Taking a stand sometimes exacts a high price-especially when the stand is in somebody else’s back yard.
For County Board member Jim Fields (R-Antioch), the price probably will be a hard race for re-election in April to his other job as Antioch Township supervisor. Fields recently stood up as one of the chief advocates for a riverboat gambling casino plan for unincorporated Lake County near Antioch, a proposal that is highly popular with tax-hungry local officials.
But the plan is extremely unpopular among local church leaders and nearby residents, whose “back yard” could be home to two riverboat casinos on the Fox River if a state licensing board gives the boats the go-ahead.
And ever since Fields came out for the riverboats, the residents have been screaming for his political head.
The outcry has caused Fields to de-unify his Unity Party, a slate of candidates running for township offices. All the candidates are running on their own because of the possible repercussions of his recent vote, Fields said Wednesday.
One of the residents, a member of the local Against Riverboat Casinos action group, has decided to capitalize on Fields’ doghouse status with a sizable voting bloc.
Realtor and perennial Fields opponent Judy Martini said she decided to run after a County Board meeting in December, when the board voted to support the casinos in spite of the vocal objection from some 50 residents who packed the meeting.
Fields spoke up at the meeting in favor of the casinos, for the tax revenue and boon to business they could bring the once-popular resort area. Even though the residents asked for a delay, the County Board voted its approval.
“The place was packed with people who wanted their concerns heard,” said Martini, who also ran against Fields in the Republican primary for County Board last spring. “(Fields) had the opportunity, as the supervisor and our County Board member, to do something for those people.”
The members of ARC, made up of mostly Antioch Township homeowners and church members, oppose the plan because of the traffic, crime and social ills they believe the riverboats would bring to their area.
According to Martini, the residents wanted “someone who would stick out their neck and take a stand.”
Ironically, that’s exactly what Fields thought he was doing.
He knew the decision would be unpopular with some, Fields said, but voted for it because he considered it the chance of a lifetime for the Antioch area.
But the political backlash is his alone to take, he said. Thus, Township Clerk Richard Harland and Assessor Clifton Houghton now are running on their own.
“I didn’t want it to burden any of the other candidates,” Fields said. “The shots are strictly at me.”
Round two
The official pondering over which military bases will be the next to be shut down doesn’t actually start until April.
But Lake County leaders have the jitters over the very thought that Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago might be one of them, so they’re already setting their damage-control machines in motion.
“One can only speculate,” said Bill Barron, deputy county administrator, who attended a recent meeting of a National Association of Counties ad hoc committee in Washington, and came home warning local officials to get ready for a fight.
“We don’t know if Great Lakes will be chosen or not,” Barron said. “We do know that closures have been a failure so far.”
Closures of domestic bases began in 1991, under the military’s financial constraints. In that first round of closings that took place in 1991, the Army’s Ft. Sheridan was ordered shut down, threatening to affect the neighboring communities of Highland Park, Lake Forest and, especially, Highwood.
Nationally, officials are none to happy with the help local officials have gotten from the federal government during the closures. For example, the Ft. Sheridan Commission got very little money from the military to implement plans for the area after closure.
But the harm to struggling North Chicago likely would be felt more acutely, since the local schools and business community depend on the base even more. The North Chicago City Council voted this week to have its attorney draft a resolution opposing closure of Great Lakes because, as they said, it would have a devastating effect on the local economy.
That’s the message county and federal officials want to get out in advance. According to a spokesman for U.S. Rep. John Porter (R-Ill.), Illinois’ congressional representatives stand poised to persuade the Base Realignment and Closure Commission to leave North Chicago off the list.
Still, the wrangling is a bit premature. The commission won’t be appointed by President Clinton until later this month. The commission will make its recommendations July 1.
