After a spirited debate, Lisle trustees ended efforts Monday night to bring village water to unincorporated Woodridge Estates, where some wells have tested positive for a chemical solvent.
The 4-2 decision came during a Village Board meeting dominated by discussion of Lisle’s water supply. In related votes, trustees approved an increase in frontage fees for water and sewer connections and agreed to put money into a special fund being created by the DuPage Water Commission to fight proposed state legislation.
Last month, Woodridge Estates residents narrowly rejected a proposal that would have allowed annexation to Lisle. Village officials had said they would spend the $1.3 million to install the water main if voters agreed to annexation. Lisle resorted to the unusual referendum issue after polls showed about half of the subdivision’s 110 homeowners opposed annexation. Mayor Joe Broda suggested Monday that the board reconsider pre-annexation pacts with residents, even though he acknowledged it could take years to recoup Lisle’s costs.
With pre-annexation, the village would install the water main and residents could connect if they agreed to annex when their properties became contiguous to the village. Until annexation, they would pay out-of-district water rates.
“I have had quite a few calls from people begging and pleading with me for water,” Broda said.
But several trustees disagreed.
“The obvious question is, why did we put it to referendum if this is the discussion that is now going to take place?” Trustee Tom Frey said.
“I thought the idea of a voter referendum was to allow [the neighborhood] to decide its own fate. Now what I am hearing is that we are going to discuss the possibility of pre-annexation and spending the $1.3 million to put the pipe in the ground.”
Trustee Kim Brondyke said the village must act. “There was only a seven-vote difference in the referendum, it was so close,” she said.
“The people whose wells have been affected have been looking to government entities for help and all they get is talk without results. … We could lay that line. … They would be paying the higher out-of-district water rates, so it is not that they would be getting something for nothing,” she said.
Trustee Ed Young, who, with Brondyke, voted against ending the villages efforts to bring water to unicorporated Woodridge Estates, said the village might quickly recoup a portion of its expenditures because people who had said they favored receiving Lisle water would likely seize on the pre-annexation pact (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).
But Trustee Ann Duker, who had insisted the village not put in the main without overwhelming voter support, said trustees had been “falling all over ourselves” to help the residents. The blame, she said, lies with DuPage County, which governs unincorporated areas.
“If anyone left the residents out to dry, it was the county government,” she said.
Also Monday, Frey downplayed Broda’s suggestion that the state could force Lisle to supply water to unincorporated areas for free. “That is pie in the sky and just a blatant exaggeration,” Frey said.
The board, however, agreed to the DuPage Water Commission’s request that member communities contribute to a $50,000 lobby fund and a $10,000 legal fund. Lisle’s share would be about $2,000 and would be used to address a bill that has been proposed by House Minority Leader Lee Daniels (R-Elmhurst) at the request of DuPage County Chairman Robert Schillerstrom.
So far, the DuPage Water Commission Act contains no details. But water commissioners contend the bill is an attempt to change the nature of the water commission and reduce members’ control over their own water systems.
In other action Monday, trustees agreed to raise Lisle’s front footage fees for connection to the village’s water and sanitary sewer system. The rate of $28 per front foot for water and 22.50 per front foot for sewer both will go up to $50. The cost to the village to construct the mains is about $45 per front foot.
The board agreed to include a 60-day grace period before the new rate kicks in and authorized a deferred payment plan at zero percent.
