Will Mettawa brass listen to residents?

Present-day Mettawa, Illinois, is a quaint and surprisingly beautiful little enclave of woods, wetlands and meadows about 30 miles north of Chicago, and the residents who occupy the stately homes and manicured landscapes that comprise this little incorporated village have managed to steadfastly protect their haven from the onslaught of urban sprawl. Visit and you will agree: It is a land of big sunsets, intensely diverse beauty, and bucolic peace, a magical little paradise of two-lane country roads, horses and riders, bicyclists, winding trails, pristine lakes, birdsong and meadows teeming with wildlife.

I wonder what the Mettawa of tomorrow will look like.

If the village trustees have their way, it will look like Everywhere Else, America: a blighted landscape of urban sprawl run amok with all the problems that come from such commercialization, including congested traffic, endless road widenings, flooding problems, groundwater contamination, increased property taxes, reduced property values, roadside litter, loss of wildlife habitat, and pollution of every type (noise, air, water, ground, light, sound).

I am appalled by the recent actions of Mettawa Mayor Barry MacLean and the majority of his six-member board of trustees, who seem intent on selling 17 acres of Mettawa land, which includes a beautiful little lake, to Costco, despite a resounding outcry from Mettawa residents. I have to wonder what conspiracies are going on behind their closed doors ...

Once they acquired the property, they quietly changed its zoning from residential to commercial. Was that before or after they entered into negotiations to sell that land to Costco? Hmmm...

In a letter to residents dated Sept. 6, 2008, Mayor MacLean tries to defend the fact that the public hearing for the rezone was "posted and otherwise widely advertised." He is correct if you agree that posting a flyer on a telephone pole in the middle of nowhere and printing an announcement in an obscure newspaper that none of the residents read is "wide advertising."

After the rezoning, the board had the audacity to spend $120,000 to clear-cut the land, which in and of itself is an irreversible tragedy. But it was more than that. It was an underhanded and masterful way to transform the land from beautiful to ugly, dashing the hopes of residents who still believed in the promise of park and open space. It was a genius opening move that enraged many Mettawans in what has become a chess game of village vs. residents. (I must note here that there were two noble and courageous trustees who opposed the clear-cutting and warned the mayor and other trustees that residents would be livid. Their prediction was correct!)

I am truly floored by the board's arrogance and outlandish disdain of its own citizens, who were completely unaware that a deal with Costco was even on the table until they saw the bulldozers mowing down century-old trees.

Apparently, the trustees are not trustworthy. They obviously intended to finalize the deal with Costco without so much as one public hearing. This is absolutely outlandish! How dare they try to rewrite the future of Mettawa without any input from Mettawans? Even the Lake County Board was taken by surprise when Costco negotiations surfaced. It seems they, too, were

intentionally left out of the loop.

The same two board members who were opposed to the clear-cutting then informed the residents of the true plan for the land, commercialization.

It was an insult to the community, its citizens were outraged, of course, and so the battle began.

If nothing else happens, Mettawans can be very proud of the tireless grass-roots efforts they have put toward staving off commercialization in their backyards, including filing a lawsuit against their own village.

From humble beginnings, the Mettawa Preservation Party now stands at an estimated 200 members, and several neighboring communities have joined to help wage the war against commercialization.

I am confounded by the mayor and his cronies' blatant disregard for their own comprehensive plan, which states the basic intent of Mettawa is to "preserve the wooded rural character and abundant natural resources of the

area." In his 2001 commentary about land use and zoning, Trustee Jack Tindall says the plan calls for "principally all large-lot residential 5-acre density development, plus Lake County Forest Preserve District Open Space," with scenic corridors extending at least 75 feet along all principal

village roads. Riverwoods Road, the proposed site of the Costco, is named as one of those principal roads "where no development is allowed, with the exception of driveways and utilities." (Costco's plan is to build a large berm set back 75 feet from the road in order to hide the building and preserve the scenic-corridor mandate. I guess that means if you can't see it, it doesn't exist.)

Had the residents of Mettawa been made aware of the village's decision to ignore its own comprehensive plan, there would have been a public outcry.

The Mettawans are fighting the good fight. I wish I was a Mettawan. Then I, too, could feel proud of my community and ignored by my trustees. As it is, I am just a Mettawan wannabe who lives directly across the street from the village line in unincorporated Lake County and who will be directly and profoundly affected by Costco's presence. So the trustees surely don't care how I feel.

It matters not to the trustees that my neighbors and I will suffer the same ills as the Mettawans: traffic congestion, reduced property values, pollution, flooding problems, groundwater contamination, road widenings, etc.

It matters not to the trustees if a Costco taxes Lake County-based emergency services beyond their abilities to cope (Mettawa does not have its own police/fire/ambulance), resulting in increased response times that may actually endanger the lives of all of us who call the county sheriff for emergencies.

It matters not to the trustees if the Costco drives long-standing businesses in nearby neighborhoods to financial ruin.

The mayor and Costco would have us believe the land in question is on Route 60, just off the toll road, where road widenings are well under way and can thus accommodate all the shoppers. But this is misleading. The Costco and its 12 gas pumps will not be on Route 60. They will be on Riverwoods Road, south of Route 60. Many Costco shoppers will avoid the toll road in favor of the back road. Lucky for Mettawa, most of the estimated 7,000 cars a day (10,000 on weekends) will filter in from the east, west, and south, which are all county-maintained roads. So we non-Mettawans can shoulder the financial burden of road maintenance for the Mettawans while they receive their sales tax rebates from Costco. No sweat off the Mettawa city budget.

There is already a corridor of suburban sprawl along Willow Road, where the Glenview Costco is located. It is only 15 minutes away. Ironically, the Glenview Costco was cited as the model used for Mettawa's landscaping excellence, but in fact it is just a huge parking lot and does not remotely resemble the renderings presented to the community a few weeks ago.

Additionally, there is already an even bigger, hideously ugly, uniformly bland and overly developed commercial corridor in Vernon Hills, not even 5 minutes away.

Urban sprawl leads to suburban decay, and I, for one, believe enough is enough already. America's greed is eating up the land and laying it fallow, and it has to stop, here and now. Mettawa has the opportunity to set itself apart from the masses and maintain its long-held course of resistance to urban sprawl. Once the descent to commercialization begins there, it will

be impossible to reverse it.

The Mettawa village board intends to vote on this issue next Tuesday, Nov. 18. It will be interesting to see if they listen to their constituents or forge ahead despite the public outcry. It's a simple issue

of money vs. morality. I wonder which of the two will prevail.

Muffin Spielman Lake County