outside all members’ municipal jurisdiction.”
In addition, the resolution alleges ALNAC’s intergovernmental agreement with Bensenville and Elk Grove Village gives those two municipalities “the ability to sue ALNAC to force expansion of the airport for 25 years.”
Will County Board Chairman Jim Moustis (R-Frankfort) has charged ALNAC’s plan is “to develop Will County and export the revenue to Cook.”