Lake Co. paves way for disaster training center

With dozens of appreciative police and fire chiefs looking on, the Lake County Board on Tuesday further paved the way for a regional disaster training center near Wadsworth.

The chiefs gave the board a standing ovation immediately following a 22-0 vote on the project, which has been in the works for about four years. The board, which is seeking to give emergency workers a local place to train for chemical accidents, hostage situations, underwater rescues and other crises, responded with its own standing ovation.

Crews must go downstate or to other states to receive such training now.

"Today is a great day for Lake County," said Michael Blazincic, chief of administration for the Lake County sheriff's office.

"We're ahead of the curve," added Greater Round Lake Fire Protection District Chief Paul Maplethorpe. "We've set the model for the state of Illinois."

The facility will be built on county-owned land near Russell Road east of the Tri-State Tollway. The sheriff's shooting range occupies the 80-acre site now and will remain there.

The complex is expected to cost $30 million to $40 million. A private Great Lakes Disaster Training Foundation will seek grants, private donations and corporate donations to fund the effort.

Taxpayer money won't be used to build or operate the facility, officials have said.

Construction could begin in early 2009, said Howard Simpson, the foundation's president. With the work to be done in phases, much of the facility could be ready for use in three or four years, he said,

The county board took two votes on the project Tuesday. The first was to amend the county's unified development ordinance to allow such a facility. The second granted a conditional use permit for the facility.

The board has supported the project for years. In 2006, it unanimously approved a lease agreement with the foundation for the site.

Several county commissioners and some of the chiefs at the meeting invoked the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when talking about the proposed facility.

"I couldn't think of a more fitting week to pass this," said board member Bonnie Thomson Carter, an Ingleside Republican.

Blazincic reminded the room that hundreds of the victims who died in the World Trade Center attacks were police officers and firefighters responding to the crisis.

"That's what this training facility is all about," he said.

County board member Angelo Kyle, a Waukegan Democrat, called the facility a "phenomenal" opportunity for homeland security training.