The Brunner Forest Preserve is a good example. Its acquisition was a high priority of the Forest Preserve District, based on size, natural areas, and river frontage. But equally important, the County needed to acquire the road right of way for the Longmeadow Parkway and bridge. The County had begun acquiring critical road right-of-way parcels in 2004, and in 2005 succeeded in getting $4 million in Federal funds from SAFETEA-LU earmarked for right-of-way acquisition and engineering for the Longmeadow Parkway. The project’s estimated cost of $88 million at the time (now more than twice that amount) far exceeded typical Federal and State earmarks for local projects, according to a Kane County Department of Transportation presentation to the Kane County Board on July 25, 2007. When the $4 million was spent, all available funding would be exhausted, and there was no guarantee that further funding would be available due to limited resources and extreme competition for those funds.
Adding pressure to the need to act quickly were the ongoing budget battles in Springfield. Inaction on a capital bill which would help fund Illinois Department of Transportation projects put some major Kane County highway funding in danger. If the State failed to approve matching funds for the $300 million in federal money already set aside for Fox Valley projects, a number of them might be eliminated, including the Longmeadow Parkway bridge corridor. Kane County Board member Bill Wyatt, chairman of the Legislative Committee, went to Chicago to testify in favor of the State Legislature developing a capital bill, but found the budget discussions bogged down on the issue of gaming and the prospect of more casinos to raise money for capital projects. An Elgin Courier-News article (10-25-07) quoted him as saying “We have not gotten permission to access federal funds, and every year we wait, the money becomes 10 to 15 percent less effective.” Members of the Legislative Committee worried that if IDOT failed to come up with matching state funds, the federal money would be lost. There was a deadline looming, as the earmarked funds had to be spent by August 2008 or go back into the federal budget. And once the matching funds were secured, Kane County would still have to figure out how to deal with the remaining unfunded items, including Phase II Engineering, the additional further right-of-way acquisition, and construction costs.
So it was fortuitous that at the same time the County was exploring funding options for the Longmeadow Parkway, the Forest Preserve District was again looking at the Brunner farm. This property had long been on the “wish list” of potential acquisitions, but had never been available at an affordable price. Negotiating the purchase of this property would benefit both the County and the Forest Preserve, with the Forest Preserve picking up much of the tab. The $40 million price tag was a huge obstacle, even with some $2.2 million in grant funding. The Forest Preserve District ultimately bought the property and then sold the roadway right-of-way through the middle of the preserve to the County for $54,000/acre, considerably less than they would have had to pay if they had been forced to secure the entire parcel on their own. So which “hat” were the County Board members/Forest Preserve Commissioners wearing when they signed the deal to purchase the Brunner property for the Forest Preserve District? Were they acting solely in the interests of the Forest Preserve District or did the needs of the County factor into the decision to spend a record $40 million?
It is difficult to entirely separate the interests of the Forest Preserve District from those of the County here, but the outcome might have been different if the two boards had been totally separate and only serving the interests of one organization. Certainly it would be preferable not to have a road bisecting a forest preserve. And one can only speculate as to whether the high price paid for the Brunner property invited the consideration of recouping some of that money through mining the gravel on site, to sell or use in construction of the parkway. But if the Forest Preserve Commissioners had been elected solely to oversee the preservation of natural lands, and were not also responsible for County development, mining a preserve for gravel would likely never have been considered.