More veterans join anti-NorthPoint battle

Veterans organizations are stepping up opposition to the NorthPoint project and calling for reinforcements.

Two Lake County-based organizations that have joined as plaintiffs in the Stop NorthPoint lawsuit in Will County Circuit Court decried the industrial project’s potential impact on Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery at a press conference on Wednesday.

“It will multiply traffic on heavily used roads that are almost daily blocking funeral processions that carry our fallen to their final resting place,” said Allen Lynch, a Medal of Honors recipient from Gurnee who has been a speaker at events at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood.

The Allen J. Lynch Medal of Honor Veterans Foundation and the Lake County Veterans Assistance Commission have signed on as plaintiffs in the Stop NorthPoint lawsuit. So have Veterans Assistance Commissions in DeKalb and Madison counties since the Illinois Association of County Veterans Assistance Commissions issued a resolution in December opposing the NorthPoint plan.

Lynch called on more veterans organizations throughout Illinois and outside the state to get involved in the effort to block the NorthPoint project.

“We will not give up. We will not go away,” Lynch said.

The press conference was held as NorthPoint opponents are trying to stave off an effort by the developer and its advocates to persuade Gov. JB Pritzker to step in and take state control of an Elwood road that would be used for a bridge crossing Route 53.

The Joliet City Council in December approved a plan to annex 1,260 acres for the future Compass Global Logistics Hub, which would be even larger as it extends into Elwood and potentially Manhattan. The approval is conditioned on NorthPoint building a bridge over Route 53.

NorthPoint contends the bridge is part of a “closed-loop” design that would connect the industrial park to the intermodal yards in Joliet and Elwood and reduce long-term truck traffic on Route 53, the major road leading to the cemetery.

NorthPoint issued a statement after the press conference saying its plan for the Compass Global Logistics Hub “prioritizes the sanctity of Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery” and addresses “existing problems created by years of haphazard development.”

“Importantly, our design is the first and only plan to address the current threat of truck traffic interfering with funeral processions and errant rigs entering the sacred cemetery grounds,” the statement said.

The company for years has argued that its plan offered the best protection for truck traffic that inevitably will come to handle growing numbers of cargo shipments going through the BNSF and Union Pacific intermodal yards in Elwood and Joliet.

The developer also has pointed to its projections of 1,600 construction jobs and 10,000 permanent jobs in promoting the project as a boost to both the local and state economy.

The project still has faced stiff opposition from neighboring communities and local governments voicing concerns about growing numbers of trucks.

Local veterans groups have joined the opposition pointing to potential impact on the cemetery.

“The building of this mammoth facility will impinge upon Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery,” Andrew Tangen, superintendent of the Lake County Veterans Assistance Commission, said at the press conference.

Tangen said military veterans are “focused like a laser on protecting the sacred ground in which our brothers and sisters, and in some cases their families, are buried.”