Post by wvhsparent on Mar 17, 2007 7:29:06 GMT -6
Developer offers land for school, but who would it really benefit?
By Joni Hirsch Blackman
Naperville
Posted Saturday, March 17, 2007
Indian Prairie Unit District 204 board members have got to be scratching their heads a bit.
Just last year, referendum opponents complained that the proposed third high school — now named Metea Valley — wasn’t necessary.
Critics these days complain the school won’t be built quickly enough on the proposed site, so alternate sites should be considered.
But who, exactly, is the opposition? Most likely anyone who isn’t happy with which high school their subdivision was assigned to during last year’s bitter boundary process — or people who complain no matter what the district does.
Last week, a full-page, color proposed design for Metea Valley High School at an alternate location was printed in a Naperville newspaper. Presumably it was a paid advertisement of some sort, but no such label is on the page.
The drawing is labeled a plan “developed by Macom Corp.” and directs readers to a Web site to “find out more.” The move is an obvious attempt to sway public opinion in favor of the land Macom belatedly offered to Indian Prairie — land company president Paul Lehman admits “isn’t an ideal location” and costs more than the district expects to pay for its current site.
The school board declined Macom’s offer last fall. The Daily Herald covered the offer and the school board’s response. However, when asked why the ad was run, Lehman said it was to get the information out there.
“The school district has put out information that the site doesn’t work, it doesn’t fit, but no one has seen the proposal from a standpoint of how things lay out,” Lehman said.
He said district officials have rejected his land — which is slated for town homes and manor homes, residences he says are in great demand — saying it won’t work for them, but they haven’t said why it won’t work. Actually, they gave several good reasons to Daily Herald reporter Sara Hooker in a Jan. 11 story, and again in a recent district e-mail with a link to a Web page Q&A filled with detailed answers.
Why is Lehman so interested in the lack of progress on the land for Metea Valley High School when, by his own admission, he didn’t take a position on whether the district needed a third high school?
“The electorate decided we needed a third high school and I’m not questioning that,” he said.
But he is questioning nearly everything else.
He’s worried whether the district can deliver Metea Valley in time on their selected site at a reasonable cost, he said, as a “concerned taxpayer.” He believes the district should have a fall-back property in case the Brach-Brodie land at Commons Drive and 75th Street doesn’t work out.
Why not just work with the board and tell them that, then? Why place newspaper ads?
“There are a lot of individuals encouraging us to put it in the paper,” Lehman said.
He would not say who, but said some are running for school board.
Is he so interested in moving the new high school because a switch to his site would mean a possible change in boundaries so students in Macom’s Ashwood Creek and Ashwood Park could attend the neighboring Metea Valley instead of Waubonsie Valley, the school he said in January was killing his sales?
Lehman told me his offer has nothing to do with slower-than-expected sales in those subdivisions, and noted that sales are picking up. But if the school were somehow to be built at 248th Avenue and 95th Street next to his subdivisions … well, sure, he’d want those students to go there.
“I would hope they’d go to that school. We wouldn’t need a complete change of boundaries,” he said. “There would be a slight shift. It would affect a small percentage of student body.”
Yup, the percentage that happens to live in the new Macom subdivisions.
Isn’t this really what’s behind the ad?
“It’s one of the reasons,” he said.
Why not just wait until after the school board elections next month and re-approach a new school board with his option?
“Wouldn’t it be interesting for the facts to be out there when the elections are going on?” Lehman answered.
Not so coincidentally, several school board candidates are bringing up the plan in community forums. Wouldn’t it be cleaner — more forthright — for candidates in favor of this proposal to bring this out to the public without collaborating with a developer behind the scenes?
“We just wanted people to get information that we thought was pertinent,” Lehman said.
Information that has been “out there” for more than two months.
Lehman, who answered most questions with “we,” said this wasn’t his idea, but he had been approached by “numerous people” last May (right after the third high school was approved) to find out whether he had any land to offer as an alternative to Brach-Brodie. Initially, Lehman told them he had nothing.
“We didn’t look into it for months, but we were asked and asked and asked and decided to see if it was a possibility,” Lehman said. He said he couldn’t say who asked him because it was so many people.
“I can’t give you specific names. What’s behind all this is the district hasn’t gotten started on construction.”
But if they began asking him in May, their motivation couldn’t possibly have been a lack of earth-moving nearly a year in the future, unless they are clairvoyant.
Though Lehman and his unnamed group accuse the school district of myriad things, they are the ones not being consistent or up front with the public. And whatever anyone thinks of various things the school board has done, none of them have been accused of being self-serving.
Two high schools in the south part of the district in an already geographically-challenged district wouldn’t seem to be in the best interest of anyone, except perhaps Macom.
By Joni Hirsch Blackman
Naperville
Posted Saturday, March 17, 2007
Indian Prairie Unit District 204 board members have got to be scratching their heads a bit.
Just last year, referendum opponents complained that the proposed third high school — now named Metea Valley — wasn’t necessary.
Critics these days complain the school won’t be built quickly enough on the proposed site, so alternate sites should be considered.
But who, exactly, is the opposition? Most likely anyone who isn’t happy with which high school their subdivision was assigned to during last year’s bitter boundary process — or people who complain no matter what the district does.
Last week, a full-page, color proposed design for Metea Valley High School at an alternate location was printed in a Naperville newspaper. Presumably it was a paid advertisement of some sort, but no such label is on the page.
The drawing is labeled a plan “developed by Macom Corp.” and directs readers to a Web site to “find out more.” The move is an obvious attempt to sway public opinion in favor of the land Macom belatedly offered to Indian Prairie — land company president Paul Lehman admits “isn’t an ideal location” and costs more than the district expects to pay for its current site.
The school board declined Macom’s offer last fall. The Daily Herald covered the offer and the school board’s response. However, when asked why the ad was run, Lehman said it was to get the information out there.
“The school district has put out information that the site doesn’t work, it doesn’t fit, but no one has seen the proposal from a standpoint of how things lay out,” Lehman said.
He said district officials have rejected his land — which is slated for town homes and manor homes, residences he says are in great demand — saying it won’t work for them, but they haven’t said why it won’t work. Actually, they gave several good reasons to Daily Herald reporter Sara Hooker in a Jan. 11 story, and again in a recent district e-mail with a link to a Web page Q&A filled with detailed answers.
Why is Lehman so interested in the lack of progress on the land for Metea Valley High School when, by his own admission, he didn’t take a position on whether the district needed a third high school?
“The electorate decided we needed a third high school and I’m not questioning that,” he said.
But he is questioning nearly everything else.
He’s worried whether the district can deliver Metea Valley in time on their selected site at a reasonable cost, he said, as a “concerned taxpayer.” He believes the district should have a fall-back property in case the Brach-Brodie land at Commons Drive and 75th Street doesn’t work out.
Why not just work with the board and tell them that, then? Why place newspaper ads?
“There are a lot of individuals encouraging us to put it in the paper,” Lehman said.
He would not say who, but said some are running for school board.
Is he so interested in moving the new high school because a switch to his site would mean a possible change in boundaries so students in Macom’s Ashwood Creek and Ashwood Park could attend the neighboring Metea Valley instead of Waubonsie Valley, the school he said in January was killing his sales?
Lehman told me his offer has nothing to do with slower-than-expected sales in those subdivisions, and noted that sales are picking up. But if the school were somehow to be built at 248th Avenue and 95th Street next to his subdivisions … well, sure, he’d want those students to go there.
“I would hope they’d go to that school. We wouldn’t need a complete change of boundaries,” he said. “There would be a slight shift. It would affect a small percentage of student body.”
Yup, the percentage that happens to live in the new Macom subdivisions.
Isn’t this really what’s behind the ad?
“It’s one of the reasons,” he said.
Why not just wait until after the school board elections next month and re-approach a new school board with his option?
“Wouldn’t it be interesting for the facts to be out there when the elections are going on?” Lehman answered.
Not so coincidentally, several school board candidates are bringing up the plan in community forums. Wouldn’t it be cleaner — more forthright — for candidates in favor of this proposal to bring this out to the public without collaborating with a developer behind the scenes?
“We just wanted people to get information that we thought was pertinent,” Lehman said.
Information that has been “out there” for more than two months.
Lehman, who answered most questions with “we,” said this wasn’t his idea, but he had been approached by “numerous people” last May (right after the third high school was approved) to find out whether he had any land to offer as an alternative to Brach-Brodie. Initially, Lehman told them he had nothing.
“We didn’t look into it for months, but we were asked and asked and asked and decided to see if it was a possibility,” Lehman said. He said he couldn’t say who asked him because it was so many people.
“I can’t give you specific names. What’s behind all this is the district hasn’t gotten started on construction.”
But if they began asking him in May, their motivation couldn’t possibly have been a lack of earth-moving nearly a year in the future, unless they are clairvoyant.
Though Lehman and his unnamed group accuse the school district of myriad things, they are the ones not being consistent or up front with the public. And whatever anyone thinks of various things the school board has done, none of them have been accused of being self-serving.
Two high schools in the south part of the district in an already geographically-challenged district wouldn’t seem to be in the best interest of anyone, except perhaps Macom.
