The Village Board wants voters to weigh in on two Fox River bridge proposals.
On Tuesday the board approved placing the non-binding question on the April 1 ballot.
Voters will be asked whether they would support a Bolz Road bridge proposed by the Kane County Division of Transportation to ease traffic congestion or a bridge at Lake Marion Road. Carpentersville officials support the latter plan.
Known as the Longmeadow Parkway, the county proposal includes a 5.6-mile, four-lane road and a bridge at Bolz Road. The project would stretch from Illinois Highways 25 and 62 in Barrington Hills west into Carpentersville and to Huntley Road in Algonquin.
Kane County officials and U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a Yorkville Republican, are trying to secure federal funding for the $61.2 million project. They have urged municipalities near the site to support the plan.
The Village Boards of Algonquin, East and West Dundee and Sleepy Hollow recently passed resolutions in favor of the county plan. In September, Carpentersville trustees voted 4-3 against it, and Dundee Township voters rejected it in a non-binding referendum in 1997.
Meanwhile the Citizens Advocate Team residents group filed a federal lawsuit in August seeking to stop the county project. It alleges an environmental impact statement on the Longmeadow Parkway project filed by Kane County officials and approved by the Federal Highway Administration failed to address alternative sites for the bridge. It also did not sufficiently address the effect the bridge would have on air quality, surrounding wetlands and future housing development, according to the suit.
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The suit names the Kane County Division of Transportation, the Kane County Board, the Illinois secretary of transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. secretary of transportation as defendants.
Last month, the Village Board voted to ask Kane County to seek funding for a bridge on Lake Marion Road that is closer to the village.
In other matters, trustees rejected holding a non-binding referendum on whether the village should permit packaged alcohol sales on Sunday mornings. Some grocers have complained that they are losing sales to stores in neighboring communities.
Carpentersville prohibits alcohol sales between 2 a.m. and noon Sundays.