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player ready...State Sen. Jeff Schoenberg is accusing Northfield officials of failing to produce all the financial documents he requested after diving into the debate over the proposed widening of Willow Road, which has pitted residents in that community against their neighbors.
Schoenberg, D-Evanston, recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request that he thinks will back his accusation that Northfield created a “slush fund” to fight the project.
Some residents fear widening their stretch of Willow Road to four or more lanes will make it a major thoroughfare, while people in other North Shore towns say it’s needed to accommodate increasing traffic in the area.
Northfield Village President Fred Gougler called Schoenberg’s claims “inaccurate and defamatory,” filled with “malicious and offensive language.” He said the senator was politicizing a safety issue.
Northfield supports a three-lane Willow Road, citing safety concerns. Schoenberg and neighboring towns support a four- or five-lane road to alleviate traffic problems.
In early September, Schoenberg said the village was spending money on “politically connected attorneys, lobbyists and public relations firms” to fight a plan to widen the two-lane, 1.2-mile patch of Willow that runs through Northfield.
Northfield responded with a three-page, 15-year financial breakdown of money spent related to the project. Schoenberg said he will appeal to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office, because he did not get proper documentation to support the data.
“I found the information provided in your letter woefully incomplete, and I believe that the village of Northfield is in violation of the state’s Freedom of Information Act by deliberately failing to provide public contracts, billing records, board minutes and other supporting documentation,” Schoenberg wrote in a letter to Village Manager Stacy Sigman.
He also widened his original request to “all contracts, memoranda, communications, board minutes, invoices, billing records and other such relevant documents.”
The war of words has been waged for nearly a month, but the debate over Willow Road has been raging for years.
According to its data, Northfield has spent $686,709 of its own money, plus $762,394 which was reimbursed by the Illinois Department of Transportation, since the issue first surfaced in 1995.
The bulk of local funds — $480,000 — were used to support a previous IDOT plan from 2005 that would only have expanded Willow from two to three lanes across, officials said. After that plan was scuttled, Northfield has spent $208,206 to fight a movement to widen Willow Road to four or five lanes.
Meanwhile, residents neighboring Northfield have launched a grass-roots movement known as Move Willow Forward, which they hope balances the outcry from Northfield residents.
“We’re just trying to look at it from as common sense a position as possible,” said John Nicolau, a Glenview resident who is part of that effort.
“What amazes me is Northfield seems to forget you can’t have a quaint, little town and put the ‘world of cheese’ headquarters in your town,” he added, referring to the Kraft Foods headquarters at Willow and Waukegan roads, right where Willow’s lanes shift.