More than two years after the Haymarket drug treatment center’s initial proposal to build a large rehab in Itasca was greeted with intense protest, the Village Board formally turned down the plan in a unanimous vote Tuesday.
The decision, which drew restrained applause from residents in the meeting room, came as little surprise following steady criticism from officials who say the town of 9,000 can’t afford the projected public safety costs from the 240-bed facility, meant to be housed in a former Holiday Inn hotel.
“Haymarket’s request on our village is unreasonable,” Mayor Jeff Pruyn said just before the vote.
The story is likely not over just yet. Haymarket’s attorney said in an earlier presentation that a rejection would violate federal civil rights laws that protect people recovering from addiction, and president and CEO Dan Lustig suggested after the vote that a legal challenge might be coming.
“These types of issues might have to play (themselves) out in a court of law,” he said. “I think it’s really where important decisions like this really belong.”
The vote was the latest setback for Chicago-based Haymarket, which has long sought to build a treatment center in the suburbs. Officials in Wheaton rejected plans for a similar but much smaller facility in 2018, but Haymarket has argued that the continuing overdose crisis shows the need for expanded recovery services.
Despite support for the Itasca project from DuPage County political figures like County Board Chairman Dan Cronin and State Rep. Deb Conroy, residents have shown fierce resistance from the start. The first plan commission meeting to discuss the project in 2019 was met by hundreds of marchers holding signs that proclaimed, “No Haymarket.”
The treatment center sued Itasca a few months later, saying it should have been allowed to seek a special use permit as a health care facility. A judge dismissed the case in March 2020 but left the door open for the litigation to resume.
Some people in recovery from addiction, as well as treatment groups and advocates, have pressed the case for the facility. As several dozen Haymarket opponents gathered outside Village Hall before Tuesday’s meeting, Julie Detwiler stood by herself with a sign that read “Hope” in letters of purple — the color of overdose awareness.
“People are dying every single day,” said Detwiler, of Roselle, who has seen friends and family members struggle with addiction. “The longer this goes on, the more people we lose.”
But Itasca resident Bob O’Connor, holding a “No Haymarket” sign along Irving Park Road, said he would be fine with a treatment center coming to town — just not the one Haymarket was proposing.
Like many others, he said the village’s one-ambulance fire protection district wouldn’t be able to handle calls coming from the treatment center, and that would force Itasca to expand its emergency services with little benefit to existing residents.
“We need our services here,” he said. “We can’t afford to have them monopolized by a company that’s not for profit, not paying taxes, and expects everyone else to pick up the tab.”
In what has become a familiar rejoinder, Lustig said Haymarket has offered to hire a private ambulance service, though he suggested ambulances weren’t really at the heart of the village’s resistance.
“I will tell you what this is clearly about,” he said. “Unfortunately, stigma plays a serious role, and it is the No. 1 cause of death of people with substance use disorders. … It’s time we took a hard look at what it’s going to take to save the lives of our families.”
Twitter @JohnKeilman
