Elk Grove to spend another $500,000 on legal fight against O'Hare

The Elk Grove Village board this week unanimously approved a $500,000 money transfer to its legal defense fund in order to continue its long-running fight against expansion of O'Hare International Airport.

It's the latest move by the suburbs to stop runway construction through the court system. The next court date is Oct. 23 in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., where St. John's United Church of Christ in Bensenville will be pitted against Chicago's $15 billion expansion plan.

The city wants to build a runway on top of the church cemetery, but the church won't hand it over without a fight, so the two groups are duking it out in court.

Elk Grove and Bensenville stand to lose homes and businesses due to expansion, so they have joined with the church in the court case. Both sides have intimated they'd take the issue all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is the next stop after the circuit court renders its decision some time next year.

The parties already have lost one battle at the Supreme Court, which last May declined to hear an appeal of a lower-court ruling that the city's use of eminent domain powers didn't violate the church's constitutional religious rights.

This suit challenges whether the Federal Aviation Administration funding OK of the project is barred by the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Opponents of the expansion project have said they believe this suit has better odds of being decided in their favor.

Besides the Elk Grove money transfer, expansion opponents are planning a demonstration Sunday to highlight that the fight continues.

At 3:30 p.m. at the 159-year-old St. Johannes cemetery where 1,400 people are buried, Elk Grove and Bensenville officials and church members from St. John's will hold a special memorial service. It comes just a week after Chicago held a 5K run on O'Hare's newest runway to celebrate its opening.

While it's not the first time the village has transferred money from its general fund to fight Chicago, it could be the last, Johnson said. The transfer should pay for legal fees for some time to come, even if the case goes to the highest court.

Including the latest transfer, the village has used about $4.8 million of the $5 million it earmarked in 2000 for legal defense. In total, the village has spent about $6 million - which includes donations from other local entities - on legal fees and for the promotion of a south suburban airport near Peotone, Johnson said.