Controversial Ardmore extension receives approval

Arguing that extending Ardmore Avenue a quarter-mile south to connect Butterfield and Roosevelt roads will help everyone in the future, Oakbrook Terrace officials vowed Tuesday to continue pursuing the project.

That's despite a standing-room-only crowd all in opposition and appeals from a number of state, county and other local elected officials to halt the plan.

Mayor Tom Mazaika accused some elected officials of using the issue to "grandstand" and denounced some county board members who were fighting the proposal.

"I would certainly question how good they are," he said. "They have enough trouble dealing with their own system and now they're meddling in ours."

The council narrowly agreed to continue pursuing the project, which is in the engineering phase. Only four of the seven members - Mazaika, Alderman Ingrid Durham, and husband and wife aldermen James and Martha Bojan - support the plan.

But there is no immediate call to move earth. The city has until Sept. 30, 2012, to seek bids for the project or face losing a federal grant that covers 70 percent of the $1.7 million cost, city officials noted.

The new road would be the eastern border of a large undeveloped and unincorporated parcel that aldermen warned neighbors could someday be a large townhouse complex with no outlet except through their neighborhood without the extension of Ardmore.

But residents of the adjacent Brandywine neighborhood argued the extension would invite development.

James Bojan said the project needed to be done now while they had grant money to pay for it and worried any delay would only make the inevitable more expensive.

Alderman Frank Vlach argued that since the area is not fully within the borders of the city, Oakbrook Terrace residents shouldn't be the only ones footing the bill.