Schillerstrom delays DuPage Airport Board appointments

DuPage County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom postponed two controversial appointments to the DuPage Airport Board Tuesday.

"I'm going to go at this a different way," he said after Tuesday's county board meeting.

The stalled appointments of Bill Maio and Terry Ekl come after some county board members threatened to reject the choices to replace longtime airport board members Gerry Gorski and Tom Maher. The board's finance committee pulled the two proposed appointments from its agenda earlier in the day without discussion.

Maio is a former county board members and Ekl is an attorney.

Some board members objected to the appointments because Maio is currently serving on the financially troubled DuPage Water Commission and Ekl once represented a waste hauler who wanted to build a waste transfer station near the airport property.

Schillerstrom said he hasn't decided whether to pull the nominations all together or wait until the next county board meeting to put them forward again.

Schillerstrom picked the potential replacement airport board members because he is looking for support for his plan to have the airport board divest itself from oversight of the nearly vacant DuPage National Technology Park. He wants a special tech park board to be the sole arbiter of future use proposals. Schillerstrom blames the airport board for the tech park's stagnation.

"They are the ones hindering development of that land," Schillerstrom said. "They have refused to listen to me."

He said the airport board is an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy in the development process.

In recent weeks, Schillerstrom said he has been contacted by the airport board, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunities, West Chicago Mayor Michael Kwasman and the property's land management and marketing firm - all imploring him to loosen occupancy restrictions at the site. But that's unnecessary, Schillerstrom said, noting that some of the tech park's 450 acres are available for all types of development, yet remain vacant.

Meanwhile, airport board Chairman Dan Goodwin said it's the marketing effort of the tech park board that has kept the land vacant. He said the tech park was unnecessary entity.

"If you only advertise exclusively for tech tenants that's all you're going to get," Goodwin said. "The airport authority has provided all the support requested by the tech park since its inception. We have funded all their activities and given them all the things they need. Whenever they've come to us for approvals we've granted it."

Goodwin denies Schillerstrom's claims that land lease prices at the property are too high.

"We have a responsibility to the taxpayer and we can't just give away the land," Goodwin said. "There's no need to go down 50 percent of the market price' all you have to do is be the best price in the market and we've done that."

The airport board has invited Schillerstrom to its 3 p.m. meeting Wednesday to talk about the rift that has developed. Schillerstrom said late Tuesday he hadn't received the invitation and didn't know if he could make it.