Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 may include up to three questions on the April 7, 2015 ballot seeking permission to build, permission to bond and community consent for a new pool.
Pool Committee member Peter Traczyk, a member of the Oak Park Elementary School District 97 board, said a binding referendum would go a long way toward transparency and building trust with the community.
“I strongly encourage the board to seek a bonding referendum. Even if you don’t run a site referendum, you need a bonding referendum,” he said at the Dec. 15 Pool Committee meeting. “I don’t think you can spend this much money without asking the voters. This is an ethics question.
“I think the backlash in the community if you don’t ask permission, I don’t want to see how that would manifest itself.”
The Pool Committee is scheduled to meet one last time at 7 p.m. Jan. 5, 2015 to recommend a plan to District 200’s full board for replacement of the school’s two 87-year-old pools.
The District 200 Board must adopt a resolution on a binding referendum no later than Jan. 20. If it fails to do so, the next-earliest date at which the district could offer a referendum would be nearly a year later, during the March 15, 2016 primary election.
The School Board, on the advice of the specially called Finance Advisory Committee, committed in 2013 to setting aside up to $20 million from the district’s fund balance, estimated at about $115 million, for the pool project. Though some members of the community have wondered why the entire project can’t be paid out of the fund balance, the district appears poised to seek approval to pay the remainder through its bonding authority.
Committee member Steve Gevinson, a member of the District 200 Board, agreed that a referendum is necessary.
“We have done a lot of work to build trust and I could see not going for a referendum undermining that,” he said.
With a seemingly endless cycle of options that continue to be introduced and explored, committee member Ralph Lee wondered whether the committee would be able to make a site decision on time to certify the referendum questions by Jan. 29, as required by law. He suggested that the district set a dollar amount for the project and take more time to deliberate on a site.
“It doesn’t seem to me an engineering firm can come up with the kind of specificity you’re suggesting,” he said.
Several committee members agreed that on questions that don’t require public approval, the District 200 Board should be given the latitude to make an executive decision.
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“If we don’t legally have to do a referendum, then I would say let the board do the board’s work on the site issue,” said committee member Mary Colleen Roberts.
Committee member Joe Connell agreed, saying he sensed a great deal of frustration in the community about the pool site options and cost estimates.
“I think there is a lot of fatigue with the issue,” he said. “I, too, would like the board to do the board’s work and make a decision.”
Committee member Tom Cofsky, who was out of town but participated in the Dec. 15 meeting by phone, said he thought having a referendum was important because the make-up of the committee wasn’t as diverse as he’d hoped.
“We recognized when the committee was formed, we didn’t have every voice,” he said.