The Oak Park Village Board of Trustees, Monday, approved an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with elementary school District 97 to build a new district headquarters in the former Volvo dealership at 260 Madison St.
D97 is expected to approve the IGA at its regular meeting next week. At a special meeting, village trustees unanimously approved the agreement as part of its consent agenda with no discussion. After the meeting, Village President Anan Abu-Taleb explained that the agreement with D97 had been discussed extensively at previous village board meetings.
The village and school district will swap Madison Street properties, allowing D97 to build a brand new headquarters at 260 Madison. The village will get the district’s current 970 Madison headquarters for future commercial redevelopment. Plans also call for D97 to relocate its maintenance operations in the village’s Public Works building and put its own warehouse at 541 Madison on the market.
The IGA paves the way for district to use $6.3 million from the TIF to build its new central office, plus a 40-year, rent-free lease to occupy space in the Public Works building. In January, trustees will take action on amending the Madison Street TIF to allow those funds to be used for constructing a school administrative building.
A public hearing about that prospect took place at Monday’s special meeting. John Phelan, president of the District 200 school board, spoke in favor of the amendment.
A Joint Review Board of representatives from the local taxing bodies in November met to discuss the proposed amendment, voting 8-1 in favor, with D200 Chief Financial Officer Tod Altenburg as the lone dissenter. Altenburg said his no vote was not representative of the board but more his lack of familiarity with Oak Park’s TIF districts.
Phelan told village trustees, Monday, that the D200 board is in favor of amending the TIF.
“We had a discussion over how our board felt about it and a clear majority of our board was supportive of the TIF amendment. I wanted to make sure to convey that,” he said.
Fellow D200 board member Sharon Patchak-Layman also spoke Monday as “a private citizen” against amending the TIF. A longtime proponent of dissolving the TIF altogether, Patchak-Layman urged trustees to vote against the amendment, arguing that TIF dollars should not be used to construct municipal buildings.
“It’s not just the citizens who frown on this use of tax dollars. The TIF law itself discourages the use of TIF money for building municipal buildings for office space. A school district administrative building, in my mind, is in the same group as a municipal building,” Patchak-Layman said.
Also speaking was D97 parent leader Qia Carswell, who opposes amending the TIF. She said that D97 should use its money to educate students and address the racial disparities currently existing in the district. A former D97 and D200 student herself, Carswell said those disparities existed when she was a student growing up in Oak Park.
Village trustees are scheduled to vote on amending the TIF on Jan. 5.
CONTACT: tdean@wjinc.com