Dist. 67 Teachers Overwhelmingly Favor Proposal to Consolidate; Residents Are Wary

Dist. 67 teachers came out in strong support Monday night of a fast-moving plan that would sell to an auto dealer and create a hybrid new and renovated “K-8” school on the property by fall 2012.

The majority of public comments were more negative, however, at the second forum held to sound out locals on the project, and included a letter from a state representative who expressed concern at plans to include the adjacent in the deal.

The politics of grant-funding

A spokeswoman for Illinois Rep. John C. D'Amico read a letter to the board reminding them that he and other lawmakers worked hard to raise $622,500 in grant-funding to develop the recently opened park.

Noting that state money for parks and infrastructure is hard to come by in a tough economy, D’Amico wrote, “I would hate for the sale of Frank Hren Park to hurt Morton Grove’s future grant applications.”

He wrote that it may not even be legal for the village to sell the park, depending on what agreements the village signed to obtain $410,000 in grant money from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Residents' concerns about the proposal

Residents raised concerns about negative effects on home values near the school-turned-auto-lot; increased traffic in the Hynes neighborhood; and if the tight time frame for the new school is feasible.

Plans are to construct the new school on the Hynes site during the 2011-12 school year and, after classes end, turn the Golf site over to the car dealer and renovate the existing Hynes school during the summer. If all goes right and the weather and other factors cooperate, the hope is to have all classrooms ready by fall 2012.

Dist. 67's financial outlook

Supt. Jamie Reilly told audience members skeptical of the proposal that she initially laughed at and threw out a faxed query about buying the middle school when she first saw it last July. But the dealer’s persistence and the dire state of the district’s finances caused her to take a second look.

Dist. 67, which has not asked for a bond referendum increase since the 1960s, is projecting large deficits and needs to raise nearly $1.6 million in new money to stay solvent through 2017.

Whether the schools consolidate into one site or not, Reilly said, it will have to come before the voters in 2012 to ask for more operating revenue through a referendum. If the K-8 school is not built, the district will also need to ask for $2 million to bring its two existing buildings into a state of adequacy, not improvement.

With the sale of Golf Middle, voters would be asked for a 5.7 percent increase in their property taxes; without it, a 6.6 percent increase, or $66 for each $1,000 of tax currently paid.

Among the financial benefits of creating the new K-8 facility, district officials said, would be dramatically scaling back the estimated $500,000 per year it currently spends in maintenance for the two aging buildings.

As if to provide an example, a kindergarten class had to be relocated to the Hynes library Monday when a stand-alone heating and cooling unit called a “univent” began leaking water across the classroom floor.

Golf Teachers' Take On it

Improving students' learning environment was one of several positives listed by Golf Teacher’s Association representative Lisa Featherstone when she reported that 38 of 44 teachers surveyed favor the proposal; another five want more information and just one opposes it.

Teachers also liked planned improvements in technology and classroom spaces; a proposal to build a larger gymnasium for the middle schoolers, and the plan’s “green” initiatives, including a rooftop garden that could be used for classes.

The auto dealer has not made a formal offer for the property, and a representative said it only wants to move forward with community support.

Calibrating community reaction

Because opponents tend to be more vocal, it can be difficult to gauge what a community thinks solely by the comments of those who show up at forums.

“There were a lot of naysayers tonight,” said Meryl Gale, president of the Board of Education.

 “What I don’t know,” she added in comments after the meeting, “is whether the people here tonight were representative of the community.”

The BOE will have the final say on the proposal because it involves improvements to existing facilities. It will likely be asked to take a position on the proposal before the end of the month to allow enough time for a deal to be negotiated and architectural plans drawn up to meet an “ambitious” construction schedule.

The board will consider what further public comment they will need this Thursday night at its meeting, and is also scheduled to meet Feb. 17 with the Morton Grove Park District Board to iron out any potential issues with the proposed sale of Hren Park.

After that, they’ll need to make a decision about the direction they want to take “pretty soon,” Reilly said after the meeting, since the district would need to obtain a firm offer from the dealer before it could begin to pay architects to draw up plans. 

In comments to the audience, Gale emphasized that the board had made no decision, but when they do “the board’s first duty is to the children.”

“I have heard people say this is a done deal, but I can assure you this is not the case,” she added.

Part of the problem in assessing support or opposition, several speakers said, is that many community members know little to nothing about the proposal, which was first floated in late January.

On Monday, Reilly said more than 100 questions and answers about the proposal, along with all the presentations from the meetings, are on the district’s web site.

Review of the proposal for Golf schools

An estimated $18 million to build a new K-8 school would be paid partially from the sale of the middle school to an unnamed auto dealer, described as a second-generation car salesman with five or so other dealerships in the Chicago area.

The rest of the money for school construction would come from a new tax increment financing, or TIF district, on the Golf School site and by extending by 11 years the life of the existing Waukegan Road TIF, which is slated to expire in 2020.

Municipalities typically use TIF districts to make designated areas more desirable to businesses and their customers to usher in new economic development. They issue bonds to pay for improvements and repay those bonds with extra, or "incremental" tax revenues, generated by the improvements.

In this case, the village is proposing the new and extended TIFs to pay for the school construction and to help attract the auto dealership to Morton Grove. More than $1 million of the bond money would go into preparing the Golf site for the dealership and up to $2.25 million to repay the park district for Hren Park.