Hinsdale Trustees Reject Graue Mill Anti-Flood Funding Request

Residents who have experienced, according to Village President Tom Cauley, the worst flooding in Hinsdale in recent years will have to wait at least a few months longer to get rolling on flood-prevention improvements. 

The Board of Trustees turned down a short-notice funding request from the residents of  Tuesday night that would have committed about $60,000 in village dollars to a $1.93 million anti-flood project at the condo complex approximately a year and a half after it experienced major flooding when Salt Creek overflowed in July 2010.

Graue Mill bypassed a village committee hearing and went straight to the Board of Trustees agenda after learning on Jan. 30 that a grant was available from the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) that would cover 75 percent of the cost of the project ($1.45 million), but had a Feb. 8 application deadline. 

Graue Mill originally had planned on applying for a FEMA grant that had a deadline in June 2012, but were alerted that the Feb. 8 money was available as a result of another grant falling through.

The FEMA grant application due Wednesday demands that Graue Mill secure 25 percent of the project’s funding from local sources. DuPage County committed to pay 75 percent of that 25 percent ($361,825) and the Graue Mill Home Owners Association decided it was willing to split the rest of the bill with Hinsdale—about $60,000 each.

If the Board of Trustees had approved that plan, it would cost each Graue Mill unit about $250.

Graue Mill Home Owners Association President Peter Schroth said the earlier grant was “a fabulous opportunity” to get started on the Graue Mill improvements.

“I’m disappointed, that's my official statement,” Schroth said of the Board of Trustees decision.

The nearly $2 million project would, among other things, adjust grading, raise berms and curbs, and modify storm sewers at Graue Mill, which is located at 1130 Old Mill Rd. on the north side of Hinsdale near the Oak Brook border.

The Board of Trustees, which was told about the new grant opportunity on Friday, took no action on the request. All the trustees cited discomfort with the short notice as reasoning.

“The timing of this really put us in a position where this is a lot of money with very little time for us to do much,” Cauley said to Graue Mill residents in attendance at Memorial Hall. “If we had unlimited funds, we certainly would be there for you but we don’t.”

Trustee Doug Geoga said it was a gamble by the home owners association to risk the entire project by committing to only half of the remaining money needed and banking on the Board of Trustees to cover the other half with no committee hearings and little discussion.

Preventing another flood event the magnitude of the 2010 event, Geoga said, is worth another $250 per unit.

“The larger the calamity, the more inexplicable that line is,” the trustee said.

On July 24, 2010, 7.5 inches of rain fell in northeast Hinsdale in a short period of time, causing Salt Creek to overflow, according to a letter from Graue Mill Resident Lawrence Klinger and engineer Thomas Burke of Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd.

Seventeen Graue Mill units filled with 12 to 16 inches of water, 40 cars were totaled, the complex had to be evacuated by the , and residents lost electricity for three to seven days.

“It wasn’t a matter of a flooded basement,” resident Janet Mose said at Tuesday night’s meeting. “Our home was gone.”

Resident John Donaker said he thinks there’s “an appalling lack of understanding of what Graue Mill is all about” at the village. He said residents pay taxes to the village and contribute to the local economy while getting very little village services.

“We suffered severely from this flood and the members of the village government that came to the property and listened to us understood that,” Donaker said.

Cauley said the board recognizes that Graue Mill has been through worse flooding than anyone else in Hinsdale and Tuesday’s indecision was due only to timing, not Graue Mill residents being considered second-class citizens. The village president and board seemed open to working to secure the FEMA funding in June.

Schroth, the home owners association president, said Graue Mill would continue to try to secure FEMA funding, possibly with that original June deadline in mind.

“There’s always next year, and the year after next, and so forth and so on,” he said.