Reclaim Your Right to Vote on a Massive Funding Project in District 200

Letter to the editor submitted by Monica Rogers Sheehan.

A petition drive is underway to force the District 200 School Board to put its $17.5 million, non-referendum bond issue, to partially fund a $54 million Olympic-size pool project, before the voters in a referendum.

If you are interested in helping with the petition drive or would like to know where to go to sign the petition, email petitionforreferendum@gmail.com.

On Oct. 14, the school board utilized a loophole and voted to deny taxpayers the right to vote on its proposed $54 million, Olympic-size pool project, refusing to put its funding to referendum. A school board rationale for the pool spending is to point to a recent reduction in property taxes, yet the board fails to acknowledge that taxpayers were overtaxed in previous years, the result of another backdoor referendum that yielded the high school a $100 million cash fund. The school board issued a public notice on Nov. 11.

4211 signatures of registered Oak Park and River Forest voters are needed by Dec. 11 to force a referendum. These signatures must be on the petition form authorized by the school board, and each form must be notarized.

If enough voters sign the petition opposing the non-referendum bonds, it will force a taxpayer vote. Taxpayers, not the seven members of the school board, should decide the fate of this massive public works project with its major parking ramifications.

The school board plan would demolish the high school’s much-used, relatively-new parking garage and build its Olympic-size pool on its site. The board intends to put the garage’s 300 parking spaces back on the streets surrounding the high school. This action runs counter to the Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) that the Village of Oak Park and OPRF High School entered into in 2003.

The IGA was the foundation for the joint building of the garage. It stated that the garage was the solution to a 50-year long parking problem around the high school. There is even a greater demand for parking now than there was in 2003, and there will be even more demand for parking in the coming years.

In a report released last year by Ehlers & Associates, the Lisle-based firm hired by District 200, enrollment at Oak Park and River Forest High School (OPRF) could spike to nearly 4,000 within the next few years. The increase of approximately 800 students would also mean a significant increase in faculty and staff. District 200 administrators and the school board have noted the projected enrollment number as a reason to support the building of an Olympic-size pool. Yet, neither administrators nor the board have discussed where these additional students, faculty and staff would park.

The existing garage was reportedly built to accommodate two additional parking levels, if needed. With the school board plan to level the garage to make way for its Olympic-size pool, future-parking needs won’t be met there. But, the $54 million question remains, where will the high school build its next garage, the one that will surely be needed with the projected increase in enrollment, and where will everyone park who attend the regional swim meets in the new Olympic-size pool? R

egardless of whether you support the building of a $54 million, Olympic-size pool project that will demolish the only parking garage/lot at the high school, a project of this magnitude should be decided by all the taxpayers of Oak Park and River Forest not just the seven taxpayers on the school board.

Why did the school board vote not to put this massive project to referendum? Oh, never mind, I already know the answer.