The second round of a battle that divided residents in both Highland Park and Deerfield two years ago is beginning, and supporters of a scaled-down referendum say they can succeed where a similar group failed in 2011.
Their goal is to convince their neighbors to pay a big chunk of a $120.4 million infrastructure and facilities project at the two public high schools.
In a community that has historically supported education initiatives, 56 percent of voters from the two towns in 2011 rejected a $133 million bond referendum. This year, Township School District 113 returns with a request to sell $89 million in bonds to fund a five-year, $120.4 million project at the campuses.
The cost is less, and the scope of the project has been reduced, but it has sparked a renewed sense of opposition from the same group that fought the 2011 referendum, which says it’s still too big.
Members of Education First boast of an almost militaristic organization, aimed at defeating the measure. The group has a growing email list to communicate its position, and a laser-like focus on particularly crucial voting precincts. And yet, referendum supporters think this April’s result will be different.
“People assumed that our community has always supported education and anything education-related will pass. I think that complacency is gone this time,” said Dan Jenks, co-chairman of Community Leaders Educating and Advocating for the 113 Referendum, or CLEAR.
There are several key differences between the 2011 plan, created by Chicago architecture firm Wight & Co., and the current one, outlined by construction management firm Gilbane Building Company.
Instead of demolishing the B and C buildings at the Highland Park High School campus, as envisioned in 2011 at a cost of $21.5 million, the new plan calls for repurposing the B building, along with parts of the A building, and replacing the C building and the C annex, totaling an estimated $26.1 million.
The 2011 request envisioned new field houses, estimated to cost $23.4 million, which were removed from the current plan. District officials say new three-court gymnasium buildings at both schools, costing an estimated $21.2 million, could be expanded in future years to accommodate the amenities the field houses were to provide.
There are similar projects involved in both the rejected plan and the current proposal. Both included the construction of new pool facilities at the two high schools — in 2011, the cost was estimated at $16.8 million, which has increased to $19.6 million in the current plan, which includes diving wells.
Infrastructure needs — including new heating, air conditioning, plumbing, fire safety, roofing, windows, technology and security costs — total $47.8 million in the current plan, an increase from the $41.6 million in 2011.
The estimated cost of the current project totals $120.4 million. District 113 plans to spend $25 million from its cash reserves, and expects to receive a 5 percent contract discount from engineering efficiencies and other measures amounting to $6.4 million — which would bring the required amount of borrowing down to $89 million.
District officials estimate that the cost of paying the bond that the referendum seeks would be $158 to the owner of a $300,000 home in 2014.
Referendum supporters note that because of current debt that is being retired or extended, taxpayers will actually pay less than they did over the past 10 years, on average, if the project is approved.
While members of the Education First group say they recognize the need for infrastructure improvements, but emphasize the new project is still too costly and includes too many “wants,” as opposed to being exclusively focused on “needs.”
Education First
“There’s no question that this time around they have put in a greater effort in detailing it, more so than last time,” said Frank Pirri, of Education First, adding that the group’s criticism in 2011 was that it was “too big and too expensive.”
“So what have they done? They’ve come back and made it bigger; more elaborate,” said Pirri, who has also led opposition to a Deerfield School District 109 referendum, as well as the 2011 District 113 referendum.
A group of about 60 people braved a winter rainstorm to gather at Trax Tavern and Grill in Deerfield to hear Education First’s pitch on why they should vote against the referendum question.
At one table, a single mother of a high school student and an eighth grader chatted with retired community members whose children had long since passed through District 113, both lamenting the amount of taxes they pay to the district, in spite of projected enrollment declines down the road.
Education First leaders maintain that the $89 million figure is misleading, and prefers to highlight to total $120.4 million project cost.
Previous anti-referendum campaigns helped Pirri and his fellow organizers build an email list that keeps the group in contact with potential voters, he said. Many of the same energized residents in Highland Park and Deerfield are again working to spread word of the referendum, asking people to vote against it — knocking on doors in battleground voting precincts, hanging fliers in restaurants and movie theaters, and holding neighborhood coffees.
“It’s a very detailed strategic operational plan,” Pirri said. “It’s a military maneuver, to be very honest with you.”
Education First bases its appeal to voters based on how it affects people’s pocketbooks, he said.
CLEAR’s “appeal is more on an emotional basis, and I can understand that, because their target audience is primarily parents of students,” Pirri said. “Our target audience includes that group, as well as folks in the community that don’t have children.”
CLEAR argues that investing in education helps boost property values by maintain the two communities’ main draw for new families — its schools.
Education First takes a different perspective, arguing that increased tax bills become a deterrent to those prospective families. Its literature notes possible future referendums in Deerfield School District 109 and North Shore School District 112, as well as other publicly financed construction projects at Highland Park’s and Deerfield’s water treatment plants and libraries, among others.
“Residents in this community are beginning to be taxed to such an extreme that they can’t afford to live here,” Pirri said.
Community Leaders Educating and Advocating for the 113 Referendum
Members of CLEAR say their best argument is that the plan was developed by community members who gathered over an 18-month period to prioritize the two schools’ needs, relying on volunteer experts in architecture and development who live in Highland Park and Deerfield to recommend a project to the school board.
The task force process even included Education First members, though Pirri argues their opinions were not fully considered.
“I think the plan is better because of their involvement,” Jenks said. “The biggest reason I think this referendum is going to pass is because the last one is this is a bottom up plan, it’s not a top down plan.”
Education First is largely targeting an older population — seniors whose children or grandchildren are no longer in public schools. CLEAR, on the other hand, wants to increase the younger vote, Jenks said.
About 20 percent of the 30-to 40-year-old demographic voted in 2011, he noted.
“Our strategy, if you will, is to reach the people who weren’t reached last time,” said Tony Horwitz, CLEAR co-chair.
And while CLEAR expects to utilize social media outlets to get the word out about the referendum and solicit support, the group shares Education First’s belief that the best advocacy takes place in person.
“The most effective method of educating people in advocating for this referendum is face-to-face,” Horwitz said, adding that they group plans to “use social media to leverage our ability to get in front of people and actually talk to them.”
Both men believe the nature of the 18-month process means the infrastructure and facilities upgrades identified in the project are needs.
“It’s easy to throw a big number out there and make people feel that this number is sort of disconnected from reality and scare people off, but when people actually look at it and realize that there was a process, I think the vast majority of people in our community are going to rally around this,” Jenks said.
