The leaflet is stark and hard to ignore–a big white-on-black stop sign, a motto in large type (“Stop! Think! Organize! Prevail!”), and an opening paragraph sure to rivet its Kendall County audience:
On the national level and in national publications like Audubon Activist, Buzzworm, and Outside, it’s easy to see this confrontation as black and white: earth rapers versus earth savers. Locally it’s not that simple. As fate–or perhaps just midwestern cautiousness–would have it, the groups confronting each other in Chicago and the suburbs are relatively moderate representatives of their respective sides.
From Openlands’ side, the answer is fairly simple: a trail with a gap in it is no trail at all. It seems unfair that a 20- mile greenway corridor, which if complete could be enjoyed by thousands of people every year, could be stymied by one property owner in the middle who demands far more than market value or who refuses to sell at all.
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But there was no point in their fighting it in court. The forest preserve was within its legal rights, and Kane County’s 1982 master plan called for all floodplain land to be publicly owned. The fight would have to be political. Organized as STOP (originally Stop Taking Our Property), the home owners conducted a petition drive asking the board to rescind the vote authorizing the letters. The original 26 met up with people with similar grievances from other parts of Kane County. They packed an April 11, 1989, board meeting at which Elfstrom’s forces avoided rescinding the order with a parliamentary maneuver so devious it was slammed on the Sun-Times editorial page. And STOP began to look beyond its members’ backyards.
“What happened to those people’s backyards is inexcusable,” agrees Susan Harney, a director of Friends of the Fox and one of the environmentalists Steve met with. “When that letter first came out, I made it a point to talk to my county board representative and say they should back off.” But she doesn’t think STOP’s members care about the environment. “You can say you’re an environmentalist, but what tells the tale is what you do. [STOP]’s bill, 1283, was strongly opposed by every established environmental group, not because they wanted to put bike trails through people’s backyards but because its impact was so terrible on the environment.” Before Governor Edgar’s amendatory veto this fall, the STOP-backed bill would, among other things, have required forest preserve districts to get approval from the city or township involved before buying any land for a linear park or trail. “The public sometimes needs to acquire land for public needs, and condemnation is one way to establish that the price is reasonable–otherwise you’re always held up by the last guy.”
