The towering bleachers at Crystal Lake South High School must be dismantled starting Dec. 1, a McHenry County judge ordered Thursday.
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Judge Michael Chmiel’s decision, made during a 10-minute hearing, followed his Sept. 5 ruling that the school violated local laws in erecting the stadium bleachers, which stand nearly 50 feet tall and are 41 feet from neighboring homeowners’ property lines.
“At some point, he had no basis for delaying the enforcement of what the statute directed him to do,” said Tom Burney, attorney for neighbors who had filed suit against Community High School District 155 in summer 2013. Construction of the bleachers had begun by then.
“People can’t take it anymore,” he added. “This is a horrible structure.”
Crystal Lake zoning allows for structures on that site to be a maximum of 15 feet tall, and the ordinance requires the bleachers to be placed at least 50 feet from property lines.
School officials have maintained that the $1.2 million bleachers project is a much-needed expansion and is outside the jurisdiction of city zoning restrictions. State law authorizes the school district to obtain building permits from a regional office of education, an attorney for the district contended, and District 155 followed that process.
During a December 2013 hearing, Chmiel said that no case law or precedent existed to clarify the issue. But he also noted at the hearing that no wording exists exempting school districts from zoning review. The judge concluded that school officials violated city zoning, and an appellate court upheld that decision last month.
In that decision, the court contended that the regional office of education is responsible for enforcing school building codes, not zoning concerns. Shortly after that conclusion, Chmiel wrote that homeowners were “substantially affected by the (school district’s) violation of local ordinances.”
Robert Swain, an attorney for the school district, did not respond to phone and email inquiries Thursday. Swain has said the larger issue of who governs school construction is a primary consideration in District 155’s court fight. After Chmiel’s September ruling, Swain said the district was considering “several options.”
Some of those options, including an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, still exist, Burney said. He and Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley said they doubted that dismantling of the bleachers would start by Dec. 1.
After the judge’s ruling Thursday, Burney characterized his reaction as “not a happiness or elatedness. It’s a sad thing that a government body has acted like this and has to be brought to justice. This case should never have been brought. It’s a huge disappointment that it’s come to this.”
Shepley echoed that sentiment.
“There are no winners in this,” Shepley said. “There are only losers. Some losers are bigger than others, in my opinion.”
Shepley said the bleachers, which are more than triple the width of the old bleachers and have been dubbed “the Berlin Wall of Steel” by some neighbors, elicit two reactions from residents. Those who have not seen the structure say it might not be “that big a deal,” the mayor said, and those who have seen it have said school board officials “are out of their minds.”
The city will not force demolition of the bleachers and likely will not impose fines on the school district, Shepley said. Chmiel set a status hearing for Dec. 17.
“We’re not interested in punishing the school district,” said the mayor, an alumnus of District 155. “We’re interested in the school district respecting the constitutional rights of their neighbors and everybody in this community.”
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