Loyola Academy has closed on its deal to buy 60 acres on a former construction landfill in north suburban Glenview for the development of athletic fields.
The deal was signed Tuesday, with the private Catholic high school paying $20 million to provide 10 fields for soccer, lacrosse, softball and baseball and a trail for cross-country.
Work on the fields will begin in the spring. Athletes will be able to use them in spring 2002, said John E. Hoerster, the school’s athletic director.
“It’s going to be beautifully prepared, scenic and also practical,” said Hoerster, adding that the land has been tested and is safe. “It’s a natural setting and will continue in that way. That’s a major plus not only for Loyola but for the Glenview community.”
The land, at the former Krohn Landfill at 1900 Johns Drive, is between Lake Avenue and Willow Road and between Waukegan Road and the former Glenview Naval Air Station.
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The property is about 3 miles from the academy’s Wilmette campus, which enrolls 2,000 students. Athletes now are shuttled to leased fields for practices.
Loyola eventually may construct an athletic building with an indoor ice rink at the site.
Going to a vote: Glenview School District 34 will present voters in an April 3 referendum with the same proposal to raise property taxes that failed in November.
The board wants to raise the tax levy by 29 cents per $100 of assessed equalized valuation to pay for additional teachers and current programs.
Last fall, voters approved $24.9 million in bonds to build and equip a new middle school at The Glen, which is expected to open in 2003.
Now the district needs money to staff it.
The district’s enrollment of 3,700 students is projected to reach 4,300 in three years. Budget projections forecast deficit spending with or without the new school, said Gay Meier of the superintendent’s office.
Head tax falters: Evanston officials have put a controversial employee head tax proposal on the back burner, but the idea is not dead yet, Ald. Dennis Drummer (2nd) said Wednesday.
Administration and Public Works Committee officials tabled the idea to give the city time to meet with Northwestern University and Evanston’s two hospitals.
The university and hospitals, all tax-exempt and non-profit, are the only employers that would be affected by the head tax. The proposal calls for institutions with 1,000 or more employees to pay a monthly $10-per-employee tax.
“We would rather sit and talk with them and come up with a way they can contribute to this city instead of imposing a head tax on them,” Drummer said. “If we don’t get results, we’ll revisit the tax proposal.”
In other recent action, Evanston leaders dropped the idea of asking voters in the April election for $20 million to upgrade the city’s park system.
The Budget Review Committee instead favored spending $1.5 million annually for seven years on the city’s parks. As part of the plan, the city would immediately start upgrading soccer and baseball fields, tennis courts and parks, with plans to broaden the project’s scope in subsequent years. Plans to rebuild the Robert Crown Center are on hold.
Students petition for change: U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) was in Wilmette recently, where he accepted a petition signed by 200 Regina Dominican High School students and parents who want to abolish the Electoral College.
Durbin told students during an assembly that chances are “slim to none” of changing the U.S. Constitution.
It would take a constitutional amendment supported by three-fourths of the state legislatures for the popular vote to decide the outcome of presidential elections, he said.
“Small states get a `bonus vote’ with the electoral system,” said Durbin, who has advocated the change since 1993. “They would never support it.”
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