DuPage dumps plan for controversial water district

Efforts to bring Lake Michigan water to hundreds of residents in an unincorporated area near Lombard have been flushed away by the DuPage County Board's public works committee.

Residents upset with having to cover the cost of the $13.5 million project fought against the proposal and collected signatures from more than the 51 percent of registered voters required to defeat the plan. However, they fell just shy of the 51 percent of signatures needed from property owners in the area, according to the county's tally.

Opposing property owners and voters had to send in written objections, while proponents had to do nothing. Apathetic property owners or voters were counted as favoring the proposal.

County officials said there are 657 property owners in the affected area and 596 registered voters.

County board member Jeff Redick said the results clearly showed there wasn't enough support for the proposal, so the initiative was squashed at the recommendation of the public works department.

"What I'm really impressed with is they listened to us," said Fred Hildreth, one of the opposition's leaders.

The issue isn't quite dead, though. Since opponents didn't get a majority of both voters and property owners to file objections, the county doesn't have to wait the mandated two years before reconsidering the issue.

"There is a portion of the area that really needs this water service and this was as close to a win-win situation as you can get," Redick said. "Nothing is dead and that's a good thing."

The battle began after residents responded to a survey about interest in bringing Lake Michigan water to the area. No clear majority was evident after the results were tallied. County officials, however, took numerous responses out of the survey from property owners stating they didn't want the water and issued new results showing a majority were interested in the plan.

Several residents cried foul and claimed the survey map had been gerrymandered to get results favorable for the county to proceed. The opposing residents rallied over the next 60 days to collect objections from other residents who were concerned the project would cost too much.

The opponents also complained they were being asked to foot the bill for more than a dozen tax-exempt properties in the area. According to county officials, the owner of a $300,000 house could expect to pay an additional $1,220 in property taxes for the next 20 years if the measure was approved.

"We want water, it was just the cost of it," Hildreth said.

Redick said the county examined possible grants that would have reduced the cost to property owners.

"Our efforts to date have not been successful," he said. "I've been exploring it, too, and the problem is there's not a big pot out there for this kind of thing."