A Modest Plan to Reduce Gun Violence

December 28, 2012January 16, 2013

After a week of deafening silence following the Newtown massacre, the National Rocket-launcher Association at last rolled out its new school safety strategy: placing an armed security guard in every American school. This is supposedly because “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” as noted by NRA vice president Wayne LaPierre.

In other words — surprise! — we need more guns.

Photo from Slickguns.com ("Best deals on guns and ammo posted by users") — Photo from Slickguns.com
(“Best deals on guns and ammo posted by users”)

The trouble is, this Wild West-inspired idea isn’t very creative or original. And it’s bound to be expensive, what with paying for the security guards’ salaries, insurance, training, equipment, medical treatment (after in-school gun battles gone awry), and the occasional funeral.

Alternatively, we might consider other slaughter-reduction strategies that don’t involve turning our schools into quasi-military installations. Something like this one, which I just thought up. I call it A Kindergartner in Every Gun Shop.

My plan’s a little different from the NRA’s approach in that its ultimate goal is fewer guns in circulation rather than more. Better yet, as a voluntary community service program staffed by five- and six-year-olds, it’s free.

Here’s how it would work. Every kindergarten class in America would be assigned to a gun shop, ammo dealer, firing range, or firearms expo somewhere in the community. Parents and teachers would develop a schedule for the students to monitor each gun-related location — with one kid at a time working a morning, afternoon, or evening shift — during business hours. Yes, each child would miss a little school every month, but the public-service experience would be mighty educational.

Customers would be required to do a fifteen-minute “kindergartner check” before buying guns or ammunition. This would involve looking into the eyes of the child, who then asks the adult a series of standard questions, such as “Do you know how many people in Illinois die each year from gun violence?” and “Do you really need yet another assault rifle for your collection?”

Assuming the customer still desired to make a purchase, the kindergartner would then run though some basic guidelines on gun safety, including “Don’t bring your gun to school and shoot at teachers”; “Never let your surly teenage son mess with your semi-automatic rifle after playing excessively violent video games“; and “Don’t point your pistol at your face to demonstrate the safety mechanism, because it might fail and you’ll blow your head off.”

Skeptics might quibble that elementary schoolchildren aren’t truly qualified to lecture adults on gun ownership and safety, since most of them are still learning their letters and numbers. (The kids, I mean.)

A gun show at Houston's Convention Center — A gun show at Houston’s Convention Center

True, but kindergartners are really good at talking, not to mention the educational technique of “show and tell.” Some of them, particularly in crime-plagued cities like Chicago and Joliet, could offer real-life lessons in how their older relatives died in gun battles, or shot themselves accidentally, or got thrown in jail from blasting someone else. Such anecdotes can really liven up an otherwise dry lecture on firearm safety.

I see one drawback to my plan, though. Assume that the many thousands of gun dealers in our country are each open for 50-60 hours per week. Even with little Sally and Bobby pulling double shifts at their local bazooka retailer, those are a lot of business hours to cover.

I’m a little worried that at the rate that children are getting mowed down these days in our schools, we won’t have enough kindergartners to go around.

A version of this essay (“Put a Kindergartner in Every Gun Shop“) appeared as my monthly op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News on 4 January 2012.

Junior’s Fall from Grace: More Bad News for Peotone

December 4, 2012December 4, 2012

You’d think that Jessie Jackson Jr.’s stunning fall from political grace last week would have opponents of the Great Imaginary Airport in Peotone doing cartwheels of joy out in the cold autumnal winds of eastern Will County.

After all, the last significant public appearance by Jackson was way back on April 21^st, when as a progressive-minded environmentalist he promoted Earth Day by sanctimoniously spading up soil in a Peotone-area cornfield while surrounded by media and bussed-in supporters from his 2^nd Congressional District. His purported “people’s groundbreaking” was for what Jackson insisted on calling the Abraham Lincoln National Airport.

That grandiose name is telling, for it expresses Jr.’s once-vaulting political ambition even as it inappropriately cloaks a misguided boondoggle of an airport project in the image of one of America’s most revered presidents. It also signifies the longstanding logjam between Jackson’s Cook County-based Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission (ALNAC) and the various governmental bodies of Will County, which understandably want to retain control over the airport’s construction and administration.

That’s why the folks of S.T.A.N.D. (Shut This Airport Nightmare Down) and other grassroots opponents of the Great Imaginary Airport should mourn rather than celebrate Jackson’s departure and ALNAC’s inevitable dissolution. Without the gridlock-producing squabbles over the airport’s construction funding, name, or design that Jackson’s commission helped create, airport proponents now have before them a slightly less congested path toward the project’s FAA approval — which hinges upon, among many other things, a unified governing authority for the airport.

STAND sign with people — STAND members hold up a sign at Rob Ogalla’s farm near Peotone, April 2012
(M. Bryson)

Note that I said “slightly.” That’s because building a functional political alliance in Illinois these days is about as likely as finding a Republican candidate with a chance to win Jackson’s empty seat in the forthcoming special election his resignation necessitates. Consequently, the fate of the Great Imaginary Airport will continue to be determined by a long war of retrenchment among various factions, some high profile and others little known.

On one side are Governor Pat Quinn and his army of IDOT technocrats, who have spent $29.8 million of taxpayer money thus far buying up 2,317 acres of land in the as-yet-unapproved airport’s footprint, and are now expanding their holdings through eminent domain proceedings against unwilling sellers.

Aligned with Quinn are various Will County leaders eager for a big fat construction project to provide local jobs, no matter how temporary those might be or whether the long-term prospects of the airport are viable.

On the other side are Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, who strenuously opposes the project as antithetical to an expanded O’Hare; and United CEO Jeff Smisek, who is on record opposing a third airport for the Chicago region (a view shared by other major airline execs, as well).

Bult Field near Monee, IL (photo: FlightAware)

Joining their ranks are the politically weak but morally righteous grassroots opponents in eastern Will County, who correctly view the airport as a naked land grab by the state; and a guy named Jim Bult, who in a supreme example of irony already owns and runs a small private airport within the footprint of the GIA (Bult Field) and who to my knowledge has no desire to shut down his operation or take his neighbors’ land.

Sure, we’ll miss you, Junior, and all the free theater you provided us over the years. But as for the Great Imaginary Airport controversy in Peotone, the war grinds on.

A version of this article was published as my monthly op-ed column in the 4 December 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. For more information from IDOT’s perspective, consult the official South Suburban Airport website. For past news and critical analysis, see the commentary and news reports on this blog.

How to Get Elected to Political Office

October 28, 2012October 28, 2012

It’s not terribly hard to get elected to political office these days. All you need are lots of money, well-heeled connections (preferably of the family variety), a dash of luck, and some clever campaign tactics to bring the vote home. Given this short and simple list, it’s a wonder more of us aren’t running.

First, you’ve got to have money. Lots and lots of it. The higher your office aspirations, the more you need. To get this money, you must make connections with people who have money.

Yes, you could work like a dog to earn money and cultivate your connections. But sheer luck is quicker and much less exhausting. Being born into a rich and/or politically connected family is a marvelously effective conduit to money and its siblings, power and influence.

If you’re considering families to be born into, check out the Romney, Kennedy, or Bush clans if you plan to compete for state or national office. In Chicago, I recommend having Daley, Jackson, or Madigan as your last name. Here in Will County, a good way to an Illinois General Assembly job is to be born a Walsh or McGuire.

Next, you need to figure out what you stand for on the great issues of the day. But don’t get bogged down by complicated stuff like foreign policy or pension reform. Given Americans’ long-established preference for style over substance, I recommend utilizing some generic yet appealing phrases such as freedom, opportunity, lower taxes, and the middle class. These are patriotic, battle-tested, and delightfully vague non-positions that appeal to folks across the political spectrum.

Finally, don’t forget to use tactics: practical campaign strategies carefully engineered to cultivate votes. Two wonderful examples of tactical mastery are currently on display right here in Will County.

State Representative Larry Walsh, Jr. (D-86^th District) definitely knows how to get his name out there. Appointed by a special Democratic committee last spring to replace Jack McGuire (who conveniently retired right after his election when he suddenly realized he just wasn’t up for the job anymore), Walsh is a relative newcomer to state politics with a high profile name. His dad, Larry Walsh, is the longstanding Chief Executive Office of Will County, a former state senator, and one of the area’s most recognizable politicians.

Walsh sr — Larry Walsh, Sr., Will County Executive and former IL State Senator (D)

Wisely, Rep. Walsh, Jr. has designed his campaign signs to highlight his name in big bold letters — LARRY WALSH — while including the “Jr.” as a teeny-tiny afterthought that you can barely see without a magnifying glass. Even though most voters don’t know beans about Walsh, Jr. himself, they sure recognize his name. You can’t buy publicity like that — though you can be born into it (see above).

But for sheer political brilliance and understated bravado, there’s Jesse Jackson, Jr., the embattled and recently reclusive US Representative from IL’s 2^nd Congressional District who is heading toward a landslide victory despite not having shown up at his office for the last four months, let alone hit the campaign trail.

Reportedly suffering from mental and gastrointestinal illness, and politically buffeted by two different ethics-related inquiries, Jackson realizes that saying and doing nothing at all as the entrenched incumbent is the most expedient route to re-election while facing two overmatched and unknown challengers, Republican Brian Woodworth and Independent Marcus Lewis.

Sometimes in politics, small is beautiful. And silence can be golden.

A version of this essay was published as my regular op-ed column in the 28 Oct. 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News as “Illinois One Big, Happy, Political Family.”

Labor-Managment Conflict in Blue-Collar America: The Caterpillar Strike in Joliet

August 17, 2012August 18, 2012

Without Caterpillar Corporation, I probably wouldn’t exist.

Once upon a time, a Kansas farm boy (my grandfather) moved to central Illinois with some of his brothers to find work. He eventually caught on at Caterpillar in Peoria, where he became a union machinist — what he always called a “tool and die man.” He worked hard, got married, and started a family. Then around 1951, he was transferred to the brand-new Joliet hydraulics plant and moved here with his wife and two kids.

One of those children was my mother, then nine years old, who years later met and married my father — and just a few years afterward, I arrived on the scene. Hence my very existence depended upon, among others things, Grandpa getting that job at Cat.

I relate this family anecdote because when it comes to grappling with the meaning and significance of the current union strike at the Caterpillar plant in Joliet, now well into its fourth excruciating month, history matters. Personal connections matter.

cat_workers — Cat workers on the picket line (photo: Fox Valley Labor News)

In a working class town like this, where people from all walks of life have deep and sometimes tangled histories with the Joliet’s industrial past, labor disputes resonate. They’re not just abstract stories in the news about someone else somewhere else. They’re about us: our aspirations, our values, our prejudices, our sense of community.

As an Illinois citizen, I have a vested interest in Caterpillar remaining strong and vibrant. Its very identity is built from equal parts technological innovation, engineering expertise, and good old-fashioned hard work. Cat’s products and the myriad of jobs the company provides are important to Illinois’ economic vitality.

But as the grandson of a tool and die man, I also feel solidarity with the hundreds of striking machinists out on Route 6. In their rejection of Cat management’s offers of a new long-term work contract, Local 851 union members hardly are asking for the moon. What they’re putting themselves on the line for, rather, is the preservation of good blue-collar jobs within America’s embattled middle class.

Caterpillar management’s latest offer to the workers (up for a vote today) would freeze wages, double health care expenses, and cut into pension benefits. One shouldn’t forget that Cat has had a longstanding multi-tier pay schedule in place for union machinists, with those hired after May 2^nd, 2005, getting significantly lower wages than older “Tier 1” workers. So-called “supplemental” machinists get paid even less than the Tier 2 folks. See a pattern?

Meanwhile, Caterpillar achieved record sales, revenues, and profits in 2011 — and its second quarter profits in 2012 are the highest in company history. Yet with labor contract talks at fits and starts, Cat is playing hardball by advertising for and hiring replacement workers, thereby taking advantage of high local unemployment conditions in which any job seems like a good job.

The Caterpillar labor dispute is thus a microcosm of the growing cultural conflict between the exaltation of corporate greed and self-interest (the market rules best) and the long-term viability of America’s working class (the people matter most).

Most folks agree that our country needs good manufacturing jobs with decent wages and benefits, that companies should play fair, and that employees should work hard. But how do we put those common values into practice? We’ll soon find out here in Joliet.*

* On Friday, just a few hours after this article appeared in the 17 August 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News, the striking machinists’ union voted to approve Caterpillar’s most recent contract offer, as reported here in the Chicago Tribune and other sources. Details about the vote totals were not released, but apparently it was close. Early analysis indicates that the union conceded on several key issues, including the doubling of health care premiums, the elimination of pensions, and a reduction in seniority rights.

Bulldozing the Rights of the People: That’s the Illiana Way

June 7, 2012June 7, 2012

Remember the Prairie Parkway? Just a few years ago, it was the Big New Road Project of choice in northeastern Illinois. A monumentally dumb idea for a whole host of reasons, the Prairie Parkway fortunately fizzled after the recession of 2008 (though old road projects are rather like zombies that can’t be killed once and for all).

The new road of the day is the much ballyhooed Illiana Expressway, which will link the booming metropolises of Lowell, IN, and Wilmington, IL, and in the process pave over a lot of high-quality Midwestern farmland. But the Illiana isn’t a gentle zombie that plods along with a vacant stare. No, this road monster is pure evil, and it’s coming after us with ferocious speed.

Map of proposed routes for the Illiana Expressway (source: IDOT)

Local politicians and IDOT officials claim we need the Illiana to divert truck traffic from I-80 and US-30; support the burgeoning warehouse/distribution center district in central Will County; provide east-west highway access to the yet-to-be-built (or even approved) Peotone Airport; and create jobs.

I’m all for more jobs, especially if they’re permanent ones that pay a living wage with benefits and occur in an environment that does not tolerate sexual harassment of workers. (This, Joliet-area readers know, is not always the case with the warehouse/distribution industry here in Will County.) But the traffic relief argument smells fishy to me, since this always ends up being, well, a red herring. Remember how I-355 was supposed to relieve traffic on I-55 and 294? Last time I drove those interstates, they were still among the most traffic-choked in the region.

The Peotone Airport reference is the really big red flag, though. Right now, legal but unethical eminent domain proceedings are being wielded by IDOT against Will County landowners unwilling to give up their land for this Great Imaginary Airport that no airline supports.

Now the Illinois legislature has approved “quick-take” powers for IDOT to seize more private property for the Illiana Expressway, an action that should outrage you, fellow citizens. Why?

Start with the gross injustice here. Quick-take allows the state to simply declare it wants a piece of property, then take it. The process is nice and quick — hence the name — and conveniently circumvents the normal eminent domain process (itself hardly benign) by which citizens may take the state to court to fight the condemnation or haggle over a selling price once their property is condemned.

Secondly, the road has no funding. The only money that’s been allocated thus far for the Illiana is $9 million for several years’ worth of environmental impact and planning studies. Projected unfunded construction costs include over $3 billion for the Illinois section alone.

Will County farmland just south of Joliet, June 2006 (M. Bryson)

Finally, and mostly absurdly, IDOT hasn’t decided where the road will go. Right now two different routes for the Illiana are being evaluated (along with, ironically, a “no-build” option to appease malcontents like me). How in the world can IDOT condemn property under quick-take if an official route hasn’t yet been chosen and approved? Does this strike anyone else besides me as completely illogical?

Perhaps this is root of the problem. When it comes to phantom roads and imaginary airports, there are no ethics or logic operating in Springfield.

The road monsters are coming, people. It’s quick-take season now. Better get out of the way, or you’ll get run over.

This essay is a revised version of my op-ed column that appeared in today’s Joliet Herald-News as “Illiana Bulldozing Rights of Citizens in Its Path.” Though I’m not a transportation / planning expert, I tend to think we have plenty of roads in Illinois already. I also appreciate the fact that my Joliet residential street was repaved last week; notably, no new roads were created in that stimulation of the local economy.

The Peotone Airport’s Ongoing Tragicomedy

February 23, 2012April 21, 2012

Thank goodness for the intransigence and political buffoonery of our Illinois public officials. Without their ceaseless bickering, the ill-fated and monumentally stupid Great Imaginary Airport project envisioned near Peotone might actually get off the ground.

As it is, the GIA — known variously as the South Suburban Airport (its IDOT-sanctioned title) and the Abraham Lincoln National Airport (Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s grandiose appellation) — exists only in the misguided minds of transportation technocrats and Pollyannaish politicians.

Farmland near Peotone, IL -- the proposed site of the Great Imaginary Airport (photo: Chicago Tribune)

This bizarre state of affairs stems, in part, from our elected leaders having serious control issues. Ever since I began writing about the GIA fiasco in 2007, debate has raged about who gets to sit on the airport’s board, what to call the facility (see above), and which paint colors should adorn the terminal’s bathroom walls.

What gets overlooked in this petty drama are two things far more important and disturbing: (1) the grand fiscal folly of a bankrupt state spending untold millions to construct an airport 40 miles from Chicago’s Loop that no commercial airline wants; and (2) the grotesque social injustice of government land grabs perpetrated against law-abiding, tax-paying rural landowners within the phantom airport’s ghostly footprint.

The GIA is so far from physical realization that even its most ardent supporters have no idea when it might actually be built. Due to the project’s incompetent political sponsorship thus far, final FAA approval is probably still years away and far from guaranteed. At least I hope so.

Despite those damning facts — and the stark economic reality that Illinois is billions of dollars in the red and cannot even pay its regular bills as required by law — Governor Quinn continues to pledge $100 million of state money for additional land acquisition for the GIA.

That’s not counting the money we’ve already blown. To date, IDOT has spent $34,014,383 and change (of taxpayer funds) acquiring 2,471 acres of prime Will County farmland surrounded by the small towns of Peotone, Beecher, and Monee. But since thousands of acres remain in private hands within the GIA’s footprint, and with land prices at historic lows, IDOT officials have stepped up the pressure on unwilling sellers by commencing formal condemnation proceedings.

Vivian and Willis Bramstaedt at their home outside of Beecher, IL, where they've lived for 50 years (photo: David Pierini/Chicago Tribune)

This means that folks like Vivian and Willis Bramstaedt, who had hoped to retire on their farm near Beecher as they enter their sunset years, are being taken to court and will have their land condemned. What the State wants, the State gets.

“We got the letter sometime late in the fall,” Vivian told me the other day after I gave her a call. “I’ve no doubt in my mind the state will take our land. There’s nothing we can do. It’s just a matter of time now.”

I asked Vivian how people in Beecher felt about the GIA. “Some support it, because they think it will be an economic boost,” she admitted. “But a lot oppose it. The community is split, I suppose. And the thing is, most people can’t even think about it anymore. They’ve had the airport hanging over their heads for so long, they seem to have become numb.”

I ask you this: why is Illinois spending millions of dollars it doesn’t have to take citizens like the Bramstaedts to court and condemn their property? How can such a thing be tolerated by my fellow citizens in the Land of Lincoln? And why don’t any of our elected representatives have the backbone to stand up and state the truth about the monumental waste and injustice of Peotone’s Great Imaginary Airport?

A version of this essay appears as my monthly op-ed column (“Great Imaginary Airport a Boondoggle for Illinois“) in the 23 Feb 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. For information about the airport’s plan, land acquisition data, maps, documents for FAA reviews, etc., see the official IDOT website.

And for additional commentary, check out my previous columns from the Herald-News about the Peotone Airport archived on this site.

The Airport that Just Won’t Die

February 22, 2012February 23, 2012

Like a cold sore or a nasty case of bronchitis, the Great Imaginary Airport near Peotone just won’t go away. Not even with a prescription.

After many months of keeping a low profile, the Illinois Department of Transportation made a news splash in the summer of 2010 by releasing a 194-page report about its pet project to the FAA. It contains numerous rosy projections about future passenger and freight traffic demands meant to justify the airport’s construction.

Buried within its reams of statistics and turgid technical prose, however, was this telling passage on page 10: “The current economic downtown, the most serious since the Great Depression, is a challenge to the aviation industry. . . . This forecast environment is precarious and it justifies caution in revisiting the assumptions and forecasts for an airport, particularly a new one.” No kidding!

What’s really “precarious,” though, is the state’s ethical position in using any means necessary to acquire private property for the initial build-out of an airport that may never be approved, let alone completed. And with Illinois billions of dollars in the red, it makes zero sense to throw hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars away on such a pathetically misguided boondoggle.

Yet that’s precisely what we’re doing. Ever since IDOT was given the power of eminent domain by the state in 2002, it’s been buying up land in the imaginary airport’s footprint as fast as an Illinois hog gulping his slops. As of July 2010, nearly $33 million have been spent acquiring 2,429 acres of land from (mostly) willing sellers.

Now, with the price of land bottoming out, IDOT is flexing its muscles to begin eminent domain proceedings against citizens with no interest in selling, like Willis and Vivian Bramstaedt, an elderly couple who had intended to retire on their Beecher property.

The Bramstaedts and others are in a real pickle: if they cave in to IDOT’s pressure to sell, they’re going to get far less for their property than they would’ve a few years ago. If they refuse to deal, they’ll have to wage a hopelessly expensive court fight against the state’s condemnation proceedings .

This situation is beyond grotesque. Surely the naked exercise of power in wresting land from law-abiding rural citizens against their will for a project of dubious merit is unjust. The fact that it is permissible under state law does not make it right.

Let’s call it for what it is, then: highway robbery.

This essay appeared as my regular monthly op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News on 8 July 2010. It was the fourth in an ongoing series of columns on the controversy surrounding the proposed “South Suburban Airport” near the small town of Peotone in Will County, Illinois.

As of Dec. 31, 2010, the State continued to earmark millions of dollars for the purchase of land in the Peotone area, and IDOT has submitted more documents to the FAA for that agency’s review. The latter still had not approved the airport project.

Will the Peotone Airport Ever Fly? Let’s Hope Not

February 21, 2012February 21, 2012

This is a tale of two airports — one real, the other imaginary — located in the peaceful Will County countryside near the small town of Peotone.

The real one used to be an obscure outpost called Sanger Field. It’s now widely known as Bult Field after being purchased in 2006 by Jim Bult, a Monee businessman who named the airport after himself, which I think is fine.

Jim Bult, left, at his airport near Monee, IL, c. 2007 (photo: Schwiess Doors, Inc)

The imaginary one doesn’t have an official name yet, because it doesn’t exist except in the minds of state planners and local politicians, who insist that the phantom airport will be the greatest economic engine the south suburbs have ever seen. It does have several candidates for names, though, including the geographically precise South Suburban Airport; the historically pretentious Abraham Lincoln National Airport; and the delightfully mysterious Great Imaginary Airport (GIA), which I made up.

Bult Field near Monee, IL (photo: FlightAware)

Jim Bult has invested a lot of his own money, $37 million, in Bult Field because, as he told the Herald News in 2009, “I just want a quality runway and hangar here.” As far as I know, Mr. Bult has not asked Illinois taxpayers to subsidize his airport project or future planned upgrades.

In contrast, George Ryan (former Illinois governor and convicted criminal) and Rod Blagojevich (recently impeached Illinois governor and currently under indictment for crimes too numerous to list here) have spent $24 million of taxpayer money to purchase 1,951 acres of land (as of April 2009) and millions more on environmental impact statements, engineering studies, and marketing efforts for an airport that doesn’t exist.

The irony of all this? The real airport, Bult Field, sits right next to where the GIA might someday be; so close, in fact, that the state will probably have to buy Mr. Bult out to avoid airspace conflicts and otherwise looking extremely silly. That’s OK, though, because our current governor, Pat Quinn, recently pledged to spend $100 million (of taxpayer money, I assume) to acquire 3,275 more acres of prime Will County farmland for the project.

Um, I’m a little confused. Isn’t our state billions of dollars in the red? Is it wise to spend $100 million acquiring land for an airport that may never be built, when one right next door, a private airport financed by one man, already exists?

With entertainment like this, who needs to go to the movies? Just head out toward Peotone, and watch the Tale of Two Airports unfold.

This essay appeared as my regular monthly op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News on 9 April 2009. It was the third in an ongoing series of columns on the controversy surrounding the proposed “South Suburban Airport” near the small town of Peotone in Will County, Illinois. For a map of the Peotone Airport land area that shows the location of Bult Field within the GIA’s footprint, check out the link below.

Peotone Airport Land Acquisition Status Map – Feb 2012 (pdf)

Morning Meditations and the Cathedral Area Regional Airport

February 20, 2012February 21, 2012

The springtime dawn is especially peaceful in my neighborhood, Joliet’s quiet and historic Cathedral Area. I rise early to make coffee, feed the cat, and shuffle out to get the morning papers. A white-throated sparrow sings his melancholy song from a pine tree; rabbits mosey through the lush grass. It’s a tranquil beginning to the day.

Joliet's Cathedral Area, as seen from the air in the summer of 2006 (photo: Mike Bryson)

Recently, though, my morning was brutally shattered by a noisy demolition crew outside my front windows. Men were chain-sawing down trees along the street, a bulldozer was ripping up sidewalk and lawn turf, and some beefy guy was hammering a big wooden sign in what remained of my front yard.

Spilling some coffee on the cat in my haste, I rushed outside to confront the sign-planter.

“Hey!” I protested eloquently. “It’s only six a.m.! My wife and kid are asleep, and I’m trying to relish my morning ritual. Who are you guys, and what in the name of Art Schultz is up with this racket?”

The man stopped, lit a cigar, and looked down at me with a stony expression. “Name’s Arny, not Art. We’re private contractors workin’ for the state.” He turned and yelled, “Harry — take down that sycamore over there!”

I did a little involuntary dance meant to signify rage, but Arny seemed unmoved. He just jerked a thumb toward the sign.

Bold letters proclaimed: CATHEDRAL AREA REGIONAL AIRPORT. Open May 2008 Pending FAA Approval. Sincerely, (signed) Illinois Department of Transportation.

“You can’t do this!” I shouted over the noise of the dozer. “Just because the City Council is thinking about allowing a bed and breakfast over on Western Avenue doesn’t mean you can build an airport here. This is a 100-year-old residential neighborhood with quaint and charming character. We homeowners have rights!”

Arny sympathetically puffed his stogie in my direction. “Quit cryin’, pal. All’s I know is, your street’s gonna be a jet runway. State needs land, they take it. Ever hear of eminent domain? Besides, you’re lucky. Guy across the street, his house is history. Control tower’s going up there.”

I’ve always been one to look at the bright side of any situation, no matter how inherently crappy. Maybe Arny’s right, I thought, sipping the remains of my coffee. At least my house wasn’t being demolished. My commute to Chicago would be a snap, because I’d be able to walk to the departure terminal in five minutes. And the constant stream of plane exhaust would likely keep the bugs down during the summer.

Yes, the morning’s a little noisier here, and I can’t hear the sparrow’s song anymore. But it’s truly inspirational to see IDOT embark on another bold civic endeavor — and I’ve got a great view of the action.

This essay appeared as my regular monthly op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News on 14 May 2007. It was the second in an ongoing series of columns on the controversy surrounding the proposed “South Suburban Airport” near the small town of Peotone in Will County, Illinois. While I do in fact reside in Joliet’s Cathedral Area and like to get up early, the rest of this essay is merely a nightmarish fantasy. Any resemblance to an actual Will County airport project is purely coincidental.

Michael Bryson

Professor & Director of Sustainability Studies @RooseveltU, Chicago IL

Category: Politics

Junior’s Fall from Grace: More Bad News for Peotone

How to Get Elected to Political Office