Oakwood Hills has shut down Village Hall because of alleged threats against public officials over a controversial power plant proposal.
Officials in the small McHenry County community have also canceled Thursday’s Village Board meeting “due to personal threats to board members and threats to prevent the conducting of public business,” according to a notice on the village website.
Power plant opponents say they’re angry about the proposal but were not aware of any threats against local leaders.
Officials in Oakwood Hills, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, took the unusual step of closing Village Hall after a raucous Zoning Board of Appeals meeting last week in which residents, after being cut short from public comment on the issue, rushed forward yelling at the board, village President Melanie Funk said.
Funk said she was told threats were made to board members at the end of the meeting. She said the matter was referred to local police and the McHenry County state’s attorney’s office.
“They’re taking the threat seriously,” she said.
The closing means that the village, with a population of just over 2,000, is without a village clerk or Building Department open to the public. The Police Department continues to operate, firefighting services continue from neighboring Cary and village bills will be paid. Funk said the main impact is on services like vehicle and lawn care stickers, whose sales have been halted.
The closing will continue until police and board members decide otherwise, Funk said.
At issue is a proposal for a 430-megawatt natural gas-fired plant that would produce enough electricity to supply 160,000 households. The developers — Northland Power and Enventure Partners LLC — present it as a much cleaner, cheaper way of producing energy than aging coal and nuclear plants.
As proposed, the plant would have a 107-foot-tall main building and a 185-foot-tall exhaust stack.
The proposed site is in a cornfield behind Village Hall and next to a large ComEd substation and transmission lines. It’s about a half-mile from two housing subdivisions and an estimated 300 yards from Prairie Grove Elementary School.
School officials oppose the plant, and more than 800 residents turned out at meetings on the plan last month.
The zoning board delayed its hearing on the subject until October after the developers asked for more time to respond to residents’ concerns.
Joe Ricciardi, a leader of the opposition who lives nearby, said people yelled out against the plan at the meetings but made no threats. Residents are concerned about noise, emissions, groundwater use, ice on the roads from steam in the winter and the effect on property values.
“Yes, we need green power,” Ricciardi said, “but this is not the right place.”
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