Jack Siegel's legal legacy

From the incorporation of Schaumburg to the annexation of Arlington Park into Arlington Heights, attorney Jack Siegel played a large and lasting role in the shaping of the Northwest suburban landscape as we know it today. These are some of his most significant cases and contributions.

• Siegel successfully defended Schaumburg against a legal challenge to its 1956 incorporation by the development firm F&S (Father & Son) Builders. The firm had bought a farm on which to build houses, marketing them on the basis that residents would be free from municipal taxes. The legal victory kept Schaumburg in existence, clearing the way for the village to become one of the Chicago suburbs' most influential communities.

• Siegel and the-Schaumburg Mayor Bob Atcher teamed up again to work on the establishment of an independent Schaumburg Park District. The growing Elk Grove Park District had been interested in making Schaumburg part of its jurisdiction, but Atcher wanted the village to have its own park district, and with Siegel's help, he made it happen.

• Siegel made his first appearance in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1977 while representing Arlington Heights, which was being sued by the Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., a group trying to build low-income townhouses along Euclid Avenue. The site was owned by the Order of St. Viator and at the time was zoned for single-, not multi-, family housing. Siegel successfully argued that the case was about the village staying true to its zoning laws, not discrimination.

• Siegel appeared before the Supreme Court again in 1979, representing Schaumburg in its case against the organization Citizens for Better Environment. The group sought charitable donations door to door, and Schaumburg had passed an ordinance requiring that at least 75 percent of donations go directly to the cause - as opposed to salaries or administrative costs of an organization. The village lost the case on the basis that the ordinance violated the First Amendment right of free speech and the Fourteenth Amendment prohibition against the government's curtailing any such rights to its citizens.

• Arlington International Racecourse is a part of Arlington Heights today largely because Siegel, along with former Mayor John Woods, convinced former track-owner Marge Everett to let the village annex the track in the late 1960s, and worked out the legal issues that allowed it to happen. The track had been operating outside municipal boundaries, but is now one of the largest employers and economic engines in Arlington Heights.

- Eric Peterson and Melissa Silverberg