Shut This Airport Nightmare Down will Demonstrate Against Use of Eminent Domain for the "Peotone Airport"

STAND (Shut This Airport Nightmare Down) will hold a demonstration Monday, July 11, from 11 a.m. to noon at the Tinley Park Convention Center where Governor Pat Quinn will speak to the Chicago Southland Chamber of Commerce.  Quinn is speaking at the Chamber's "Regional Consensus Luncheon".

STAND will display a large banner which reads “NO EMINENT DOMAIN AT PEOTONE” and demonstrators will have other signs. STAND will be at the entrance to the Convention Center, which is off 183^rd Street, just east of Harlem.

STAND wants Governor Quinn to promise that the state will not use eminent domain to forcefully take people’s property for the proposed Peotone airport prior to the FAA deciding whether an airport can be built.  According to STAND, that decision is two years away. The state has already initiated eminent domain on a small number of properties and is threatening to do massive eminent domain condemnations soon. STAND claims this is unfair to property owners and unfair to taxpayers who will pay for this property with borrowed money.

For more information on STAND, contact president George Ochsenfeld at (708) 534-7319.

Eminent Domain was a hot topic at STAND's last meeting:

STAND encourages citizens opposed to the plans for the "Peotone Airport" to contact Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton

Illinois State Legislators are working on the state budget this month, and the group "Shut This Airport Nightmare Down--STAND" wants to send a message to those legislators: Stop funding for the Peotone Airport.

Here is an email blast STAND has send out. This email blast was obtained by Peotone Airport News and is copied below in its entirety:


"URGENT NOTICE: please write letters and/or call as soon as possible. They are working on the budget until the end of May.

Urge Housespeaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton to block the $110 million that Quinn put into the budget for land acquisition for the proposed Peotone airport. The state plans to forcefully take land from unwilling sellers using eminent domain, even though the FAA is two or three years away from approving/disapproving the project.

Call, send snail mail, fax, or email. Handwritten or typed letters mailed or faxed are best. Phone call are next best, followed by email. Explain in your own words why you oppose having the state borrow $110 million to forcefully take land. Even two or three sentences is enough.

Use words like: "block", "stop", "kill", "eliminate" "remove" the $110 million funding.

Points to consider including:
If the project has had a negative impact on you personally, state how.
The state is broke and should not be borrowing money.
Put people to work repairing existing roads, bridges, dam, water-ways, etc.
This is an abuse of eminent domain.
At least wait until the FAA decides if an airport can be built.
This is an abuse of governmental power.
O'Hare expansion will handle air traffic for decades to come.
Put money into fast trains and public transit.
Peotone would be a white elephant, like MidAmerica airport near St Louis.
Why waste 32 square miles of excellent farm land.
This would encourage suburban sprawl.
This is bad for the environment.
People in Peotone area have suffered for 20 yrs. from this unneeded threat
This has always been politically driven and not market driven.
If it were market driven, it would have been built years ago.
Fund schools and services to the: [elderly, disabled, mentally ill, etc]
This is a boondoggle designed to benefit the politically connected.
The airlines are opposed.
Just the surrounding infrastructure would cost taxpayers a fortune.


Michael Madigan
Speaker of the House
300 Capitol Building
Springfield, IL 62706
(217) 782-5350
(217) 524-1794 FAX

Senator John J. Cullerton
President of the Senate
327 Capitol Building
Springfield, IL 62706
(217)782-2728
(217)782-3242 FAX
john@senatorcullerton.com"