Third Airport talk resurrected, but are we any closer to it actually being built

In the three-plus decades that I’ve covered news events in and around Chicago, there’s one story that seems to have lingered on beyond belief – a “third airport” for the metropolitan area.

Will this site ever become an airport?

It was a concept that was going through the process being planned and someday built, with the idea being that the first flights would be departing the new airport just prior to the beginning of 21^st Century – and would be expanded to full capacity probably about a decade ago.

THE LAST TIME I was out in the cornfields of Will County just south of Peotone, there was nothing resembling any of this having occurred. In fact, we’re really no closer now than we were back in the early 1990s to having another airport to relieve the congestion that exists at O’Hare International and Midway airports.

Which is why I find it humorous to learn that Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., signed off on a letter, along with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and several Congressmen, state legislators and mayors/village presidents from across the southern part of the Chicago area.

All of those political people are asking Gov. J.B. Pritzker to put $150 million in the next state budget to pay for improvements that would need to be made to the rural Will County site that has oft been considered for an airport.

Kelly tries to resurrect project … 

As in road repairs and utility connections leading to the site, along with an interchange on Interstate 57 that would make it possible for people to access the site – rather than whiz on by as they drive south to Kankakee or (a little further) Champaign-Urbana.

ALL OF WHICH is stuff that should have been decades ago if our officials were the least bit serious about developing a new airport for the Chicago area.

Instead, this is a project that has been perennially bogged down in partisan politics – with some people thinking that building any sort of project that would encourage economic development at the far south end of the Chicago area being a complete waste of time.

There’s nothing there, they argue. Why try to develop anything there?

… that Rauner tried to kill off for good

Of course, part of the problem is that supporters look at an airport project solely in terms of what can they gain from it. Not from any aviation perspective or whether it makes any sense to do an airport there.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE they’re following the logic of “Field of Dreams.” Remember? “It you build it, he will come.”

Although instead of the ghost of one-time White Sox superstar Joe Jackson, it would be jobs. And possibly the development of nearby towns such as Peotone, Beecher or Monee (with a combined population of 13,000) into municipalities of significance -- rather than rural burgs on the fringe of Chicago.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen.

Some think this site will be as under-utilized … 

For we went through four years of Bruce Rauner as governor, who always made it clear he didn’t want to be bothered with this project. Meaning that all the work former Gov. Pat Quinn tried to accomplish on the project was laid to waste.

NOT ALL THAT different from the ways that President Donald Trump has tried to undo anything and everything that had predecessor Barack Obama’s name attached to it. Would throwing money at the airport project enable it to return to life? Or has it lingered too long to survive?

The issue I wonder about is whether the need for a third airport for the Chicago area still exists the way it did back in the 1980s. As Kelly points out in her letter, United and American airlines coped with the crowded conditions of Chicago airports by moving their domestic hubs from O’Hare to airports in Denver and Dallas.

While O’Hare has dropped from the 12st busiest cargo airport to number 21. Maybe we could have kept these previous rankings if we had acted a few decades ago – instead of letting our partisan politicking take over.

… as the airport near Mascoutah

It may be too late, and we could be in danger of developing something along the lines of the MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah, Ill. – which for many years sat unused and got tabbed as the “Gateway to Nowhere.” I’m sure some are eager to tag similar label to any Peotone-related project.

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Killing off Illiana, once and for all?

Gov. Bruce Rauner put the kibosh on efforts earlier this year to create a toll road connecting I-65 in Indiana to I-55 south of Joliet, claiming the state’s financial problems are so intense that now is not the time for Illinois to move forward.


Integral part of transportation future? Or environmental disaster?

Yet it seems the people who despise the concept of the Illiana Tollway aren’t willing to accept that as fact.

A LAWSUIT WAS filed this month in U.S. District Court in Chicago, hoping to get a judge to issue an order that would prevent the road from ever being built.

The lawsuit was filed by assorted environmental activist groups. They want to claim that the path for the road from Lowell, Ind., west across the state line, passing right by the proposed site for a new airport near Peotone (another project that has lingered for far too long), and winding up near Wilmington would wreck havoc with the local land – causing particular harm to the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.

Which is a slightly different tactic from the usual arguments made against the Illiana – that the land is agricultural in nature and should not be permitted for any other type of use.

It usually comes across as the kind of argument made by a rural crank who is upset that metro Chicago is growing, and that some of that growth is going to be south of places like Crete and Monee, which currently are the southernmost edge of urban Chicago.

SOMETHING IS GOING to wind up filling in that rural space that now is unincorporated Will County (the far eastern part of the county that officials in Joliet and other west Will municipalities often forget is also part of the county).

Which means some sort of road through the area is going to have to be built.

Unless this environmental argument winds up sticking. A prairie could wind up having a more lasting effect than a soybean farm – or any of those people who built homes surrounded by empty land because living out in the middle of nowhere is their fantasy-come-true.

This could be a scenario that brings agricultural interests in line with the Sierra Club or the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

MY OWN VIEW about the Illiana is to realize the day is coming when Kankakee will be the southern edge of the Chicago metropolitan area. There will be growth and development in the area, and these resistance efforts seem so futile.

Besides, I’m also someone who has used I-80 to get from Illinois into the Gary, Ind., metro area and to come back to civilization – which means I know how ridiculous the truck traffic shipping goods to and through the Chicago area can get on that road. Particularly when there’s an auto accident or inclement weather that causes the backup.

I-80 is the current road that connects I-65 (the road from Gary to Indianapolis) and I-55 (Chicago to St. Louis). Which means the I-80 bottleneck is a drag on shipment of goods. Illiana is an alternate route for those many trucks passing through the area that don’t actually have to stop in Chicago.

Those people who argue against Illiana on the grounds that its route doesn’t enter Chicago are missing the point – it could help improve traffic flow in Cook County by reducing the number of trucks that need to come through here.

YET THAT ARGUMENT doesn’t seem to sway the political people. I’m sure Rauner’s own move that put the halt on Illiana development (Indiana officials made a similar move to cut the project right after Rauner took his action) was in large part because of the fact that former Gov. Pat Quinn was such a strong supporter of Illiana.

That could mean a future could reinstate Illiana. Considering how long this project has already dragged on, four more years wouldn’t be that big a deal.

Which means the Illiana opponents may now be placing their faith that a federal judge will put an end to this particular vision of how the southern end of metro Chicago will develop.

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How speedy can justice be? Not quick enough in Drew Peterson case!

By and large, the ongoing legal saga of former suburban Bolingbrook police officer Drew Peterson is something I have tried to ignore.

It has the titillating factor that can be amusing for a story or two. But as it drones on and on throughout the years, it gets monotonous. How many times can we write stories meant to imply that Peterson is a less-than-model example of a human being?

IF YOU WANT me to be honest, a part of me would like to think that Peterson is telling the truth with regards to Wife Number Four – Stacy. Who has been missing for so many years and has always been presumed by law enforcement officials to be a murder victim whose body has yet to turn up.

Peterson has always claimed his wife ran off, possibly with a bunch of his money, and that she’s having a good laugh at his expense in some isolated part of the world.

I’d like it if that were true because it would be something that would serve Peterson right for what appears to be his overly-boorish behavior. Besides, do we really prefer the idea of someone being dead (if not forgotten) all these years?

Peterson, of course, is the guy who ultimately got convicted of criminal charges for the death of Wife Number Three; whose demise initially was thought to be accidental.

BUT ALL THE scrutiny tied to the investigation of the disappearance of Stacey Peterson caused the death of Kathleen Savio to be reinvestigated – and a coroner to change his mind about “accidental.”

Which is why Peterson is now in the maximum-security prison located in the Southern Illinois community of Chester for such a lengthy term that he’s not likely to get out of prison alive.

Which also is why the additional charges being filed against him are more about being punitive than anything else. Prosecutors in Southern Illinois, with help from the Illinois attorney general’s office, say that Peterson tried to arrange to have Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow killed as retribution for his first trial.

Officials say they have tape recordings of conversations Peterson had with other people – whose identity they are going out of their way to hide.

AND THAT IS why Peterson was in court again on Tuesday – for a case management conference before a judge in Randolph County, Ill., according to the Associated Press. Which means attorneys for all sides will try to hash out the specifics and see how ready they are to actually go to trial.

That may be the only positive thing about this new case – Peterson has said he wants to go by the letter of the law with regards to rules concerning his right to a speedy trial.

Perhaps he thinks he can catch prosecutors in some sort of legal glitch and they will have to dismiss the case altogether.

Although news reports from Randolph County show prosecutors who are confident enough to say they will be ready to go to trial by mid-July, and the judge on Tuesday scheduled July 6 as the date that jury selection can begin.

CONSIDERING HOW MANY criminal cases can easily stretch into years (it took nearly three for Peterson’s first criminal trial to begin), that would truly be miraculous.

It would also be a positive for society at-large. Because the sooner this case is resolved (and prosecutors possibly get a judge to add up to 60 years in prison to Peterson’s existing 38-year sentence), the less trivia our airwaves will be polluted with.

And the quicker it will be that we can quit making tacky jokes about how the part of “Drew Peterson” would be played in a sequel to “Untouchable” (a Lifetime movie) by the Rob Lowe who still gets cable TV.

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Illiana demise ought not be a surprise. Will Will County airport be next?

I fully expect that anything former Gov. Pat Quinn publicly supported, current Gov. Bruce Rauner is going to oppose. They’re like a pair of temperamental 8-year-olds.

So I wasn’t shocked to learn that Rauner’s first actions included putting a halt to any planning for interstate construction. That includes the proposed Illiana Expressway that Quinn always touted any time he was on the South Side or surrounding suburbs.

BECAUSE THERE, LOCAL officials perceive construction of an interstate highway stretching from Interstate 65 near Lowell, Ind., to Interstate 55 near Wilmington (which is just south of Joliet) as being a source of jobs and a way to spur future economic development south of the city.

Bringing up Illiana, along with construction of a new airport in the farm fields of rural Will County north of Peotone, was always a way for Quinn to get cheers and applause – along with votes.

If all of Illinois had voted like the South Side and south suburbs, Quinn would have kicked Rauner’s behind back on Election Day last year.

But they didn’t, and Quinn didn’t. We have “Gov. Rauner” now, and he said during the campaign he doesn’t think much of the Illiana project (and the third airport, either).

SO NOW, ILLINOIS is doing a financial review. Rauner aides say it’s about fiscal responsibility and making sure money is not being wasted during construction.

Although I suspect it’s also about not expending too much state effort on parts of the state that weren’t all that supportive of the Rauner campaign during the election cycle. Seriously, some of those suburbs in Thornton and Bloom townships gave up to 90 percent of their voter support to Quinn.

So this is a political move all too similar to the way past politicos have operated. Not exactly conduct becoming of someone who claims to be the “nobody” that “nobody sent.”

Although since Rauner was clear during the campaign cycle that he didn’t support Illiana, I don’t think we have much of a right to be shocked and appalled that he would make its demise one of his first actions.

EVEN THOUGH THAT demise now leaves unanswered a very serious question – what will be done to alleviate the congested mess that occurs all too frequently on Interstate 80 just south of Chicago proper?

That road is heavily used by truckers shipping goods from other parts of the country into Chicago. Anyone who has ever driven on the interstate near the Illinois/Indiana border knows how nerve-wracking it can be to get caught up in a truck-laced traffic jam.

One of the purposes of the Illiana proposal is to give those freight trucks that are merely passing through metro Chicago (and not specifically stopping here) an alternate route to alleviate the Interstate 80 traffic.

Now that Rauner is moving in ways to obliterate the Illiana (although Indiana state officials say they’re prepared to build their portion of the road regardless of Illinois’ problems with the project), it will be interesting to see how the new governor addresses the traffic congestion problem.

BECAUSE THE ISSUE is not going away. It is a serious one. It is not something Rauner can ignore. If he does, he will be messing with the transportation of goods into and out of the Chicago area, which impacts the state’s economic bottom line!

 I’d like to think Rauner knows better. Although the idea of a politician causing problems inadvertently because of their desire to oppose something or someone (Quinn??!?) else is nothing new in Illinois.

It is likely the third airport concept could meet a similar fate, although that is a Federal Aviation Administration project and the federal government has final say over whether it proceeds.

But federal officials have said before they want local support for the airport project, which means Rauner apathy could cause them to lose good will – and the southern part of metro Chicago could wind up losing its two major projects meant to bolster the local economy.

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EXTRA: Death toll up to 8, recovery efforts will be active for awhile

Between the time I wrote a weather-related commentary and the time you read this, the death toll in Illinois due to Sunday’s severe storms (winds of up to 190 miles per hour, in some places), the death toll climbed to 8 people.

Which is still small, considering how large a swath of Illinois got impacted.

LARGE ENOUGH THAT early Tuesday, Gov. Pat Quinn added added six more counties to the list of those that are now officially state disaster areas. Those include Will County that makes up the far south suburban portion of metro Chicago.

But it doesn’t change the fact that this was primarily a storm that devastated rural Illinois communities, and that we in Chicago ought to feel fortunate that we didn’t get hit harder.

In all as of Tuesday morning, there were 13 counties on the state disaster list – which is a designation that doesn’t mean much in itself. But in order to qualify as a federal disaster area (which is what provides all the outside aid to help rebuild), the state must first make a declaration.

“While the recovery will be long and hard, we will work in the coming days, weeks and months to assist these communities and help the people who live there rebuild their lives,” Quinn said, in a prepared statement.

IT WILL BE just a matter of days (possibly by week’s end when we stop getting bombarded every news cycle with the same images of devastation from places like Washington (which seems to be the favorite for TV news crews, possibly because Peoria isn’t that far away). But places like Gifford, Diamond and New Minden (also downstate Illinois communities) also got whacked pretty hard.

Not that anybody with a civic conscience ought to be headed there. Because the reality is that anybody who thinks they can help out with the relief effort would really be doing nothing more than getting in the way of the cleanup crews. People who think they can seriously help ought to contact the Red Cross, or Washington city government at (309) 563-4035 to let the locals know of their availability.

They should be aware of the reality that while the news coverage will soon move on, the need for relief will be ongoing for months as people try to rebuild the lives for themselves that they suddenly lost in a few seconds on Sunday.

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There are times when far southern side can’t seem to catch development break

When political people talk about possible improvement to the city’s far South Side and its surrounding suburbs, there are a trio of projects they bring up.

Port known more for out-of-date sign than its assets

A new airport to be built in the farm fields north of Peotone, development of a new toll highway connecting Indiana to Illinois further south than the existing I-80/94 connection, and the improvement of the Port of Chicago down near Lake Calumet.

BUT JUST WHERE are those projects actually headed?

The airport has been a decades-long battle that should have been resolved some 20 years ago. Whether it can ever achieve its potential may well have been undermined by the endless delays – many of which are caused by rural interests that want to pen in the spread of metro Chicago further south.

The tollway (known as the Illiana Expressway) is meant to connect Lowell, Ind., to Wilmington, Ill. It is meant to make it easier for people to cross over the state line by an interstate highway WITHOUT having to travel all the way north to Gary before turning west.

But the same people who can't stand the idea of the Chicago-area spreading far southeast into Will County combined with the ones who view the Illinois/Indiana border as a barricade – which is what led the Chicago Metropolitan Area Planning entity to officially exclude Illiana from its long-term plans.

AND NOW, WE’RE getting the reports about the one city-based project on this southern Chicago wish-list – the Port of Chicago had potential to be turned over to a private company that supposedly could have revitalized all the shipping of goods that involves the area around Lake Calumet.

Will any of these Illiana routes, ...

Except that the Colorado-based company is now saying it is ending negotiations without reaching a deal. Which means the money that would have been spent to upgrade the port to make the improvements necessary isn’t going to be spent.

The port (which those of you who ever venture far enough south to travel on the Bishop Ford Freeway probably drive right past without ever noticing it, except for the fact that it took them years before they removed Rod Blagojevich’s name as governor from their sign) likely will languish in its current state.

... or this airport, ever become reality?

Which is to say a port that gets underutilized, even though it is the port that connects Chicago to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence Seaway and to the Gulf of Mexico through the rivers that lead to the Illinois River, which flows to the Mississippi River.

IT IS PART of the network of assets that make Chicago a national transportation hub – and is the reason why Chicago gets compared to New York or Los Angeles, rather than Milwaukee, St. Louis or Indianapolis.

Yet perhaps it is the fact that all these potential assets (from airport to expressway to sea port) are located south (in most cases as far south as one can go and still think they’re in the Chicago area) that causes them to get the shaft – so to speak. It reminds me of a moment some 25 years ago when I was told by a developer-type person that planning a new airport to the south was a waste of time and resources, because the only people and growth that mattered was taking place to the north of Chicago.

At least in the case of the airport, Illinois state government is in the process of purchasing land – which causes the airport opponents to send out pictures of homes to be destroyed, with caustic messages about what a waste it is to eliminate housing for something they don’t want to see built!

It creates a perception of wondering how many more decades will have to pass before something can be built – and will the aviation landscape change so dramatically that a new Chicago-area airport won’t be as essential?

MEANWHILE, THE SOUTHERN Chicago economy that is counting so heavily on these projects for a jolt not only of jobs but the perception that something of significance is located there continues to lag.

Which ought to be something our government officials ought to be concerned about – except that they’re more worked up over partisan maneuvers that they think can be used to ding their opponents.

The mouth of Lake Calumet gives the Port its ultimate access to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

 

There are times I wonder if the endless delays over resolving the funding mechanisms for government-overseen pension programs is because someone wants their opponent to get the blame? All of these failures has me wondering how the list of projects (airport, expressway, port) will have to be amended whenever political people talk about the potential for southern Chicago.

It might be government’s ultimate indictment if nothing on that list of potential achievements becomes reality!

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A new airport? It’s about time!

I’m at the point where I won’t believe there will be a new airport in rural Will County just north of Peotone until I actually see a flight take off from its runways.

Because I have been a reporter-type person long enough to know that this proposed third major airport for the Chicago metro area was supposed to have been built a long time ago – and should have been fully built and up and running by now.

INSTEAD, ALL WE have in that area of eastern Will County (the portion that the political people in Joliet don’t like to acknowledge) is farm fields and dirt roads – with the occasional sign showing nothing more than a black airplane silhouette with a red slash across it.

This is an issue that has dragged on for so long that it is pathetic. It is something that our political people ought to be ashamed of.

Literally, I can remember the late 1980s when the Bi-State Commission of Illinois and Indiana officials was reviewing four airport sites (including Peotone) and the general timeline was approval of a site by about 1991, construction beginning a year or two afterward and taking place in earnest through the mid-1990s.

The first flight from the first stages of the airport would have been in 1999, with serious numbers of flights taking place by 2002 or 2003. And by about 2010, the final stages of the airport would have been complete.

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE this timeline was put together by a collection of Chicago Cubs fans who seriously think that ball club is on the verge of becoming the 21^st Century’s dominant force in baseball – instead of extending their mediocrity well into the new century.

Because our political people in Illinois are of the mentality that there’s no point in rushing into anything!

I bring all of this up because of the fact that a bill actually slipped through the General Assembly at the end of last week. It now goes to Gov. Pat Quinn – who has made it clear he will sign it into law.

Depending on where one comes from, this is the bill that provides state funding for Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s pipe dream of a sports arena near McCormick Place, or for a new fertilizer plant near Tuscola.

OR, AS THE governor thinks of it, the bill that lets the Illinois Department of Transportation create the government entity that will manage a new airport that will (in theory) go along with O’Hare International and Midway airports to handle Chicago’s aviation needs.

Much of the stink that has kept the idea of a new airport on hold for the past couple of decades has been a brawl over who should actually run any such facility. If it were really just a matter of rural residents in the area not liking an airport on their land, government officials would have had no qualms about squashing their fears.

Will County officials have always wanted to think that any new airport was THEIRS, while city officials have always wanted to ensure that any new airport was under their domain! State control probably makes just as much sense – although it likely bothers everybody else.

For Quinn, in praising the Legislature on Friday, made reference to 11,000 construction jobs and 14,000 people employed at a future airport. Everybody wants to have a say in determining how those jobs get distributed.

WE’RE STILL QUITE some time away from actually seeing construction start – although the state has purchased much of the land in the area for airport development.

What may be reality in a couple of decades, and what should have been reality by now. Map provided by Illinois Department of Transportation/FAA

 

But my hope is that we’ll have a real-live airport in that area sometime around 2030 – which is around the time I should be thinking in terms of retirement (unless business interests and somebody’s desire to improve their financial bottom line tries to put me out to pasture some time prior to then).

It will only be a couple of decades too late!

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EXTRA: Kelly a big winner; urban vote crushes rural political aspirations

Why was it such a done deal that one-time state Legislator Robin Kelly will get to be a member of Congress – replacing Jesse Jackson, Jr., following an April 9 special election?

KELLY: The new member of Congress?

It was all a matter of population.

THE ILLINOIS SECOND Congressional District may stretch from 53^rd Street south to the Kankakee/Iroquois County border. But the bulk of the people living in the district are in Chicago and the inner suburbs of Cook County.

Those people who live in the rural portions of Will and Kankakee counties that got lumped into the district just don’t have enough people to counter the urban mass that the district’s boundaries were drawn around!

Look at it this way. Suburban Cook County, which accounts for about 60 percent of the registered voters of the district, gave former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson some 5,924 votes (according to unofficial tallies from the Cook County clerk’s office) in Tuesday's special primary election.

By comparison, Kankakee County gave the resident of Crete 3,999 votes.

YET HALVORSON’S KANKAKEE County total was good for 64.51 percent of the vote. Her suburban Cook tally? A mere 19.13 percent – which was only good for second place amongst the inner suburban voters.

When countered with the fact that Kelly managed to take 58.08 percent of the suburban Cook vote and 57.8 percent of the Chicago vote, the Kelly camp became a vote-rich juggernaut that nobody whose primary appeal is to the rural voter was going to overcome.

I did get one giggle from the preliminary election results I saw Tuesday night. The congressional dreams of 9^th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale were dependent on him dominating the Chicago portion of the district.

Instead, all Beale got was 20.5 percent of the city vote – compared to the majority of the Chicago vote that went for Kelly.

THE LADY FROM Matteson cleaned Beale’s clock in the city, and thoroughly dominated in her home portion of the Cook County suburbs.

That is why Kelly is going to Washington and Halvorson (who got 8.91 percent of the Chicago city vote) gets to remain in Will County. At least she had the sense to concede this election early on – instead of stubbornly keeping people waiting late into the night in some desperation play to dream of victory.

A couple of other tidbits. It seems that 866 people in suburban Cook spoiled their ballots by voting for state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields. She had killed her campaign and backed Kelly, but her name was still on the printed ballots and some people voted for her anyway.

And I’d like to meet the Will (0.09 percent) and Kankakee (0.1 percent) county residents who actually cast ballots for candidate Fatimah Muhammad – a onetime television broadcaster (for the Univision affiliate in Chicago) turned activist and a member of Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam church.

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Fair? Or Justice?

What should we think of the progressing trial for one-time suburban Bolingbrook cop Drew Petersen, who many people suspect (but can’t come up with definitive evidence to prove) killed off two of his wives?

PETERSON: When will he go away?



The ongoing story line has had several incidents where prosecutors in Will County said things meant to influence jurors in ways that would exceed the evidence that Judge Edward Burmila (himself the former state’s attorney for Will County) has previously determined will be allowed in the trial.

THERE HAS BEEN repeated talk of “mistrial,” although that hasn’t happened yet. Although it has some people convinced that the prosecutors have lost credibility and are on the verge of blowing this trial.

Peterson could wind up going free on charges that the death of his third wife was a murder, and not an accident as officials originally thought.

That may well happen. But not for the reason that many people are suggesting these days.

Because I honestly believe that this trial is headed for a “guilty” verdict. If there is to be an ultimate acquittal, of sorts, it’s going to come from an Illinois appellate court panel based in Ottawa.

AND I’M SURE that act will greatly offend the public. Much more than any actions being taken by prosecutors these days that are overstepping the bounds of “The Law!”

In fact, it wouldn’t shock me to learn that many people in our society are pleased to see the prosecutors playing hard and pushing their courtroom behavior to the limit!

Because while there may have been at least three incidents during the nearly two full weeks that began this trial that some consider improper, we also have to concede that none of these acts have resulted in a mistrial.

Or, worse yet, a mistrial “with prejudice” that would mean the error was so severe that all the criminal charges get dismissed – and Peterson really does become a ‘law-abiding’ citizen again. Some people may interpret that lack of a mistrial as evidence that the behavior is within appropriate limits.

I COULDN’T HELP but notice the reports that came out last week about how Burmila felt compelled to warn the people who sit in his cramped courtroom not to engage in any outbursts in response to the activity during the trial.

What was it that offended the spectators? It seems that some people were making known they disapproved of attempts by the defense attorneys to ask questions on behalf of Peterson!

How dare they attempt to defend their client – who probably is being bled dry financially in order to pay for the legal advice they’re giving him.

Then, there’s Jeff Ruby, who owns seven high-end restaurants in the Midwestern U.S. (and in Louisville, Ky., to be technical). He’s one of these guys who equates “law and order” with hard-line tactics and is willing to see certain limits be pushed.

HE ALSO DOESN’T seem to approve of defense attorneys. He says he is bothered by the attorneys working for Petersen, who may well get their client an acquittal on these charges. It seems to me that he seems to think that “justice” doesn’t necessarily have to be about “fairness.”

Ruby has made appearances on the Fox News Channel, and also has taken out full-page advertisements in the Joliet Herald-News newspaper to have statements published letting his disgust be known.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that the conduct of the defense attorneys has been over-the-top. I particularly find it appalling that one attorney is writing pieces being published by the Chicago Sun-Times on their website – although what really bothers me is that the Sun-Times has people who think that such legal babbling is interesting.

But somehow, I sense that when Ruby told the Herald-News newspaper last week that Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow, “walks and he talks like a pro. He looks like a professional,” he may be speaking for a significant segment of  “the masses.”

THERE MAY WELL be a large number of people who are so eager for a “guilty” verdict in this case that they’ll overlook what they probably prefer to dismiss as “legal technicalities.”

Maybe we have people who aren’t so concerned about the high level of “hearsay” testimony that is being used in this particular case. And I might be in the minority of people whose disgust with this case isn’t so much with Peterson as it is with the level of tackiness that this trial has devolved with.

It is to the point where I don’t care about the outcome. I just want it to end. Nobody has the moral high ground these days at the courthouse in Joliet.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Chicago Tribune contemplated the concept of whether jurors can really disregard comments made by prosecutors that Judge Burmila tells them to disregard.

What the airlines want – more at O’Hare International rather than new elsewhere

The ongoing debate over the status of Chicago’s airports is so old that even the talking points are now repeating themselves.

Which is what I sensed when I read a Crain’s Chicago Business account of a Thursday business forum in which the CEO of United Continental made it clear that the airline doesn’t think much of talk of building a new airport in rural Will County between Peotone and Beecher.

CEO JEFFREY SMISEK said that he believes that O’Hare International Airport  would be totally adequate for Chicago’s aviation needs in its current form – IF more modern GPS technology were installed to improve air traffic control facilities.

Such technology would make it possible to get more flights into the one-time World’s Busiest Airport into the existing number of runways. The improvements made during the era of Richard M. Daley would be adequate.

And there certainly wouldn’t be any need to build a new facility anywhere. Specifically of an airport near Peotone, Smisek said, “there’s no demand for it.”

Now I’m sure the local residents who live in homes scattered apart from each other and surrounded by acres of cornfields will be pleased to hear that. I wouldn’t be surprised if when they gather on Saturday to engage in a counter-demonstration to a group of South Side and suburban pastors who want to “bless” the ground upon which an airport may someday be built, they will recite Smisek’s rhetoric as some sort of “empirical evidence” of the righteousness of their cause.

WHICH IS NONSENSE. But then again, this is an issue where all the sides are capable of spewing self-serving rhetoric. It is all too easy to get a headache after listening to airport-related debate, because the decades have hardened everybody’s position so much.

There is no give-and-take. We might as well be talking about abortion rights!

Personally, I have never been swayed by the argument that “the airlines don’t want it.”

Because I realize that what the airlines want is as many flights as possible squeezed into O’Hare, with whatever expansion efforts necessary being undertaken to allow more-and-more-and-more.

I REALIZE THAT the suburban towns such as Park Ridge, Elk Grove Village and Wood Dale (the ones that border directly against the airport) could become unbearable places to live if that facility gets to be too big.

No amount of noise-proofing could comfort those residents. And the argument that “they knew they were living near an airport when they moved there” just sounds insipid in such cases.

And as for those people who want to argue that “Peotone’s too far away,” the reality is that Will County has long been a part of the Chicago-area – a fact that is becoming more-and-more apparent in recent years.

All the people moving further south from Chicago are the reason that Will County’s 39 percent population increase during the past decade is the largest percentage increase of any county in Illinois.

A LOT OF the resistance to a new airport is coming from people who object to this fact and think they can fight it off. And while I’m not saying that all of the Peotone critics are like this, I do sense the fact that some of these rural-oriented people have their hang-ups with the fact that the South Side and suburbs whose officials want an airport as a possible economic jolt for their area are African-American.

Although I must confess that when the airport proponents focus so intently with talk about “jobs,” they miss the point to. An airport’s primary purpose is to handle the air traffic. Any economic activity created around it is secondary.

Considering that it has been three decades since the Federal Aviation Administration said Chicago would need a new airport to accommodate air traffic expected in the 21^st Century (and plans to build a new airport near Lake Calumet have been dead for more than two decades), I can’t help but wonder how negative the partisan politics has been.

We’ve gone this long without a new facility that the Ronald-Reagan era officials decided we need. How much longer will we have to wait before some activity really takes place?

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Do Peterson prosecutors top Blagojevich when it comes to whiny nature?

Today’s lesson in legal whining and nonsense is presented to us courtesy of the prosecutors in Will County who are taking on the case of “putting away” former Bolingbrook cop Drew Peterson.

PETERSON: A body-blow for prosecutors



They’re the ones who are upset that an Illinois appellate court this week ruled that they can’t use hearsay evidence in their case against Peterson, who faces criminal charges related to the death of wife number three (and whom some are convinced caused wife number four to “disappear”).

NOT THAT THEY’RE respecting the appeals court’s decision. Will County officials say they’re seriously thinking of asking the Illinois Supreme Court to get involved and overturn the appeals court panel.

Now I can comprehend why prosecutors are upset. This ruling will make it more difficult for them to get a conviction against Peterson. Heck, his attorneys are going around telling the newspapers that this ruling will result in his acquittal.

And if that happens, the people who are all worked up over Casey Anthony’s acquittal in a Florida courtroom will go back to treating her like the “nothing” that she is. Because they will have a new target for their outrage.

There are those people who want Drew Peterson to suffer every indignity imaginable. I’m sure they also are among those who will think the Will County prosecutors are somehow being picked upon.

YET A PART of me has a problem with the legal strategy that was being used by prosecutors against Peterson. If anything, the appeals court panel that ruled against prosecutors was merely upholding a strict interpretation of the “letter of the law.”

Nobody should have a problem with that.



BLAGOJEVICH: Has he been topped?



So what is the great controversy involving Peterson’s prosecution? The problem for prosecutors is that there is little hard evidence to support the idea that Peterson killed his third wife – whose death at one time was officially classified as accidental.

It was only when the public outcry over the disappearance of Peterson’s fourth wife grew to national scales that local officials “reinvestigated” the death of wife number three, and reclassified it as a homicide. That led to the charges that now are pending against Peterson, and result in him living for the past couple of years at the Will County Jail in Joliet.

PROSECUTORS WANT TO use letters from the two women that contain statements that, if interpreted in a certain context, could be construed as suspicious.

But they are regarded as “second-hand” statements and inadmissible because the women aren’t present to explain for themselves just what they meant. Which means that it would be evidence that Peterson could not properly refute during a trial.

He wouldn’t be able to cross-examine the letter-writers.

Which is why eight such statements have been stricken from use as evidence during any future trial of Peterson, and why prosecutors had hoped the appeals court panel would be more sympathetic.

THEY WERE NOT.

So now, we have the prosecutors in Will County upset because they are confronted with the fact that the physical evidence against Peterson is weak. This case could crumble, and the wrath of the nation could soon turn on them for failing to get a “guilty” verdict against Drew.

Which on the one hand would be bad because that man’s bloated ego would surely go about for the rest of his life believing he was unjustly wronged – and he’ll ensure we all have to listen to the misery he suffered.

But we have the system of justice based in that presumption of innocence until guilt is proven. If prosecutors can’t prove it, then the right thing is to move on.

INSTEAD, WE’RE GOING to hear continued whining about how the prosecutors aren’t being allowed to do their job – even if they have to rely on flawed “evidence” to do so. That is just wrong.

If anything, it bothers me even more than Rod Blagojevich’s whining earlier this week that the judge in his political corruption case is being mean to him – thereby requiring a new trial.

Anytime somebody’s behavior starts becoming comparable to that of Blagojevich, you know there’s a serious problem and that you should probably ease up.

Instead, we get people pushing for changes such as Drew’s Law, a measure that would make hearsay testimony acceptable in Illinois if a judge is willing to approve it.

THAT MEASURE IS just about as absurd as the Florida people who now want Caylee’s Law (making it a felony for a parent not to report their child missing within 24 hours).

Either way, it’s over-reaction, which may be the ultimate evidence that our judicial system has a certain warped balance. There is evidence that defendants , prosecutors AND outside observers are capable of behaving in a silly manner

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