Villages not saying how they'll fight ComEd power line project
Five villages bordering the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway are pledging to keep confidential their conversations and planning regarding their mutual opposition to the current version of a proposed ComEd power line project along that roadway.
Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, Hanover Park, Roselle and Itasca are individually approving a joint defense and confidentiality agreement regarding ComEd's West Central Reliability Project.
Schaumburg Village Attorney Lance Malina said the law states that if multiple parties are on the same side in a potential legal matter, the attorney-client privilege each has with its own lawyers can be waived to share legal advice with the others without having to share that information with third parties.
This would be the case even without the written agreement these five municipalities are considering, Malina said.
But attorneys — who prefer to avoid loose ends — see such an agreement as further reinforcement against legal challenge if a matter should result in litigation, he added.
ComEd spokesman David O'Dowd said he wasn't familiar with any precedent for such an agreement among the municipalities with which the company interacts.
But neither could he say that ComEd would necessarily have an objection to it.
ComEd's West Central Reliability Project calls for a transmission line stretching about 9 miles between substations in Bartlett and Itasca. The line would run along the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway atop 140- to 170-foot-tall steel poles.
ComEd officials say the project is intended to improve reliability for more than 100,000 residential and business customers served by the Bartlett substation. The new lines also would provide a backup electricity route between Bartlett and Itasca.
Leaders of the five municipalities opposing the project say their residents and businesses would not be served by the new lines, yet would face negative consequences in the form of lower property values and an unpleasant view.
These village officials want the lines buried, but ComEd officials say state law prohibits them from making their customers pay for anything more than the most cost-effective option — the proposed overhead lines.
Earlier this year, just before ComEd took a six-month break from advancing the proposal to the Illinois Commerce Commission for approval, the five municipalities pledged $100,000 each to fight the project.
But Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson believes there's still a good chance of the five municipalities finding common ground with ComEd.
“I'm always optimistic, always hopeful,” he said.