DuPage airport board chairman expects the ax
The DuPage Airport Board has gone rogue.
The group's simmering and somewhat-private feud with DuPage County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom - the man who appointed the airport board members to their posts - has boiled over into a full-on, publicly declared war of words.
After weeks of rising tensions over the future use of a nearly vacant technology park located at the south end of the airport property in West Chicago, airport board Chairman Dan Goodwin has hired a public relations firm at his own expense to attack Schillerstrom and promote the airport board's agenda.
"I fully expect for Schillerstrom to replace me on the airport board," Goodwin said Monday. "That is one of the costs of trying to do the right thing."
Goodwin's "right thing" is a plan to open up the 450 acres of developable land at the DuPage National Technology Park to more than just technology-based firms.
To Schillerstrom, it's the wrong thing. The county board chairman wants to remove the airport board from having any oversight of the tech park land and allow a tech park board to handle future land deals.
"Goodwin has made it clear he will do anything and say anything to protect his position," Schillerstrom said. "I'm very distressed by his actions." Goodwin's latest action was to dispatch a statement Monday afternoon claiming Schillerstrom was trying to sell the tech park land at almost half its value. The airport board wants to market the property at $3.06 per square foot, a value based on $61 million Goodwin says has been invested into the property. But Schillerstrom is proposing a $1.66 per square foot rate. That rate would cost taxpayers $24 million, Goodwin said.
Schillerstrom argues the price needs to be lowered since no one is biting at the higher price and his rate would still recoup the original $21 million investment in the property and turn an $11 million profit. Schillerstrom said Goodwin's math is faulty because the airport board chief is adding a $34 million state infrastructure grant into the price of the land.
"The state gave them that money to create a tech park and only expected to be recouped in new jobs," Schillerstrom said. "They haven't been able to do that."
But Goodwin contends it's Schillerstrom who is using fuzzy math.
"Only a politician would use math that shows that a taxpayer's expense is only $21 million when it suits his interest," Goodwin said.
Goodwin also believes Schillerstrom's plan would jeopardize airport funding from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Schillerstrom has threatened to replace at least two airport board members who have defied him recently and Goodwin's seat is up for reappointment too. The county board chairman said he hadn't made a decision on Goodwin's future on the airport board. But Schillerstrom will only be in that post for five more months and then the decision will either fall to Republican nominee Dan Cronin or Democrat Carole Cheney.
Cronin recently came out in favor of Goodwin's position and suggested he'd dissolve the tech park board if elected in November. Goodwin and his development firm, Inland Realty, were major contributors to both Cronin and the DuPage County Republican Party last year. Cronin is chairman of the county GOP. Campaign financing records show Goodwin donated $25,000 to the DuPage GOP in 2009 while Inland Realty donated $10,000 to Cronin's county board chairman bid late that same year.