More interest should mean more voices

This is a tough year for municipalities across the Chicago area. Suburban officials are looking at budget cuts that include layoffs, fewer services and, as a story in today's Daily Herald reports, cutting back on festival and fireworks budgets.

These hard decisions need to be made. But some communities also face difficult development decisions on whether to allow new retail stores to build within their borders. The lure of extra sales and property taxes that would come into the community, especially now, is appealing. But as another story in today's Daily Herald reports, allowing a so-called "big box" retailer isn't always a positive for nearby homeowners.

In West Dundee, a group of homeowners in the Tartans Glen subdivision have mobilized to fight the village and Wal-Mart to stop the construction of a 186,000-square-foot supercenter at the corner of Huntley Road and Elm Avenue.

There are good reasons they don't want the retailer to build there. And there are good reasons village officials want to see Wal-Mart open up in their community.

To stop the construction, the citizens group has filed suit in Kane County Circuit Court, claiming special-use zoning permits should not have been granted to allow Wal-Mart to build.

As staff writer Larissa Chinwah reported, this is reminiscent of a fight in Lisle that started in 1999 when residents sued to block Meijer from building a store on Maple Avenue. That case went all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court, which upheld rulings that overturned the Lisle village board's actions in approving Meijer's plans. The case finally ended when Meijer declined to appeal the decision in November 2004.

The case was significant because it changed the way boards and commissions dealt with public input. Because of the Supreme Court ruling, residents have a greater say in Illinois now on development issues.

The suit in Lisle said the board acted improperly by limiting residents' comments to two minutes each and prohibiting them from directly questioning the developers. In effect, the deck was stacked in favor of a developer. The courts agreed.

So it's not surprising to see residents, like those in West Dundee, taking action to stop a project they don't like. We think the benefit of the Lisle case and any others is that there is renewed interest in government decisions and in making sure governmental bodies make those decisions openly. Given the quagmire our state government finds itself in right now, that is refreshing.

"We changed Lisle for the better," said Lisle Trustee Ed Young, who won election in 2001 on a slate opposed to Meijer. "We changed the way municipalities hold public hearings for the better. People can ask questions and get answers."

Whether you want a "big box" retailer in your backyard or not, it's vital that residents take advantage of their rights to ask those questions and get those answers. And it's also vital that officials follow those rules when making the hard decisions that voters elect them to do.