As 200 sign-carrying demonstrators staged a 1960s-style protest Monday, state wrecking crews took less than half an hour to demolish a Monee home on the site of the proposed third regional airport near Peotone.
The protesters, most of whom live within or adjacent to the 24,000-acre site of the planned airfield, sang protest songs and carried placards in front of the two-story frame house at 3316 W. Offner Rd. in Monee. They also protested the slated demolition of another home Thursday.
The demolished house was built in 1989 and sold last year to the state for $215,000 under the Illinois Department of Transportation’s third airport acquisition program.
“We’re very upset that the state is destroying a house in our community with tax dollars when it is experiencing one of its worst budget crises ever,” said Anthony Rayson, co-founder of Shut This Airport Nightmare Down (STAND), an organization of residents from eastern Will County and southern Cook County opposed to the proposed airport.
