COD rescinds proposed pact with Glen Ellyn

Less than a month after approving an intergovernmental agreement with Glen Ellyn, members of the College of DuPage board of trustees have a new message for the village: scratch that.

On Monday, COD board members voted unanimously to rescind approval of the deal, while endorsing President Robert Breuder’s calls to separate the 273-acre campus from the village.

In a letter sent to Glen Ellyn Village President Mark Pfefferman on Tuesday, Breuder wrote, “It is the board’s opinion that the ‘marriage’ between the village and the college is irretrievably broken.”

The battle between the state’s largest community college and the village in which it sits has been ongoing since 2007. The dispute has centered on whether the village has the right to enforce certain ordinances on campus, such as building codes and permits.

Under the proposed agreement, the village would agree not to enforce most ordinances, though officials have sought to include language that would hold the college to health and safety rules, such as those against air pollution and littering.

On April 28, the college board approved a version of the pact — without the rules requested by the village — because college officials said that wasn’t part of the deal both bargaining teams agreed to a week before. The village board, meanwhile, has delayed its decision on the agreement.

That’s what spurred college board members to withdraw from their end of the deal, said COD board President David Carlin.

The village has planned a public meeting for June 6 to discuss the ongoing dispute, and village board members could vote at that time to approve the agreement.

But it appears college officials’ minds already may be made up.

“Based upon their failure to bargain in good faith, I would fear that agreement wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on,” Carlin said.

He also said the time for discussion should have been before both sides spent a combined $250,000 in legal fees to hash out a deal.

Though the agreement had been negotiated behind closed doors for several months, the first time village officials had discussed it in public was at the village board’s May 9 meeting, said Trustee Carl Henninger, who represented the village at the school board meeting on Monday.

“We did put a motion on the table to approve, but tabled it because we were hearing from residents that evening that they haven’t had time to review it,” Henninger said. “We did not reject it. We’re simply taking it through our typical process for considering what I term ‘major legislation.’”

Meanwhile, the college appears to be moving along with plans to deannex from Glen Ellyn.

College attorney Ken Florey said the college would first have to guarantee how it would get its water and sewer service. Carlin said there are six suppliers, including Wheaton, that could provide the utilities.

Then the college would file a petition for deannexation in DuPage County Circuit Court that would be added onto its current lawsuit against the village, Florey said.

The college is another few months away from that action, he said.