Frustrated at this late date by the decision of the OPRF school board to knock down a parking garage to make way for a new swimming pool complex, some neighbors of the school are leading a referendum charge to force the plan onto a spring election ballot.
Alleging that the school’s plan to fund construction in part through the issuance of non-referendum working cash bonds is, in effect, a “back door” referendum, forcing a property tax hike without benefit of a citizen vote, a small crew of organizers has set out to gather a mountain of petition signatures in a very short window of time.
To force this issue onto the ballot, some 4,200 Oak Park and River Forest voters would need to sign on before Dec. 11.
And standing in line behind the petition gatherers is regular school tax critic Kevin Peppard. He thinks it is unlikely that enough signatures can be gathered and so he is contemplating, as he regularly does, a lawsuit against the district to block the funding of the project.
We get the upset of immediate school neighbors who will see 300 parking spaces go poof and 300 cars start turning up on their streets. If they can scare up 4,200 legit signatures and force a vote, more power to them. It is a staggering number of signatures which dwarfs the number required of potential candidates for the school board.
We are less sympathetic to threats of lawsuits based on technicalities.
The endless process of siting this pool has been an embarrassing diversion for this school board and administration. But the board, as reformulated by voters last spring, finally made the imperfect decision from a short list of imperfect options. And that, simply, is what we elected them to do.
There are vital issues awaiting focus and drive at our high school. As we just reported, the academic gap between blacks and whites at OPRF is widening, there is a looming jolt in enrollment, and it is not too soon to begin thinking about innovations necessary in the next pact with teachers.
Time to look forward, beyond this pool.
