Maxxam drug-treatment center near Campton Hills takes step toward approval
Plans to build a drug-treatment center just outside Campton Hills received the first favorable vote Tuesday in more than 15 months of debate.
A pair of new factors and the specter of a major federal lawsuit appeared to fuel the change of heart by Kane County Board members.
The county's zoning board, full board and various committees rejected the plan in a series of votes last year. The development team restarted the process after the threat of a federal lawsuit and the rescinding of the final vote by the county board in November.
Coming into Tuesday's meeting, the development team, Maxxam Partners, hired a new CEO on a contingent basis to run the day-to-day operations of the facility. The hiring came in response to public criticism that Maxxam's managing director, Steven Marco, had no experience running a treatment facility.
Marco announced the hiring to the committee Tuesday without revealing the name of the CEO. He also indicated he had flown in the CEO for a confidential meeting with an unknown number of county officials before Tuesday's meeting.
"You're aware, in order to provide more transparency, I flew in a CEO," Marco said. "I wanted to have someone with a pulse in the industry right now."
Maxxam officials also told the committee they'd reached a tentative agreement to address all lingering concerns of the Fox River & Countryside Fire/Rescue District.
The district would provide any initial emergency response to the facility, which would be on the former Glenwood Academy site. District officials had repeatedly expressed concerns about the high volume of calls it expected the facility to generate. Without going into details, Maxxam officials told the committee all those concerns had gone away.
Ken Shepro, the attorney for the fire district, immediately undercut that selling point.
"I think that is premature at best," Shepro said of any notion the fire district is now on board with the treatment center plan. "There are many issues that still need to be addressed. I don't know if they are significant issues or not."
The fire district has a special meeting April 26 for trustees to vote on a deal with Maxxam.
Along with that new information, Maxxam's legal team reminded the county that it has promised to file a $68 million federal discrimination lawsuit if the plan is rejected again. The legal team pointed to comments by the county's zoning board in the original series of public hearings about the treatment facility fueling increased crime and being "injurious to the community" as "discriminatory comments."
The county board constituted an entirely new zoning board heading into the most recent round of public hearings in a seeming attempt to redeem any of those earlier comments.
With those facts to consider, the development committee voted 5-4 in favor of allowing the facility to operate.
Board members Drew Frasz, T.R. Smith, Mike Kenyon and Kurt Kojzarek repeated their votes from March 2016 in opposition to the project.
Frasz, who represents part of the district where the facility would be, said he cast his vote on behalf of the "opposition consistently and unanimously against this, across the board, twice. The petitioner has been uncooperative, evasive and secretive. I strongly oppose this."
Board members Maggie Auger, Theresa Barreiro, Brian Dahl, Bill Lenert and John Martin all voted for the project. Barreiro was absent for the 15-6 vote that spiked the plan last March. Lenert abstained from that March vote. Dahl and Martin voted against the plan last March, indicating a change in sentiment may fuel a different outcome in the final vote by the full county board next month.