COD and Glen Ellyn take sign battle to court

A dispute over electronic signs has College of DuPage officials asking a DuPage County judge to decide if Glen Ellyn has any jurisdiction over the school.

In a move that could have far-reaching impact on community colleges throughout the state, COD on Friday filed a lawsuit against Glen Ellyn claiming the village should have no say over what the school can or cannot build on its property.

The step comes after Glen Ellyn issued a stop-work order to prevent COD from installing new message signs, which officials say violate village codes. COD officials claim the signs are needed for safety reasons and to provide sufficient lighting for people who walk the campus at night.

"The college really believes that public safety is in jeopardy," COD attorney Kenneth Florey said. "Part of our public safety net has been placed in jeopardy because of the inability to complete our signs."

With a district that includes most of DuPage and parts of Will and Cook counties, College of DuPage officials argue that the state - not Glen Ellyn - has jurisdiction over the campus.

Glen Ellyn's attorney Stewart Diamond says that's a misinterpretation of the law. He said local codes still must be followed.

"We just can't let an area of more than 200 acres decide one day that it's no longer going to be subject to any village authority," Diamond said.

Until a few years ago, the village and college appeared to be on the same page.

When COD started its recent construction plan in 2007, it entered into an intergovernmental agreement with the village.

"The village entered into this intergovernmental agreement which basically said that we were going to use a much lesser standard in evaluating applications from the community college," Diamond said, "and that we would be happy to give them waivers."

But the college decided to cancel the agreement in December 2008, village officials said.

Florey blamed the village for the breakdown.

"We've never seen a community that had such antagonism toward a college," Florey said. "They make demands, we meet those demands and then they make some more demands. It's a one-way street because they still believe we are subordinate to them."

The most recent spat became public when construction crews recently poured foundations for some of the signs, prompting village officials to pass a resolution Monday urging COD leaders to discuss the situation with them. Glen Ellyn issued a stop-work order Tuesday.

Village officials said the electronic signs wouldn't even be allowed in the town's commercial area along Roosevelt Road. COD sits in the middle of several residential neighborhoods.

Still, village and college officials were talking about settling their differences. A meeting was even planned for Thursday.

Florey said school officials canceled the meeting after learning village officials threatened to arrest one of the contractors employed by the college.

"If you are going to sit down with a party to try to reach an agreement, you have to come to it with good faith," Florey said. "And the college just doesn't feel like there's good faith on the village's part."

Since the college canceled the intergovernmental agreement, Diamond said the village must enforce its ordinances. If COD officials don't agree, he said, they should sit down and negotiate a new agreement.

"We are perfectly happy to limit our jurisdiction to those things that we think are important to our citizens and to not overburden the college with excessive regulation," Diamond said. "But their problem is they have taken this extremist position that they are not willing to accept any local regulation."