The real roadblock isn't on Cuba Road

We urge Lake Zurich and Kildeer to pause in their consideration of a proposed shopping center.

We all know what can happen when money talks, and people don't.

That's why we urge Lake Zurich and Kildeer to pause in their consideration of a proposed shopping center anchored by a Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse and a J.C. Penney store on the northeast corner of Cuba Road and Route 12. A little frank discussion is called for here.

And don't get too sidetracked over the idea of closing Cuba Road east of Route 12 -- a patently bad idea given the area's severe traffic congestion, cited as one of the area's top problems by mayors of both towns during an economic development forum last August.

Consider that the Cuba Road proposal just might be a classic maneuver on the part of a developer whose project is in Kildeer but whose only obvious access, from Old Rand Road, is in Lake Zurich, a town that doesn't -- yet -- see any particular reason to go out of its way for the Lowe's development.

Closing Cuba Road a few hundred feet east of Route 12 would leave just a stub of roadway at Route 12 to serve as a new access point, without Lake Zurich's participation but with a host of irate, mostly Kildeer, residents.

If the Cuba Road gambit is meant to prod the two towns back to the negotiating table, we've got to side with the developers on that point: both villages come across as way too stubborn about carving up this potential cash cow.

A boundary agreement calls for Lake Zurich and Kildeer evenly splitting sales tax and property tax proceeds from the property. But it's set to expire in 2013, just a few years after the shopping center would be completed.

Lake Zurich wants that 50-50 split to continue, oh, say, forever. Kildeer's willing to talk about an extension, but not if it gives Lake Zurich half the money.

Positions that far apart demand more negotiation, especially if income from the shopping center really is the key to Kildeer's financial future, as Village President Alan Stefaniak has said.

And as long as we're making demands, how about a little more governmental openness? Kildeer residents who've already had contact with the village because of their interest in the shopping center plans shouldn't hear the road closure proposal via the grapevine. And Lake Zurich's unwillingness to make its position clear on development of a nearby unincorporated property at Quentin Road and Route 22, also on the Kildeer border, isn't making for neighborly goodwill.

There are a few other issues here, like how another home-improvement store can make a go of it just down the road from a Home Depot and an under-construction Menard's, and how to plan now to forestall vacant big-box eyesores a few decades out. Lake Zurich, having learned from experience, might have a few things to share with Kildeer.

If they were talking.