Residents of Tinley Park School District 146 and representatives of government bodies that overlap the district on Thursday night told school officials they are worried a $20 million bond proposal for a new middle school will add up to too many property taxes.
The unprecedented gathering, which included elected officials of Tinley Park, Orland Park and Oak Forest–was organized by school officials who have taken heat over their proposal, as well as for plans to build the new school in Orland Park instead of Tinley Park.
Tinley Park Village Trustee Patrick Rea told district officials they need also consider the bond issues that other taxing bodies are enacting.
“Who’s first in line?” Rea asked. “Is this the highest and best use of $20 million in a region where all the communities are growing and have tremendous needs?”
District 146–one of the area’s fastest-growing–stretches through Orland Park, Tinley Park and Oak Forest. The district operates six schools, including the 67-year-old Central Middle School on Oak Park Avenue in Tinley Park.
Orland Park Village Trustee James Dodge asked district officials to work together with that village.
“We told the whole world we’re going after another $20 million worth of bonds in the next couple of years,” Dodge said.
Oak Forest Ald. Paul Wechet said, “We’re looking at a bond issue ourselves.”
Supt. Gerald Hill said the district’s proposal does not include a tax increase, but will keep the school district tax bill from going down in 2000, when another bond issue is retired.
School administrators say a new middle school–to be built on 30 acres at 151st Street and Harlem Avenue in Orland Park–is needed to ease overcrowding in a district that has seen its population swell. The proposal, scheduled for a November referendum, calls for constructing a school for 6th-, 7th- and 8th-grade pupils.
Residents and merchants are also upset about the new location, which moves it out of the center of Tinley Park.
“This has been a central part of this community during a majority of the history of this community,” said Rea. “You don’t take a significant landmark and move it without worry.”
“We’re concerned, very concerned, that the school is being taken out of our downtown area,” Mayor Ed Zabrocki said before the meeting. “It could hurt us economically because the teachers who work at the school, the kids who go to the school and their parents shop and eat near the school.”
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The plan has so angered merchants from the Oak Park Avenue Main Street Association that they sent a scathing newsletter to area businesses encouraging them to voice their displeasure at the polls when school board members seek re-election.
“It’s a strong letter, but we had to react strongly to help save our business base,” said Mike Clark, who owns a restaurant on Oak Park Avenue and serves as vice president of the business group.
But economics isn’t the only issue raising the ire of village leaders. They are annoyed they were not asked to sit on a leadership board of a committee working to pass the bond issue, Zabrocki said.
“It’s not an issue of them informing us first or second (about the committee). It’s a matter of them not letting us know or giving us an opportunity to say `yea’ or `nay’ about being part of it,” Zabrocki said.
But Hill pointed out that the four-member leadership board, made up entirely of volunteers, has two Tinley Park residents on it. An Orland Township trustee chairs the board and the Oak Forest city clerk holds the other position. Moreover, added Hill, the 70-member committee has numerous Tinley Park residents.