Chicago

Chicago's Lake Calumet airport: clout v clout

By PAUL M. GREEN

The Illinois-Indiana Bistate Policy Committee met at the State of Illinois Center in Chicago on February 24 and voted 6-4-1 to select Mayor Richard M. Daley's choice, Lake Calumet, as the site for a third regional airport for metropolitan Chicago. It was a vote between Lake Calumet and Gary, Ind., since the commission had previously eliminated the three so-called green grass sites in rural Illinois (Kankakee, Peotone and Beecher).

The 11 members voted their geography in the final selection. Chicago's three members supported Lake Calumet, Indiana's four members voted for Gary, while three of Illinois' four members also supported Lake Calumet. The other Illinois member, state Sen. Aldo DeAngelis (R-40, Chicago), voted against both Lake Calumet and Gary after giving an emotional speech that attacked the process and political pressure placed on the committee.

The politicking was intense. Mayor Daley and his chief airport point man, Robert Repel, were relentless in pushing the Chicago site, but their victory came only with an expensive concession for Chicago and the mayor. Pan of the memo of understanding signed between the mayor and Gov. Jim Edgar commits the city to giving up its control of running the Lake Calumet airport and the city's other airports, O'Hare and Midway. Eventual control of all Chicago airports will go to a regional airport authority with members from Chicago, Indiana and Illinois (mainly suburbanites). The regional authority is a victory for Gov. Edgar and his Republican colleagues. Suburban Republicans in Illinois have coveted access to the management of Chicago's airports as deeply as the old Soviet Union wanted access to warm water ports.

This framework requires trust and cooperation between the players. In all honesty, it also probably requires Daley remaining Chicago's mayor in the forseeable future

Obviously Daley is also a very big winner. Lake Calumet represents one of the biggest public works projects in world history. Conservatively, it will cost $10.8 billion. The backers promise that it will provide thousands of jobs, regional economic development and, when completed, assure Chicago's continued preeminence as America's transportation capital. Daley also showed the capacity to play and win at "bipartisan federalism" polities. Under his leadership key Republicans and Democrats in Washington, D.C., Springfield and Chicago formed a coalition that overwhelmed proponents of the other sites.

Before any plane lands at a Lake Calumet airport, however, many problems and hurdles will have to be overcome. Daley and his airport advisers will face political, governmental, environmental, financial, technological and regional issues.

One of the biggest immediate issues is how the city plans to assist homeowners who will be forced to move because of airport development. Obviously concerned about the extensive economic and emotional impact of razing 6,000 to 10,000 homes and businesses in Chicago and its Illinois and Indiana suburbs, Daley has started a major community planning effort

32/April 1992/Illinois Issues

to ease their pain.

As to other immediate steps, Repel says he is cautiously optimistic about moving the approval process along a fast track. Calling Lake Calumet "a demonstration project to rebuild the rust belt," he will be point man in Springfield. First, he must deliver on enabling legislation to establish a regional authority to control all three Chicago airports. At the same time he will be negotiating with Indiana and Illinois to develop a bistate compact to develop Lake Calumet airport. Once the states agree to a compact, both states must spearhead the effort for congressional approval of the compact.

Until the new regional airport authority is established, a new bistate commission, replacing the one that selected the site, will take charge of directing a master plan for the Lake Calumet airport. The new bistate commission will have members from Chicago, Illinois and Indiana, but the mayor appoints the majority.

Repel's agenda is full. The mayor wants a national task force created with representation from all federal agencies that have regulatory roles on the airport's development. In Repel's words, "We want to establish a one-stop shopping system to expedite [the review, studies and decisions involved in] the expected red tape and bureaucratic problems of a project as big as this."

The Lake Calumet airport will be the decade's most fascinating issue to follow as clout matches clout in politics and government. The politics will be sensational. The government processes will be labyrinthine. Watch as Chicago will set the pace on all the airport efforts until every possible political and legal hindrance to Lake Calumet has been overcome and the first shovelfull of dirt is about to be turned. Only at that time will the city share equally the power within the structure of a regional airport authority.

This framework requires trust and cooperation between the players. In all honesty, it also probably requires Daley remaining Chicago's mayor in the forseeable future.

Meanwhile, the governor and suburban Republicans will surely be positioning themselves and their agendas for the regional airport authority that will oversee all of Chicago's airports.

Paul M. Green is director of the Institute for Public Policy and Administration, Governors State University.

April 1992/Illinois Issues/33