ILLINOIS SITE FIGHT: RESIDENTS FIGHT BACK

Residents rally against Wal-Mart [Edwardsville (Ill.) Journal]
Lawsuit filed over store’s expansion

Minutes before Tuesday night’s Glen Carbon Village Board meeting, members of the Glen-Ed Citizens for Fair Growth group announced that they had filed a lawsuit against the Village of Glen Carbon.

Joined by their attorney Penni Livingston, members of organization said they plan to fight the expansion of Wal-Mart.

Named as plaintiffs in the suit are Susan and Walter Hammill, Jane and Leon “Bud” Mace and Marcel Brown.
“This afternoon we filed a lawsuit on behalf of Mr. and Mrs. Mace and Mr. and Mrs. Hammill, and also on behalf of Marcel Brown. They are all within 1,200 feet of the Wal-Mart development. They belong to the Glen-Ed Citizens for Fair Growth and they’re really mad. They hired a lawyer to sue the city and the developer,” Livingston explained to a small crowd outside of Village Hall.

Plans called for Glen Carbon’s Wal-Mart, located at Junction Drive and Cottonwood Drive off of Illinois Route 159, to be expanded into a supercenter. THF Realty, the developer for the project, successfully petitioned the village in June and received permission for the expansion.

Livingston said she believes Glen Carbon officials did not follow proper procedures in approving the developer’s proposal.

“We have sued in what we call mandamus, which is saying to a governmental entity ‘hey guys, this is how you’re supposed to do things.’

“So we’ve basically asked the judge to have the Zoning Board of Appeals hear the variance petition because that’s the proper body under the municipal code in Illinois, which is a statute. And it’s also the proper body if you actually read the ordinances in Glen Carbon,” Livingston said.

Livingston continued by saying that the ultimate decision for the action was the result of the wrong government body initially hearing the variance petition.

“The Planning Commission (is) where (Building and Zoning Administrator Will) Shashack sent this variance petition, although not the signed variance. The Planning Commission is an advisory board to the (Village Board). So the Planning Commission made a recommendation and then the (Village Board) decided. The (Village Board) was the wrong body to decide. You might wonder how that all occurred—you’re free to ask the city how that occurred. We’d like to know too,” Livingston said.

Livingston explained that the variance should never have been approved in the first place because according to state statute, the petitioner has to prove an undue hardship, of which none was established.

“Our position is very clear - they have no undue hardship. And in fact in their very petition they claimed no undue hardship—they didn’t even fill in the blank that you’re supposed to fill in. Also, they didn’t present any evidence of undue hardship. Under the state statute, under the municipal code, you cannot grant a variance without an undue hardship,” she said.

The lawsuit filed by Livingston on behalf of the Glen-Ed Citizens for Fair Growth is asking the court to examine the issue of the Planning Commission hearing the petition instead of the Zoning Board of Appeals. The court will also be asked to look at the legality of the variance granted without a proven hardship.

“You can’t grant a variance on the parking lot situation where you already have 60 accidents a year and now you’re going to have less parking spaces than you currently have and less entrances—it’s just unlawful,” she said.

The president of Glen-Ed Citizens for Fair Growth, Karen O’Koniewski, spoke before the Village Board members prior to handing them a copy of the lawsuit.

“You should have denied the variance by THF Realty. By approving that variance despite the lack of required hardship, despite conflicts with the ordinances of the village you swore to serve, you have approved the building of too large (of) a business in too small (of) a space.

“I know some of the reasoning behind the vote to approve this variance was based on fear of a retaliatory lawsuit by THF Realty—that was said to me personally by more than one member of this board. Large corporations are not the only components of our society that have access to such legal actions.

“You have before now chosen to ignore the voices closest to home—the smaller voices, the voices not backed by billions of dollars and potential tax revenue for the town. I’m here tonight to let you know you chose the wrong voices to ignore,” she said.

The members of the Village Board were expressionless after hearing O’Koniewski. They then called the next item on the agenda.