The selection of a pool site for Oak Park and River Forest High School has been reset with the establishment of an ad hoc committee featuring District 200 school board members, administrators and private citizens.

The first meeting of the 15-member group is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 27, at OPRF, 201 N. Scoville, in the board room. Four subsequent Monday meetings will follow through Dec. 8, from 7-9 p.m., open to the public.

D200 board Vice President Jeff Weissglass will chair the committee, joining fellow members Tom Cofsky, Ralph Lee and Steven Gevinson. The goal is to give the board “clear direction” in making a decision about a site and how to pay for it, Weissglass said, in an interview Wednesday. Will the committee reach consensus after a month of deliberations? That scenario seems unlikely, said D200 board President John Phelan on Wednesday.

The committee is slated to make its recommendation to the school board by its December regular meeting. That recommendation is also tied to next April’s municipal elections and the possibility of having a referendum question placed on the ballot concerning the pool site, Phelan and Weissglass noted.

It could be either a bond sale or an advisory referendum, the latter seeking the community’s non-binding input, depending on where the committee lands, they said.  

The formation of a pool site committee was Phelan’s idea after the D200 board was unable to select a site last month. Several board members, including those on this new committee, didn’t feel they had enough information at that time to make a decision, Phelan said.

The goal was to decide at that time in order to break ground on a pool site sometime early next summer. With this new committee now in place, breaking ground sometime next year would be difficult, but it is not out of the question, Weissglass said. 

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