New year, new start for airport as Wheeling, Prospect Hts. settle disputes

After years of squabbling, Wheeling and Prospect Heights have announced they’ve cleared the financial and governmental skies over the Chicago Executive Airport.

Under an agreement reached this month, Wheeling will pay Prospect Heights $475,000 for sales and fuel taxes earned at the airport from the middle of 2005 through 2012. The two towns, which co-own the airport, will equally split proceeds retroactive to January 2013 and going forward.

While money was a huge stumbling block that led to at least one lawsuit between the communities, they have settled other points of contention, too.

Wheeling Village President Dean Argiris and Prospect Heights Mayor Nick Helmer both expressed delight Monday at the agreements.

“I’m really happy about it,” Argiris said. “We’ll start the new year off fresh. I met with Nick when I got elected (in April) and said: ‘This agreement has never been right since the day we became partners. I’m not fooling around. By the end of the year this will be done.’”

Helmer agreed that “everything is good.”

“This came about because Dean and I came to an understanding to work together as business people and good partners,” he said. “I told my council it was time to end the contentious relationship that had to do with money, not personalities.”

An important amendment to the airport agreement, which was first written in 1985, gives the airport’s board the right to hire and fire its executive director. The municipal governments share the responsibility of naming the airport board’s chairman, which recently led to the position being open almost a year as the two towns couldn’t agree on who should serve that role. In October, they finally agreed on attorney Robert McKenzie of Wheeling.

The towns’ financial dispute revolved around whether Wheeling was giving Prospect Heights its fair share of revenues generated by the airport.

Calculations showed Prospect Heights’ share of the back taxes would total as much as $800,000, Argiris said, but Wheeling insisted it would give only $475,000 because that village had spent $2 million in tax increment financing money — property taxes that go to development rather than local governments — on infrastructure to encourage development at the airport.

Earlier versions of the airport agreement talked about “revenue sharing” but were not specific enough, Argiris said.

At one time, tax-producing businesses were primarily in Prospect Heights, but in more recent years they have been in Wheeling.

The $475,000 is a significant amount for Prospect Heights, whose total budget for 2013-2014 is $8.5 million.

Reaching a solution took work and leadership, the officials said.

“Through the years, people just wanted to prove who was the tough guy,” Argiris said.