At the cafe where my department end-of-year event will be starting shortly; I’ve just finished catching up on e-mails that have come in the last few days, in advance of tonight’s board meeting, where we’ll be voting on the funding for Project 2 at OPRF.
It’s a LOT of e-mails, and a lot of time to carefully read through them, but I appreciate that I live in such an engaged community, where people are willing to passionately advocate for what they believe in.
The question before us tonight is whether to go to referendum a year from now, to ask the community to fund the project, or instead rely on a combination of fund balance, debt certificates, and private donations, which would mean being able to start work immediately.
I’m in favor of the latter approach in this particular case, somewhat reluctantly, and primarily due to the complexities of how this particular project has played out in Oak Park / River Forest over the last decade.
If the situation were different, I might well be voting for referendum, but this project has been delayed and delayed and delayed again. With each delay has come added expense and continued degradation of the building and facilities, to the point where we’ve had to close areas multiple times for safety concerns. I believe it’s in the best interests of our students to avoid further delay.
In the board e-mails, we’re getting many people arguing for both sides of tonight’s vote– no matter which way the board members vote, a lot of people will be unhappy. Hopefully most of them will trust that whatever our individual votes, the board members (your neighbors) are choosing what we honestly believe is the best option for our students and our community.
Please do remember that school board members are unpaid volunteers. We have no financial interest in this decision, other than what affects us as parents and taxpayers in these villages. (I promise you, I have absolutely no connection to construction companies that might be bidding on this project!)
I admit, it’s been unpleasant seeing the, thankfully rare, letter (either in our e-mail, or in public forums) impugning board members’ morality, implying that we’re somehow trying to engage in some kind of cash grab, and often incidentally conflating current board members with everything that’s been done by D200 boards over the last twenty years. (Some of us have only been on the board for two years!)
But even if the comments are sometimes aggressive, I supposed that’s what I signed up for, when I ran for office. For school board in particular, where children’s futures are on the line, the stakes are very high.
I was warned that if I ran for school board, I’d have angry parents shouting at me. Yes, that’s happened, and will undoubtedly continue to happen. That’s the job. It’s a hard job, and I’m not planning to run again in two years; after eight years of board service, I’m going to need a break. I hope I can help find some good people to take it on at that point. If you’re local and interested, do let me know — I’m happy to meet for coffee and talk more about what it entails.
I imagine we’ll have a lot of public comment at tonight’s meeting. Bring it on, and thank you for participating in our civic society.
There’s a few more hours left to e-mail the board, if you can’t make it to tonight’s meeting — e-mails can be sent to BOE@oprfhs.org.