Schiller Park

O’Hare night runway plan to end on Christmas, despite pleas

Dec 1, 2016 | WLSAM Staff

(CHICAGO) City aviation officials said Wednesday that O’Hare Airport will end a six-month test of a new night runway rotation plan on Christmas morning, as originally scheduled, despite pleas by Schiller Park and Harwood Heights to extend it, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.

Mayors of both suburban towns east of the airport said the temporary plan to better distribute night jet noise has lessened the heavy overnight air traffic their communities shouldered after a dramatic change in O’Hare flight plans in 2013.

As a result, they said, they would like to see it continue while test results are being analyzed. The plan, launched July 6, rotates night runways every week, on a 12-week schedule, and alternates between diagonal “cross wind” runways and parallel “east-west” runways.

“Schiller Park got some relief from this and I hate to see it end,” Schiller Park Mayor Barbara Piltaver told fellow members of the Ad Hoc Fly Quiet committee of the O’Hare Noise Compatibility Commission.

The plan has reduced the night burden on Schiller Park, Harwood Heights and portions of Chicago to the east of O’Hare, as well as Bensenville and Wood Dale to the west. All are affected by O’Hare’s growing stable of east-west parallel runways. However, other suburbs, like Des Plaines, have been howling about the plan’s increased night use of diagonal runways.

Aaron Frame, of the Chicago Department of Aviation, said “chances are” running the test longer than the six months planned would trigger an environmental analysis that could last anywhere from months to a year. He cited a July 1, 2016, letter from the Federal Aviation Administration stating that “continuing the rotation plan beyond the test would be subject to future environmental review.”

FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro told the Sun-Times on Wednesday that the FAA “would consider” any city request for an extension but could not speculate on what its response would be.

Even so, Frame said the Aviation Department will end the test early Christmas morning, as planned, take the month of January to analyze the results, and then present its findings to the the Fly Quiet Committee and the Noise Commission for discussion and possible tweaking, approval or rejection.

Karen Robles of Schaumburg, a community affected by heavier night use of a diagonal runway due for demolition in 2018, favored that idea. She said there are some “tweaks many of us would like to evaluate” after the test ends and its results are thoroughly analyzed.

Mayor Craig Johnson of Elk Grove Village said later he also favors ending the plan on schedule, going back to pre-rotation night flights temporarily, and then coming up with a new six-month plan that uses the diagonal runway aimed at his village and Schaumburg less frequently.

Currently, Johnson said, Elk Grove Village carries a “disproportionate share” of night traffic and is affected in nine out of 12 weeks in the rotation.

“You shouldn’t have nine out of 12 weeks, flights going over some communities,” Johnson said.

Wednesday’s discussion indicated the Chicago area could see many changes in night flights as officials wrestle with how to proceed. But in addition, even daytime flight paths could well change again in 2019, after a diagonal runway closes; in 2020, after a new east-west parallel runway opens in the north airfield; and in 2021, when an existing parallel runway in the north airfield is due to be lengthened.

— Chicago Sun-Times

Broadview man drowns after driving into Schiller Park retention pond

Dec 4, 2015 | WLSAM Staff

Divers search a retention pond in Schiller Park after a crash early Sunday. | Network Video Productions

UPDATES WITH ID, AUTOPSY

(SCHILLER PARK) A west suburban man drowned after driving into a retention pond early Sunday in Schiller Park.

About 2:30 a.m., the car was heading southbound on the Tri-State Tollway (I-294) and exiting onto eastbound Irving Park Road when it left the road and went into the pond, according to Illinois State Police.

The Schiller Park Fire Department brought in a dive team and pulled 26-year-old Anthony Strong Jr. from the water near the submerged vehicle, according to state police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Strong, of the 2200 block of South 13th Avenue in Broadview, was dead at the scene, authorities said. An autopsy found he died of drowning and his death was ruled an accident.

Police said the vehicle had been reported stolen.

Judge: Schiller Park woman accused of terrorism to remain in custody

Feb 10, 2015 |

(Chicago) A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that a Schiller Park woman accused of financially aiding ISIS terrorists will require a U.S. Marshals Service escort to Missouri, where the case will be heard, and will not be freed to get there on her own., the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.

Before issuing his ruling, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cole said extra weight is placed on the presumption of flight and danger to the community when considering the release of defendants charged in terrorism cases.

Medy Salkicevic, a naturalized U.S. citizen and mother of four who emigrated from Bosnia, wiped her eyes with her sleeves as Cole explained his ruling.

Cole had heard arguments at a hearing Monday but delayed his announcement until Tuesday, saying he wanted time to weigh his decision.

Salkicevic’s defense attorney, Andrea Gambino, had claimed her client would not flee because she was anchored to the community through her four daughters and husband, and wanted to clear her name in St. Louis—an argument that Cole said lacked evidence.

Gambino had noted that police had confiscated her client’s passport, further mitigating the chance she would flee. But Cole countered that Salkicevic could simply drive away, saying “this is an enormous, enormous country.”

Cole also noted that a house Salkicevic was building in Bosnia contributed to his decision. “It perhaps infers fairly an intent to return,” he said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Angel Krull argued Monday that Salkicevic, who works for Alliance Airlines, a company that handles airline cargo, had $7,000 in her checking account and was an avid traveler who in recent years had been to Germany, Serbia and Turkey. She said Salkicevic had the knowledge and resources to flee.

Cole ordered Salkicevic transported to St. Louis quickly, and that a court date for her case be set soon. He even left the door open for Salkicevic’s attorney to tweak her argument and bring it before him again if the case drags on and Salkicevic lingers in jail in Chicago, awaiting transportation to St. Louis.

“I am sorry for this,” Cole said, acknowledging how hard the confinement will be on Salkicevic’s family.

“If some judge down there wants to (release you), I would be thrilled,” Cole said, noting that his hands were tied by the law.

“I hope they let her out,” he said. “I just don’t feel I have the legal right to let her out.”

Salkicevic is accused of raising and wiring money used to arm and equip a fellow Bosnian fighting for ISIS in Syria. The crime of providing material support to ISIS terrorists carries a sentence of up to 30 years in prison.

The series of $1,000 PayPal payments she sent was used to buy surplus military gear, including a sniper rifle scope, combat boots and uniforms, federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment unsealed Friday night.

At a hearing on Monday, Krull said Salkicevic received an e-mail from a friend containing a picture of two sniper rifle scopes and, in an e-mailed reply, said she “hoped they reached them” and that they be “put to good use.”

Krull argued that Salkicevic, arrested Friday on her way to renew passports for two of her daughters, knew the money would be used to buy gear for ISIS and al-Qaida and was a danger to the community.

She chatted with five co-defendants about the plot on Facebook using code words, the feds say.

The co-defendants were charged alongside her in Missouri, where they allegedly bought the military equipment in surplus stores. No court date has been set in St. Louis.

In court Tuesday, Salkicevic, wearing a black hijab, orange prison garb and shackled at the feet, was less cheery than she’d been the previous day, when she looked at relatives in the gallery and motioned for them to keep their chins up—even giving them two thumbs up and mouthing the word “strong.”

—Sun-Times