The Arlington Heights Village Board decided Monday night against throwing its weight behind a push for a new airport near Peotone, despite a powerful 11th-hour attempt at persuasion by U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and others.
After nearly two hours of debate late into the evening, village trustees voted 5-3 against supporting the so-called Hyde-Jackson partnership, an effort led by Hyde and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) to push for construction of a regional airport near Peotone in Will County. The two congressman created the Partnership for a Third Airport to advance their cause.
A key factor in the vote against the partnership, several village trustees said, was a failure to address a key issue of concern for Arlington Heights: noise at O’Hare International Airport.
The trustees did, however, vote to reaffirm their opposition to any new runways at nearby O’Hare. But the last-gasp bid by the supporters of the third airport to win a vote putting the trustees on record in favor of the third airport was defeated.
The board’s opposition to new runways at O’Hare did not assuage the disappointment of the partnership supporters.
“This is a political delivery of a vote for expansion of O’Hare by allies of the city of Chicago and the airlines,” said Joseph Karaganis, a lawyer for the Suburban O’Hare Commission, which supports the third-airport partnership.
Two weeks ago, the Arlington Heights Advisory Committee on O’Hare Noise narrowly rejected a motion to join the pro-Peotone partnership by a 4-3 vote.
The Hyde-Jackson effort has the support of the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference and the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, which represent about 70 municipalities.
So far, however, support in the northwest suburbs for a third airport has been limited to communities that are members of the Suburban O’Hare Commission, a group that opposes noise and expansion at O’Hare.
In recent months, Park Ridge, Elk Grove Village, Bensenville and Des Plaines have voted to support a Peotone airport.
Third-airport backers have said privately that a victory in Arlington Heights would show the idea enjoys broad support. But on Monday, they were tempering their expectations and didn’t want to place too much significance on any one vote.
“It’s not going to stop it,” said Patrick Durante, an aide to Hyde. “It’s not going to break the back of this movement. We have other communities looking at this. It’s blossoming,” he said.
Hyde sent trustees a lengthy letter on the eve of the Arlington Heights vote, spelling out his
support.
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In it, Hyde repeatedly linked a failure to support a new regional airport with tacit support for additional runways at O’Hare, something Arlington Heights has opposed.
“If you refuse to support construction of the new airport, you are necessarily . . . supporting construction of new runways and further expansion of O’Hare,” Hyde wrote.
He based the equation on the assumption that the projected growth in air traffic during the next 20 years must come either through expansion of O’Hare or construction of a third airport. But it was this equation that angered Arlington Heights Mayor Arlene Mulder.
“I personally resent being told we cannot continue our strong resistance to more runways at O’Hare unless we support a third airport,” she said.