Lake County gives village, residents month-end deadline to end impasse
Lake County has rejected a more than $1.3 million settlement offer by 224 Glennshire homeowners who want the county to pay the rest of the cost to replace their water system.
The county has instead given Glennshire homeowners and Hawthorn Woods until month end to agree to its terms or the county will back out of building the new system and dump the problem onto the village's lap for good, officials said Monday.
"This was a contract," Lake County Administrator Barry Burton said. "The contract can be terminated. We certainly don't want to go down that path. At the end of the month, if we can't (come to agreement), then we'll have to make a recommendation to the county board."
By a 2006 Illinois Environmental Protection Agency order, Lake County must build a new water system to replace Glennshire's 20 shallow wells after repeated violations. The county would own and operate the new system within Hawthorn Woods' boundaries as it did the previous one.
The residents' settlement offer was an attempt to resolve a state lawsuit against the county, and Hawthorn Woods as a third-party defendant, to get the system fixed.
Burton said the county is sticking to the terms of its 1975 contract with Hawthorn Woods that states any upgrades to the Glennshire system would be paid for by residents through a surcharge.
He added the county won't pay a cent more than the $1 million the county board already has pledged toward the $6 million cost to upgrade the Glennshire system, and any amount short of the $5 million residents are liable for is unacceptable.
"That was a very fair offer at the time and that offer still stands," Burton said.
Christopher Donovan, a spokesman for Glennshire homeowners, said residents offered to pay $6,000 per homeowner as a compromise and shouldn't have to pay anything at all.
"Over the past 34 years, the residents have paid Lake County millions with the expectations that they, as public stewards, would properly maintain the system and continue to fund the depreciation account which the village transferred to them in 1975," Donovan said. "Well that money has disappeared, along with the millions we paid in fees."
Donovan said the county should have been setting aside excess revenue from user fees into a depreciation fund to be used solely for expansion and improvements to the system.
Under the county's proposal, it would cost each homeowner $23,000 upfront or roughly $55,000 with financing to fund the new system.
The 672 Glennshire residents filed a separate lawsuit against Lake County demanding it foot the entire $6 million bill. That complaint is still pending in federal court.
Meanwhile, the county and Hawthorn Woods are at an impasse on a three-party agreement that would allow the county to buy bulk water from Aqua Illinois Inc., to serve Glennshire subdivision.
Hawthorn Woods separately offered to pay $448,000 toward the cost of the proposed new system for Glennshire.
"We are yet to receive a response to that offer," Hawthorn Woods Mayor Keith Hunt said. "I don't know why (the county) would be attempting to impose arbitrary deadlines. They have no right under the agreement to tender the system back."