No one should be COD's enabler

The College of DuPage is acting like a defiant teenager and setting a bad example of citizenship for students who deserve better. Having lost its argument in court that the taxpayer-owned 2-year vocational school should be sovereign and independent of any higher authority, its leaders (like the slave states starting the Civil War) now plot to secede from its host community and hope to join one that will let it do whatever it likes.

Yet DuPage County gets and pays for building permits from Wheaton. Its buildings must conform to Wheaton's building code, and they are regularly inspected by the Wheaton Fire Department. Its employees must obey the Wheaton speed limits and traffic laws.

The Secretary of State's driver's license facilities in Wheaton, Schaumburg, West Chicago and elsewhere must also comply with the host community's building code, and they pay local property taxes as part of their rent. But the College of DuPage thinks it is special and doesn't have to comply with the rules and regulations its neighbors do. Everyone has a boss, and public institutions have several. If its leaders can't accept that, then they need to find other jobs.

That bad attitude is not only wrong, but the leaders of COD are so oblivious to it that board Chairman David Carlin wants to be elected to the Illinois legislature. Why on earth should anyone who thinks it is optional for him to obey laws get a position of passing laws for everyone else?

The College of DuPage has gotten too big for its britches, and neither Wheaton nor any other community should become enablers for such a defiant public body, nor should the voters reward such bad behavior.

Stan Zegel

Winfield