Is 'small minority' so small on Navistar?

I am writing in response to Dennis Webb's recent letter regarding Navistar. While he omitted that fact that he was a Navistar executive, his comments are squarely in line with Navistar's current PR campaign portraying anyone who opposes their refusal to agree to air pollution limits as "opponents of Navistar's move to Lisle."

The "opposition" is not against Navistar's move to Lisle or the potential economic benefit, it is against industrial pollutants in the Arboretum Village. It is against using tax dollars to fund private corporations. Anyone who has paid attention for the past nine months knows that there have been secret meetings and sidestepping of public policy.

Lisle is spending $100,000 on a tax incremental financing district study that the village board did not publicly approve or put out to competitive bid (as required by law). Everything Navistar wants from the taxpayers is in writing, yet nothing they have promised is in writing.

The jobs and collateral benefits of this deal are a wonderful thing, but at what cost? At the minimum incentive package of $22 million, the 3,100 Navistar employees will cost local residents $7,000 per head. Add $40 million in state tax credits and the additional $20 million a TIF will generate and we are at almost $26,500 of our tax dollars per Navistar employee. Good for Navistar, but I don't see how it's good for "DuPage County and good for the financially strapped state of Illinois."

Lately, there has been a surge of almost identically scripted comments from the business community about a "small local minority of opposition." They go on to wrap themselves in the American Flag to tout jobs and how Navistar can save our local economy. Makes you wonder who the "small minority" really is. Let's ask the voters next election.

Richard Wilkie

Lisle