U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) is recommending two vacant seats on the commission he formed to oversee development of a proposed airport near Peotone be filled by Will County Executive Larry Walsh and a mayor from a town adjacent to the site.
The recommendation, Jackson said in a letter sent this week to state Sen. Debbie Halvorson (D-Crete), is designed to ensure Will County’s interests are represented as development of the airport progresses.
“This is a regional project, and we want regional representation from all stakeholders on the commission’s board of directors,” Jackson said.
The proposed airfield is entirely within Will County, and county officials have said the county must have control over the airport.
Jackson said three board members on his commission are either from Will County or suburbs partially within Will. With the addition of Walsh and a mayor from the suburbs around the airport site, as many as five of the directors making up the five-member board when the airport opens would be from Will and communities partially within the county.
“I’d call that local control,” Jackson said in the letter.
Walsh, Halvorson and representatives of Jackson’s commission are scheduled to meet Monday with Illinois Transportation Secretary Tim Martin to come up with a plan for the airport that Gov. Rod Blagojevich proposes to submit to the Federal Aviation Administration for approval this spring.
In his State of the State address last week, Blagojevich endorsed Jackson’s public-private plan for developing the airport over a competing proposal from Will County. Afterward, however, Blagojevich asked for total agreement from both sides on the specifics of Jackson’s plan to ensure that development of the airport progresses smoothly.
