As first mentioned in the June 3 edition of Glenview Watch, Costco Wholesale Corporation may be hoping to locate one of its warehouse stores on Willow Road in Glenview. The retail giant operates more than 300 stores in North America – selling a limited selection of nationally branded and private label products in a range of categories.

Costco already has stores in Niles, Oak Brook, Lake Zurich and Chicago but has wanted to locate in this area for years. It originally purchased property on Skokie Boulevard in Northbrook, hoping to do business there, but opposition from the neighbors scuttled that idea. Northbrook’s village president said Costco would go in at that location "over my dead body." Costco said it would wait.

Now, real estate industry sources say the firm is eyeing Glenview property originally offered to Home Depot at the northernmost part of the former Naval Air Station north of Willow Road. It’s not clear whether Home Depot would bow out completely – canceling plans for a big box hardware store, home design center and other retail space on the 41-acre site, but Home Depot’s contract gives it an out. In the contract, Glenview pledges to complete the intersection of Patriot Boulevard and Willow by October 2000. The intersection has not yet opened, and storm water problems on the property have yet to be resolved.

The deal may be attractive to Glenview because Costco does a brisk retail business, offering the promise of substantial sales as well as real estate taxes. The store will undoubtedly bring more traffic, a fact that has frightened many other communities. In Boca Raton, Florida, residents spent $50,000 in an attempt to keep Costco out, but Costco spent $375,000 on legal fees alone and last month won approval from the Palm County Commissioners to proceed.

Some planners also think the coming of Costco to Willow Road may mean traffic troubles. A traffic survey by Home Depot had predicted that with on-going development of the area, "the Willow Road corridor at every major intersection from the Edens Expressway west to the Tri-State Tollway will break down, creating major vehicular queues which will force through traffic to use alternate routes, such as Lake Avenue and Dundee."

Others say Costco will do most of its business during non-peak hours, adding that the store actually draws less truck traffic than competing retailers in the area. While a grocery like Sunset Foods may see 75 different delivery trucks in a week, Costco gets all of its merchandise from central warehouses – allowing streamlined delivery by about ten trucks weekly.

Public opinion is also likely to be mixed. Some residents will no doubt object to the construction of more big box architecture on Glenview’s northern border, but others are excited by the prospect of warehouse shopping so close to home. One resident of Willow Glen, Amy Plotnick, told The Watch, "That’s construction I don’t mind."

Trustees in south suburban Mokena have voted unanimously to reject plans for construction of a Home Depot at U.S. 30 and Owens Road, feeling the big box hardware giant would change the character of that residential area. Mokena’s Plan Commission backed Home Depot, but the community’s comprehensive plan called for the neighborhood to be residential. About 100 residents cheered the Village Board’s vote which one trustee described as "a stand for community character and against corporate commercialization."

After speaking his mind about a mixed use retail center (MURC) planned for The Glen, Howard Silver faced the prospect of political execution last week. Silver serves as head of The Glen Redevelopment Commission and as chairman of Glenview’s Plan Commission. His remarks criticizing traffic and design features at the MURC unsettled Village President Larry Carlson and Trustee John Crawford who wanted to see the MURC approved quickly so construction could begin. The trustees met in executive session to consider a demand for Silver’s resignation but decided there were no formal rules for commissioners’ conduct and no formal grounds for dismissal.

The Northbrook Star reports that community is considering a mixed-use retail center on Shermer Road north of Willow at the site of two factories – General Fire Extinguisher and Serfilco. The ten-acre property would house condominiums or town homes and shops. The village board won’t begin official discussions until August 20, but some trustees are already raising fears that retail at the site might detract from on-going efforts to expand and improve downtown Northbrook.

Evanston is also debating a MURC – this one to be located on Sherman Avenue just east of the el, where a municipal parking garage would be torn down to make way for the development. Sherman Plaza would be anchored by a health club, have 215,000 square feet of retail space and a 198-unit senior housing project.

Northbrook is debating a demand from its single biggest source of taxes – Northbrook Court. The mall wants sales tax rebates if Crate and Barrel is to build there. The new super store could generate $509,000 a year in sales tax revenue, but the mall wants $1.6 million back over 11 years to pay for improvements to the site and nearby ring road. Some trustees are already lining up behind the give back, saying Crate and Barrel will still generate a lot of money not now coming in, but Village President Damisch is playing tough, demanding to see Northbrook Mall’s books first.

Last year, Glenview agreed to rebate half of the sales taxes generated by Abt Electronics – up to $11 million over 15 years, and Vernon Hills returns 50 percent of the sales tax paid by CDW Computer Centers.

Two new golf courses opened at The Glen over the weekend, but only for limited play. The Park District's nine-hole course was dedicated Friday, and Park Board members played one round. The course won't be open to the public until July 14 because the first hole requires further work and needs more time to mature. Overall, Park District Board President Doug Kaiser said he and his colleagues were pleased with the National Nines' evolution.

The course was designed by Glenview native Rick Jacobson. He has worked around the world but considers it a highlight of his career to have designed a course in his hometown. One round will cost residents $13-$15.

At the privately-owned Glen Club, corporate members were allowed to play 10 of the 18 holes. Kemper Sports Management said the other eight were well along but "not perfect." That course will also open for full play around mid-month, but golfers are already giving it rave reviews, remarking on how designer Tom Fazio has sculpted the originally flat landscape, adding hills, valleys, streams and mature trees.

One visitor from a club in Deerfield said he didn't think The Glen Club was worth a $30,000 membership fee plus $150 per round, but others found the course a real challenge and look forward to the opening of a its restaurant and a small hotel in the clubhouse later this summer. Those two facilities will be open to the public.

This year’s parade will step off at 11 a.m. from OLPH, following a bike decorating contest for children aged 4-12 in the parking lot of the Colonial Court building between 10-10:30. As always, the bike brigade will lead the procession.

If you’re looking for an afternoon activity, Flick and Roosevelt pools will be open from 1-4 p.m.. The evening’s festivities will begin with a concert of patriotic music by the North Shore Concert Band at the Glenview Golf Club. The fireworks are set to go off after dusk – brought to you by Cambridge Homes and the residents and businesses of Glenview.

If you can’t get enough of the pyrotechnics, Wilmette plans its show on Tuesday evening, July 3 at Gilson Park following a massive party with food and entertainment. Those festivities begin at 4 p.m. You can park in the Edens Plaza lot and take shuttle buses for a round-trip charge of $1.50. Kids under 7 are free.

While former Glenview Trustees Joyce Schmidt, Kent Fuller, John Patton Jr. and Village President Nancy Firfer received Waterford crystal bowls or clocks at a party in their honor Wednesday, Firfer got something extra – a rocking chair! Firfer said she was not offended by the gift and plans to spend the summer relaxing.

The event at Valley Lo Country Club featured an elaborate buffet paid for by the taxpayers, and the publicly-funded gifts were inscribed with "Thanks from the people of Glenview." Ironically, those people who paid the tab were not invited to the private event attended by about 100 guests, including former Village President Jim Smirles, former Plan Commissioner Tim Doron, District 34's Superintendent of Schools and most of its board members. Invited but conspicuously absent – Plan Commission Chief Silver, Trustee Rachel Cook and most members of the Park District Board.

Glenview Watch made its first official skunk sighting last week at dusk. The location – The Glen, outside the redevelopment office where village trustees were meeting in executive session.

Also on the skunk watch, a report from Arlington Heights where Wheeling Township Assessor Dolores Stephan saw one of the infamous black and white critters waddling under her house. Two nights later, the smell was so bad she couldn’t sleep and decided to hire an animal control specialist. In addition to a mother skunk, the firm found three babies in a window well.

This week’s issue of the Glenview Announcements contains an excellent summary of our coyote situation. Reporter Sara Loeb says the "intelligent, dog-like animals are exploring their suburban surroundings with increasing boldness." The county’s wildlife biologist reportedly gets 3-5 calls a week from residents, who say coyotes are hanging around their back yards or stalking their pets, and each month about a dozen cats and dogs are being injured by coyotes in Cook County.

The problem is most serious along the north branch of the Chicago River and around the Skokie lagoons, but coyotes have also been spotted around The Grove, Air Station Prairie and in the Navy Ditch between the old Lutter Dump and Target on Willow Road.

In their defense, coyotes rarely carry rabies, and they eat raccoons that do, along with rabbits, rats and mice. There is no record of the animals attacking people east of the Mississippi River, and experts say only a small percentage will go after small pets.

To avoid problems, keep your animals inside at night and on a leash if you’re walking in or near forest preserves. Never feed pets outside. Don’t offer food to coyotes or other wild animals, and keep a tight lid on garbage cans. If you have a problem, call Glenview’s animal control officer at 729-5000.

Public Works Director Bill Porter has told village trustees that traffic signals at Lehigh and Chestnut will be upgraded as part of Lehigh Road reconstruction, and the railroad crossing pad will be replaced. That might not happen, however, for 18 months, so Porter says he has asked Metra to install a temporary asphalt pad and will continue to press for that improvement. A temporary pad was installed on the Dewes Street crossing in 1986. Porter said it lasted more than three years.

Illinois congressmen are among those who lobbied hardest for a delay in new federal rules that would have required trains to sound their whistles at every crossing beginning July 10. Real estate experts estimate that practice would lower North Shore property values by $1 billion. Local congressman Mark Kirk is among those calling for a compromise: allowing trains to hold the whistle at crossings that have warning lights and a good safety record – five years without an accident.

When Moore Landscaping went to the village for permission to build 67 town homes on ten acres near Landwehr and Lake, the Plan Commission shook its collective head. Members felt the development was too dense. The land is not yet incorporated, so the developer is turning to Cook County – hoping for zoning that would allow construction of 74 town homes and 74 row houses!

Glenview officials are moving, however, to block the end run. Village Manager Paul McCarthy urged the trustees to make a formal objection to Moore’s Plan before the Cook County Board of Zoning Appeals. If Glenview objects, the developer would need a two-thirds majority from the county to proceed. That hearing will take place at Glenview’s Village Hall on August 6.

The folks who live in 26 homes on Huber Lane became official residents of the village in the early 90's when they were involuntarily annexed. They consoled themselves with the thought that their privately-owned sewers, built in 1962, would now be maintained by Glenview. They appeared before the board Tuesday to ask for maintenance and were told that privately-owned sewers remain in private hands, regardless of incorporation. If they want to pay for upgrades to the system, Glenview is willing to do a study of the repairs needed, secure a low-interest loan for homeowners, hire a contractor, then assume responsibility for the improved sewer.

The residents were surprised to learn that about half of the sanitary sewers in Glenview are privately owned – paid for by homeowners, but they left with a promise to consider the offer made by Village Hall.

On Broadway, the music man was a guy who showed up in a small Midwest town to woo the local librarian. Here in Glenview, we’ve got both characters in one. Executive librarian John Blegen is also an accomplished jazz musician who plays with the Chicago Cubs Band. The ensemble will perform in the library’s Maynard Room Monday, July 2 at 7 p.m. Residents are invited to wear their favorite baseball shirts and caps to the concert, which will also feature prizes and handouts.

Blegen has loved music since taking up the violin at the age of nine. He switched to the clarinet at 14, noting that he "got into fewer fist fights on the way home from school." At 16 he was playing jazz with a band, and in college, he toured Europe and played aboard cruise ships to get there. He was inspired by his uncle – a professional musician from Iowa who moved to Alaska and started the Juneau Symphony.

Today, Glenview’s chief librarian says his job is his first priority, but jazz remains an important part of his life, and he finds certain parallels between the two. "In both roles," he says, " you’re improvising to figure out new ways of doing things."

If you miss Monday’s performance, you can see Blegen in concert at Seul’s in Northfield (on Orchard Lane, just south of the intersection of Happ and Willow) every Sunday from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

This year’s street sale featured at least one big bargain. Fourteen-year-old Paul Weber, a student at Springman Middle School, wandered down Glenview Road wearing a sign that read "For Sale by Owner," and offering to do chores for 50 cents apiece.

FM comments on Lake Glenview and the "expensive outhouses" there: "My husband and I live off of Flick Park, which seems to draw many more people than the new community center in The Glen. We and our neighbors enjoy having the park as our backyard. We cannot understand why Lake Glenview was placed next to warehouses and commercial property. We have also been trying to figure out what the two small oblong buildings near the paths at The Glen are? They look like elaborate outhouses. If they are, what an extravagant waste of money!"

The Watch replies: Citizens did question the location of the lake, but officials said the site was based on engineering considerations, and once the lake was situated, a park was planned around it. Unfortunately, that meant a park next to the new Metra station, office buildings and the shopping center far from the commuter rail line, and the prospect of many more employees and shoppers driving to Glenview. And so it goes. Nothing is perfect. Except, perhaps, the pavilions you describe as "elaborate outhouses." They will provide storage space and restrooms for the public at a cost of $425,000 apiece.

Andy R. is also keeping an eye on Glen expenses – and future traffic patterns: "It seems the past Village Board locked us into an airtight deal with the developers of the MURC. I understand the village is bound to do business with these people or pay millions in pull_out fees to the developers. It's strange that there was so much concern about a $350,000 mechanical building when it appears the village has squandered millions already and is being railroaded by developers of the MURC for two five_way intersections and other questionable features."

Biff Thiele did not like the tone of a public hearing by the Comprehensive Plan Commission and its consultant, Planning Design Institute: "PDI seems very out of touch with residents' concerns and very favorable to developers. Why am I not surprised? Glenview has had enough development to choke a horse and yet developers still get the red carpet. Larry Carlson has a great opportunity here to open his Big Tent up. If the village is serious about this comprehensive study, then it needs to pay attention to residents' concerns. Otherwise it’s just business as usual – homeowners are just being pacified by yet another exercise in futility, while the real plans are being created behind closed doors by the Mary Baks, Don Owens and Amy Ahners of Glenview."

And Fritz was alarmed when Trustee Jeff Lerner felt an obligation to carry on with plans and guidelines for the Glen regardless of cost: "Good God, what kind of idiot do we have here? Let's all just go and jump off a cliff because some fool told us to try it. The only RESPONSIBLE thing for a board member to do is to raise holy hell when they don't agree with, don't like or don't understand the programs instituted by prior boards. It's clear this new boy on the board has not done his homework at all. Surprise, surprise! He’s had the same attitude on the (School District) 225 Board."

Random notes from F. Pinsler challenge the police department, village planners and AMTRAK: "Why are left turns not completely stopped from the Burger King on Waukegan Road. I understand police cars from another village routinely violate the no left turn rule. Also, isn’t barbed wire illegal in Glenview? If so, why is it still around at The Glen. And, finally, I think AMTRAK trains create traffic problems downtown – blocking traffic on Glenview Road and discouraging shoppers. What can be done?"

The Watch replies: Glenview’s police department is aware of the left turn problem but finds it difficult to catch violators. Often traffic is so thick on Waukegan Road that it would take a major effort by a squad car to reach the offender, and making stops on the busy corridor only makes traffic worse.

Barbed wire is, in fact, illegal in residential areas but can be used to contain livestock or to protect utilities. The village attempted to remove all barbed wire left behind by the Navy, but if they missed a spot, Assistant Village Manager Joe Wade will appreciate a call at 724-1700, extension 201.

As for Amtrak, train buff and public works director Bill Porter is the man to see. He has had periodic conversations with the railroad, but so far Amtrak is not inclined to change its ways. For details, give Porter a call at 657-3030.

JF raises disturbing questions about plans for development and our health: "I’ve been reading your stories about the Loyola Fields and have a question. Years ago, I went to a hearing at the county building. An expert testified that [because of decaying garbage] the Lutter dump was constantly emitting gas, and that someone should be on duty 24 hours a day to monitor that if construction were to take place in the area. The experts said it would be unsafe to put a golf course on the dump itself because the players would be breathing the gas. Now we’re putting kids in that environment. Why?

"I’m also concerned about safety at O’Hare where the city may build new runways. I read a study recently that said the area around the runways at O’Hare is subject to a level of benzene particulates that is 100 times the safe level. Benzene is the one chemical that the American Leukemia Society says causes leukemia. Why all of the noise about noise and nothing about health? Would the case of a Senator from Iowa saving fifteen minutes on a trip to Washington balance possible cases of leukemia in Park Ridge or Glenview?"

The Watch replies: Sources at the Illinois EPA say methane gas is a common problem in municipal landfills where garbage is dumped and decays. Lutter stopped accepting that kind of waste in the 50's and is mostly full of construction debris, but some gas is still being produced. The new owner, Loyola, has agreed to create a special vent so methane can escape at a single point. It will not seep through the thick clay cap on top, so children playing on the sports fields above should face no risk to health.

The state continues to monitor suburban air pollution caused by burning of jet fuel at O’Hare, but readings at their station in Northbrook – the closest one to Glenview – indicate no added risk to human health. An environmental impact statement will be required before new runways are built at the airport, so we may get more information at that time, but we don’t suggest you hold your breath. Experts say it could be years before the political stars align and construction begins.

"While driving down Waukegan Road near Chestnut, I noticed a 24_hour tanning salon and couldn’t help wondering – does anyone really need a tan at 2:30 in the morning?"

The Watch replies: The Tanning Oasis – like a growing number of businesses – operates 24/7, and you’d be surprised how busy they get in the wee hours. Some customers work nights and sleep days, so a visit to the tanning salon on their lunch hour or in the early morning is as close as they’ll get to catching some rays. Others are night owls who like the convenience of tanning between midnight and dawn. In addition to serving these consumers, a 24-hour schedule allows the store to thoroughly clean and maintain their tanning beds.

YOUR TURN: Share your views on local issues and news. E-mail to glenviewwatch@aol.com or snail mail to 3537 Maple Leaf Dr., Glenview, IL 60025.  We look forward to hearing form you and consider readers' remarks an essential part of our newsletter. Thanks for reading!  – Sandy Hausman and Dean Schott

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