I am writing in response to “Beyond the O’Hare rah-rah” (Editorial, Aug. 27). Mayor Richard Daley’s O’Hare expansion plan carries considerable consequences for Elk Grove Village residents and businesses.
To Elk Grove, the plan means losing jobs, reducing our tax base, shrinking safety zones, causing roadway gridlock, increasing noise, air and ground pollution, having low-flying jets due to extended runways and a host of other concerns.
Elk Grove’s concerns are real.
Ronald Hawley, co-owner of an Elk Grove Village company and a former chairman of the Elk Grove Chamber of Commerce, was named in your editorial as someone to look favorably upon in support of O’Hare expansion. Neither the Bensenville Chamber of Commerce nor the Elk Grove Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the Daley Plan, and the Bensenville chamber supports the Peotone Airport. Both chambers represent nearly half of the Greater O’Hare membership. So just whom does Ron Hawley represent? Of course he doesn’t mind if Elk Grove businesses are lost to the proposed expansion as long as it isn’t his business.
I represent 35,000 residents and 3,800 businesses. Ron Hawley represents himself, and his small business, with no concerns about the Elk Grove community. Elk Grove Village lived in harmony with O’Hare Airport for 50 years due to our planning for the current configuration of the airport. Now Mayor Daley desires to change the basic fabric that made O’Hare a compatible neighbor. His plan calls for pointing two new runways at Elk Grove Village. These runways negate our long-planned buffers.
