GARY | The city's Board of Public Works voted 3-0 on Wednesday to force the Gary Community School Corp. to give up two parcels of land needed to expand the Gary/Chicago International Airport.

The board, headed by Deputy Mayor Geraldine Tousant, passed a resolution that found taking the land would serve an important public purpose. It authorized the city's legal department to initiate eminent domain proceedings in court.

"It is our opinion the School Board has not dealt in good faith because if they had, this could have been settled years ago," said Public Works Director Rinzer Williams, who is a nonvoting member of the board.

Tousant expressed frustration with the School Board's refusal of airport offers for the land, which the airport needs so it can replace rare dune and swale habitat that will be plowed under when it extends its main runway.

"We've been dealing with this since 2005," she said of the protracted negotiations between the airport authority and the School Board.

Gary Community School Corp. officials did not immediately respond to a Times request for comment Wednesday afternoon.

"We've talked this thing to death," Airport Director Chris Curry told the public works board Wednesday. "We've compromised, we've made other proposals, but now we're at the point where Gary airport has to move forward."

The airport authority will pay all legal fees required for the lawsuit as well as the price the court sets for the land, Curry said.

On Monday, school corporation officials and School Board members held a news conference to announce they had hired an environmental consultant to put a value on the land. Jay Truty, president of Ecosystem Capital LLC, said traditional real estate appraisals could not capture the true value of rare habitats like the dune and swale in Gary.

School Board members also argued they wanted to be "good stewards" of school corporation property.

"This becomes an issue of preservation of the assets of the school corporation, so it's not in our interest to low-ball the property," School Board member Marion Williams said Monday.

Before Wednesday's vote, Curry outlined how the airport has cooperated with the city and sanitary district on other projects. He said the airport authority had offered to pay the price the land had been appraised at, which was $375,000 when the airport updated an earlier appraisal this year.

The school corporation acknowledges it had obtained a similar value for the land when it had it appraised last year. But in April, the school corporation said it had determined the land could be worth between $3.75 million and $6 million after "talking to some state, regional and national experts on the value of wetlands."

After the meeting, Curry said the airport authority is still open to a "reasonable agreement" with the School Board.