Finances won't stymie water project, mayor says

Recently revealed budget problems in Hawthorn Woods won't affect a village proposal to replace the beleaguered Glennshire water system, officials said.

"I still think we have an obligation to provide services to our residents," Hawthorn Woods Mayor Keith Hunt said. "The Glennshire (plan) is not anything that should be affected one way or another by these cuts."

The village laid off eight employees Tuesday and announced cuts intended to offset a $738,000 deficit in its general fund budget. Hunt said those problems won't have an impact on the village plan to buy water wholesale from private provider Aqua Illinois and resell it to homeowners.

The village would be responsible for billing, collections and customer service.

"A lot of that is going to be contacting Aqua," Hunt said. "We think that for the rate that we've proposed, we can provide that service to those residents without any additional drain on the general fund."

Representatives for Glennshire residents said the news just reinforces their need to get guarantees about the project in advance.

"It doesn't really change any stance that we have," said Christopher Donovan, a Glennshire resident and president of Citizens for Equitable Water Solutions, a homeowners group formed to address the water issue.

Donovan said residents worry the village could decide to sell the new water system, leaving residents in the hands of a new, private owner.

"This just underlines why we need things in writing to ensure that the village does not sell the system," he said.

The 224 residents served by the Glennshire water system learned last year their 20 wells would have to be replaced due to an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency order.

Lake County, which owns the system, said the purchase agreement signed in the 1970s requires homeowners to pay the millions of dollars for a new system.

In the most recent development, Lake County Public Works Director Peter Kolb announced Wednesday that the attorney general's office had given the county a 60-day extension from its Nov. 29 deadline to allow residents to examine the new village proposal.

But now that the village has laid off three of its public works employees, will it continue to have the staff to administer the project?

"That is a very good question," Kolb said. "I would imagine that would be the kind of question the residents themselves would want to ask the village."

And Kolb said they will get that opportunity at a public meeting planned with both county and village officials present. He said the county hopes homeowners will attend and express their preferences on which new water system they'd like.

"We will support any direction the residents would like to go," Kolb said.