Like a rite of spring, residents in the footprint of the proposed Peotone Airport have noticed plenty of activity.

Workers have been seen walking and driving in what has been defined as the inaugural airport site. It appears that it is once again time to survey the property the state hopes to add to its cache of 2,264 acres in and around the site. State-owned land is less than half of what would be needed to build the inaugural airport.

Like all other times, the purpose and identity of the workers was not readily known by landowners who remain in a near constant state of alarm at seeing strangers milling about their property. Over the years they have been harassed, lied to, and threatened. The once bucolic rural community they have known for generations has been forever altered since the state began buying land and demolishing and burning homes and farmsteads.

Several people questioned the strangers they saw. The answers they received were varied.

Some workers admitted they were working for Hanson Professional Services, according to Wendell Smith, an eastern Will County farmer and property owner. Hanson is the firm IDOT has contracted to manage state-owned property.

"They ought to know where they (property lines) are by now," Smith said referring to the numerous times workers have traipsed onto private property over the many years the state has been trying to build an airport near Peotone.

Some of the workers refused to provide identification. When Gina Birmingham inquired about workers on her property, she was told they were with the South Suburban Airport, but refused to show identification. When she asked them to leave, she was ignored. Her husband Brian contacted the Will County Sheriff's office, according to Smith.

George Ochsenfeld, president of STAND (Shut This Airport Nightmare Down) and the Green Party candidate for State Representative related that he too saw workers in front of his property. When he asked who they were and what they were doing, the surveyors told him they were from the Village of Monee.

Ochsenfeld thought that was odd. He knew Monee wanted to annex property to the west of the village, but he was unaware of any intentions to annex southeast.

He took it upon himself to contact the Joliet surveying company where the workers were from. He was told the work was for the South Suburban Airport. The company spokesman said the crew was told to keep a low profile.

And then there is the ombudsman

Not coincidentally, these alleged trespassing incidents occurred just days after residents received a letter from Tiffany Gorman, the Ombudsman for the South Suburban Airport.

Gorman is the lawyer hired to act as an intermediary between property owners and airport officials. She is a partner in the law firm McKeown, Fitzgerald, Zollner, Buck, Hutchison & Ruttle with offices in Frankfort and Joliet.

According to her letter, she grew up in Manteno, and is very familiar with the project and its location.

Her job may be a lonely one however, since landowners have little trust in anyone paid by the state.

"We don't need an ombudsman," Smith said. "If the day comes that we need a lawyer, we will hire one."

The state budget has included $90,000 annually since 2005 for a lawyer who rarely receives phone calls. The first ombudsman was Crete Attorney Ray Feeley who was hired by Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow at the urging of then Secretary of Transportation Tim Martin.

Since that time, Will County has provided the services of the ombudsman through a memorandum of understanding with IDOT.

To Gorman's credit, she does have mediation experience, according to her firm's website. 

The idea of an ombudsman resulted from a meeting in Beecher held in 2002 by Glasgow's predecessor Jeff Tomczak after a meeting in Peotone.

Two years later, more than 150 people attended another meeting with landowners. Several Will County lawyers came to the Beecher meeting to hear homeowner complaints about trespassing by state workers.

At the time, Tomczak said Will County attorneys "held a roundtable" to determine that the state was within its rights to enter private property. But, he added that the landowners are entitled to "respect and reasonableness."

Bobbi Petrungaro, a Circuit Court Judge who in 2002 was an assistant state's attorney was the first to be appointed "an ombudsman for the people."