Schaumburg day care wants utility pole removed

Defining danger is the dilemma faced by three different entities over a leaning electrical pole near a new day care center in Schaumburg.

Concerned for the safety of the young children they look after, officials from the Children's Home and Aid Society of Illinois have asked ComEd to bury the power lines that now loom over the day care center's outdoor play area.

But day care officials say they've been told by ComEd that the leaning pole and its power lines along the Plum Grove Road side of the center at 725 E. Schaumburg Road meet ComEd's own safety standards and don't warrant either replacement or burial.

"ComEd has assured me that pole will never fall," said Karen Selman, vice president of Northwest Suburban Services for Children's Home and Aid. "But it just doesn't look like something that should be looming over where young children are playing."

ComEd did offer to bury the lines at the expense of Children's Home and Aid, but as the organization is still raising funds to pay off the building itself, that isn't a realistic option, Selman said.

The preliminary engineering alone would cost $25,000 and to actually bury the stretch of power lines adjacent to the day care center would cost approximately $500,000 more.

And that's where the village of Schaumburg comes in.

Village officials were supportive of efforts to finish the low-income day care center during a stretch of years in which it stood incomplete, its state funding frozen by former governor Rod Blagojevich.

Children's Home and Aid officials recently approached the village about the possibility of it paying to bury the power lines.

But the village has its own financial problems right now and officials have decided that they couldn't help either.

"The entire village would have to pick up the cost of the burial," said Trustee Jack Sullivan, who chairs the Planning, Building and Development Committee.

This cost would be spread across the electricity bills of every ComEd user in the village, which was deemed unacceptable, Sullivan said.

"I've looked at the poles and I understand both positions," he added. "ComEd says they have a thousand of these ten times worse than this one. Every community has problems with ComEd when it comes to poles. It's not critical, but it's a concern."

Furthermore, while the poles belong to ComEd, they carry other utilities that also would need to be buried.

In the meantime, Selman says she will continue to appeal to ComEd.

ComEd officials did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.