The District 97 Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution, Oct. 7, concerning a village of Oak Park proposal that would relocate the district’s central office to the former Volvo dealership property at 260 Madison St.
The district and the village have been in talks the last couple of weeks on a deal to keep D97’s headquarters within the Madison Street TIF. At its regular meeting, the school board approved a resolution accepting “the major financial terms proposed by the village of Oak Park regarding the 260 Madison and 970 Madison properties, and further direct the superintendent to work with legal counsel to draft a Memorandum of Understanding for adoption by October 21, 2014.”
The decision followed a whirlwind of activity the previous week between the two taxing bodies, discussions that almost derailed following another D97 board resolution concerning Madison TIF payouts from the village.
Village President Anan Abu-Taleb threatened to take action to dissolve the Madison TIF after the school board approved a resolution on Sept. 23, calling for the village, by Oct. 7, to pay D97 the roughly $1.9 million it is owed from the TIF.
Abu-Taleb backed off that threat, instead announcing at the village trustees’ Oct. 6, meeting that a tentative agreement between the two taxing bodies on the Madison properties was close. Abu-Taleb also pushed for the Park District of Oak Park to share administrative space with D97 in the proposed site. The park district, however, is moving ahead with its own plans to renovate its 218 Madison headquarters. (See separate story)
Peter Traczyk, a D97 board member, after last Tuesday’s meeting, said the village and school district boards might be able to approve the memo of understanding at their respective meetings this month. Next would be drafting an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) between the two taxing bodies, Traczyk said.
This new agreement would replace the 1995 IGA between D97 and the village, which required annual payments from village hall to the school district from the Madison TIF. While the 1995 IGA was created between the village and D97, it also impacts other Oak Park taxing bodies, including the township and park district, which also receive a proportional share of property tax revenue from the Madison TIF.
Traczyk said D97 is pleased with the village’s proposal.
“This new IGA will, through all of its moving pieces, satisfy all of the obligations the village has to us, in that 1995 agreement, through this new arrangement that we’ve negotiated and agreed to.”
D97’s headquarters have been located at 970 Madison St., which is a former car dealership building, since the 1970s. Breaking ground on a new central office building by next year is still desired by the school district, but there’s more work to be done from now till then, Traczyk said.
“That is a broad goal of ours, but we need to now start talking with the professionals about the reality of that. We don’t have any architectural drawings, so I don’t know realistically how quickly that can get done. And even though we might come to a Memorandum of Understanding in the next week, will we come to an IGA in another week? I would suggest probably not. That’s probably going to be a little more complicated for the lawyers to work out. But broadly, we are moving forward.”
As for the dustup over that Sept. 23, resolution, Bob Spatz, the school board’s president, said the resolution was a procedural matter and not a swipe at the village or Abu-Taleb.
“The timing of it was because at the Sept. 23 meeting, we also passed an ‘intent to sell working cash bonds’ and we need to know what dollar amount to put in by the time we vote on that on Oct. 21. And if we don’t know what, if any, cash we’re going to get from the village, we don’t know how much we’ll have to bond.”
The intent to issue, Spatz added, has to occur prior to a public hearing, and that hearing has to occur before bonds are actually sold. The D97 board eyed issuing up to $10 million in working cash bonds, Spatz said — nearly $4 million for routine capital projects and another roughly $6 million to cover a new administration building.
But this bond scenario likely won’t play out if D97 and the village reach a deal on the Madison TIF.
