By JOHN R. McCLELLAND
The first editor of the independent Bolingbrook Metropolitan, he became senior editor in January of Suburbs Ahead, Inc., publishers of The Met in Bolingbrook. McClelland is a graduate of the University of Illinois.

The growing pains of the Village of Bolingbrook

Village of Bolingbrook President/ Eleanor Wipfler Clerk/ Grace Kolar Treasurer/ Kenneth McConnaughay Trustees/ Larry Barnes; Judy Bredeweg; Chris Giannopulos; Edward L. Rosenthal; Robert B. Schanks; George Zavadil Manager/ Reed F. Carlson Engineer/ John Trippon Police Chief/ Ronald Johnson Fire Chief/ Terry Droogan Superintendent of Public Works / William Palmer

THE VILLAGE of Bolingbrook, celebrating its tenth birthday this month, has experienced all the growing pains one might expect in a community whose population has doubled twice in six years. A tiny toddler settlement of 5,357 when it was incorporated as a village in September 1965, Bolingbrook is now a sprawling, booming, bustling, nearly unmanageable, adolescent, home rule municipality. The population had inched up to 7,644 by 1970, but then it began to zoom, hitting 15,500 in 1972 and clearing the constitutional automatic home rule mark of 25,000 by 500 in 1974. The growth has continued, slowed by the recession but far from stopped, and the population for the fall of 1975 was projected at about 30,000. Depending on how you count, Bolingbrook has been the fastest or one of the two fastest growing communities in the vast Chicago metropolitan area. It has become infamous for some of the problems of too rapid growth and is now trying to become famous for innovative and energetic solutions. Bolingbrook is located in what used to be isolated and unpopulated farmland. This all changed, however, once the construction of Interstate 55 (now the Stevenson Expressway extension) was committed to shift from the route of U.S. 66 to its present location just east of Illinois Route 53. Suburban population follows transportation, and 28 miles southwest of the Chicago Loop, 10 miles north of Joliet, was not an unreasonable location for housing developments. Land was relatively cheap. And so were some of the first homes. The builder went bankrupt in midproject. Residents were incensed by lack of facilities, exorbitant water and sewer rates, and unresponsive service from distant sheriffs police and a remote rural tire protection district. After one failure, a municipal incorporation referendum passed in September 1965 and the village government was formed during the period from October 6 to mid-December 1965. Citizen complaints about this time brought about a state ordered cut in water and sewer rates by the privately owned Citizens Utilities Company, but village founders saw that the problem of uncontrolled growth in the vast, open unincorporated areas around the village was more complex. Village officials soon recognized that they must control zoning (which the Will County Board wasn't doing in those days) if any kind of orderly growth pattern was to be established. As big builders acquired vast tracts of land and prepared to build, the village negotiated for annexations. The second mayor, Robert Schanks, for example, had to deal with more than 40 applications in two years. The largest application was for a complex 1969 deal granting two builders, Centex and Surety, zoning on 990 prime acres and putting the village government into the water and sewer business with a plant built and funded by the builders and sold on contract to the village. After long and complex litigation, the village won a court order granting it options to buy the older part of Citizens Utilities system after 1973 and the newer part after 1977. City services Like a child used to spending dimes and quarters for school lunches and then suddenly faced with a $150 bill for a bicycle, the village leadership has gone from a meager budget to a possible $30 million debt for both the waterworks and other future public works. One of the main issues in the 1975 village election (which saw all eight elective posts up for grabs) was a policy on the waterworks. One faction said, in effect, "It must come under public ownership." Another said, "It should, if the price is reasonable." A third said, "Well, maybe, but let's take care of the

270 / Illinois Issues / September 1975

Bolingbrook has experienced all the classic problems of suburban sprawl: overcrowded schools and highways, zoning hassles, inadequate sewers, and lack of shopping facilities

immediate needs of today's residents first." The winners represent a combination of the first two attitudes.

The village managed to create from scratch police and fire departments which began with volunteers but have grown into excellent, professional organizations. The fire service still relies heavily on enthusiastic volunteers at night and on weekends, but has a full-time staff during the days when volunteers are away working at their principal livelihoods.

Year-round schools
Housing grew rapidly and seemed to march across the prairies a block each week during the construction season. These homes drew young, mobile middle-class families with school-age children, children who had to be taught right away. Registrations of 100 or more students per week hit the sleepy Valley View School District. In the first known involuntary separation, the Romeoville high school, which served Bolingbrook until its own high school opened in August 1974, was severed from the Lockport district. The entire Valley View unit district (Will County #635-U) became the first Illinois district in several decades to require year-round attendance. The 45-15 system divides the student body into four groups, three of which are in school at any given time. They rotate every 15 days, so each group is in school for 45 class days (nine weeks) and out for 15 class days (three weeks).

The system resulted in an immediate 33 per cent increase in classroom capacity, and drew nationwide attention from educators in other overburdened districts. But it still was not enough, and in almost every month from 1969 on, there were pupils on split sessions somewhere in the district. Deep in debt, the district passed two referenda early in 1973 to raise more taxes and to seek construction financing from the Illinois Capital Development Board (CDB). Redtape wrangles, including a CDB effort to cut the district's eligibility because of the year-round system, delayed construction of new schools. When the first Bolingbrook junior high school opened this summer, demand already exceeded capacity by nearly one third, and as a result, eighth graders are housed in the high school, which has a temporary surplus of space.

As the village has gained political attention from the Joliet-dominated Will County government, local officials have become more effective in dealing with builders and have persuaded them to donate larger amounts of land and cash to the school district and park district.

Roads built to serve small, scattered rural populations have been swamped with traffic. Village officials became first-class nuisances in state highway offices for years, demanding signals at the busiest intersection on Route 53. Desperate for reelection in 1974, state Rep. W. Robert Blair (R., Park Forest) used his clout as speaker of the house to extract from the Department of Transportation (DOT) a promise to widen Route 53 to four lanes. Blair lost his last election largely because his constituency was angered by his sponsorship of the Regional Transportation Authority, but DOT is continuing plans for the $6 million in road work.

Not a business community
With the opening of the huge "Old Chicago" indoor amusement park and shopping center this summer, the Bolingbrook area is gaining an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 additional cars per day. The $40-million-plus center, visible for miles, is intended to draw swarms of shoppers from all over northern Illinois and even from neighboring states. It will draw funseeking shoppers from Bolingbrook, and pour tax revenues into both village and school district coffers, but it does not provide the local shopping centers the community still needs.

Business follows population, of course, and since 1972 some new business has come to Bolingbrook. But a collection of neighborhood convenience shops, one discount store with another under construction, and some specialty shops do not a business community make. The first small hardware store just opened this year, high time for a community full of first-time homeowners eager to fix up their assembly-line houses.

Perhaps the hottest political issue in the 1974 election was the village government's attitude towards business growth. One of the two defeated candidates for mayor contended that there has been a pattern of resistance to zoning for business. He claimed that the Bolingbrook Economic Development Commission was ineffectual in its efforts to attract industry to the area where the future Fox Valley Freeway will join Interstate 55 just west of Illinois Route 53 and the future Lake County-Will County Expressway.

Promise of a post office
The fact that the mayor, village clerk, and all six trustees were up for election in an off year (when, normally, only three trustees would be up), was a clear if slightly exaggerated sign of the turnover in leadership which has plagued the area. After losing four mayors in 25 months, the village elected a 12-year resident, the widow of one of the founding fathers.

Though the town's mail still must pass through the vintage Lemont Post Office, designed in the 1930's to serve 6,000 souls and located seven miles away, the community of Bolingbrook has promises of its own facility. The opening of a post office will be another small but significant sign of Bolingbrook's growing sense of identity.

Growing in size and number, community organizations are battling the tendency of house buyers to think of their subdivision as their community, instead of seeing it as a part of the larger community. A four-day, Jaycee-sponsored celebration, marking the expansion of the traditional Pathways Parade, is aimed at enhancing the sense of togetherness during Bolingbrook's 10th anniversary observance September 4 to 7.

For child or town, age 10 is the proper time to start developing a sense of identity to help cope with growing pains. 

September 1975 / Illinois Issues / 271