Agreed. My kids recently graduated and were educated under these "deplorable" conditions yet both managed to be admitted to elite universities. The monies could have been used to better maintain the facilities. The district did not live up to their fiduciary responsibilites on behalf of the taxpayers and their children. Repair when needed and replace only when absolutely necesary is what most of us do when maintaining our property. Why should the district not have done the same? Perhpas they let all the repairs go so that they can push their own agenda?
The library update is a complete waste of money. Students don't use libraries other than for or a quiet place to study, nap, or most likely socialize. Ask them.... technology has taken over....kindle anyone?

Part of maintaining schools are replacing old furnaces, rewiring buildings, replacing roofs and tuckpointing. If this was a condominum building, they would have a most likely have a special assessment for the unit owners. As for the term "no one" can afford. Absolutes are silly. For a portion of the community on low fixed incomes with the current interest rates at zero, any increase in taxes can be difficult. There are county based programs such as senior citizen and homeowner exemptions to partially deal with those hardships.

Additionally, while old is good, it can also be inefficent, dangerous and limiting. Would you replace a leaky roof, tuckpoint a brick wall, replace gutters, replace water heaters that break, upgrade electrical service to use computers and new tv's in a home. Do people add air conditioning to old homes? Also, would a physically disabled person be able to live in an old house with uneven surfaces and a narrow staircase?

These are the vast majority of the costs being considered. Think long term and vote yes.

And how much did you borrow to do all that work?

That is exactly the point Walter. Borrowing at low interest rates to fund needed upgrades and modernization is financially prudent, and more efficient than doing piece meal work and putting things off until they are more expensive.

If the money was being spent on students and improved methods of educating them I would consider voting yes. Building new swimming pools and diving wells, the latter to accommodate just a few is a waste of money. That the district has reserves that it has not spent to repair those important items that it now seeks to replace does not reflect smartly on our board and the superintendant.

We are in a difficult time with every taxing body raising taxes. When do they ever cut spending? When do they ever cut costs? With the legislature inching toward placing the pension responsibility on the districts we can only look forward to higher taxes yet. I vote NO!

Karen younger families are shunning Highlalnd Park BECAUSE of the high taxes. We are FAR from being a district whose home values will plummet due to building maintenance issues. New Trier has much older buildings and did not pass their referendum a few years back. Have you ever visited Harvard or Princeton? I have. Very old buildings which most I am sure would say are obsolescent....yet they survive!

Marshall, you have swallowed the Ed1st kool-aid. No one is building a new pool for diving wells and for a small few – the pools are past their useful life, it would cost $8m to rehab them for 15 years, $10m to build new for 50 years - seems like a no brainer unless you absolutely refuse to pay another dime in taxes.

Susan, I’m glad your kids got into elite universities, congratulations – but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to address pressing facilities issues. You must have taken the abbrievated tour of Harvard or Princeton - beyond a couple of old lecture halls, you’ll see that their buildings are in much better shape than DHS or HPHS and have been gut-rehabbed and repurposed repeatedly over time. And you know how these schools can afford to rehab and build new buildings like Science Labs? Because generous alums believe in higher education and feel a sense of obligation to current and future students. That’s a sentiment you might consider.

I have a differing opinion to J. Robert.

I do not believe that quality is associated with amount of money spent when it comes to the referendum and I suffer like most under the burden of high taxes. Indeed, I voted against the last referendum....Walter, are you reading? I felt it was too broad and included a list of wants with needs.

I also have purchased a few homes within HP over the years and not one was sold as a result of fleeing taxes. That is not to say that it does not happen but rather that it would be the cause of a very small percentage of sellers. On the other side, taxes do not deter buyers because of D-112/D-113's reputation for quality education and other desirable features of our community. Taxes are ridiculously high without a doubt, but we still retain our desirability as a place to live and raise children. Without continued support for our education and the physical structures under which that takes place, our children and our community suffer.

I support this referendum because it is well thought out and addresses specific needs that we should take care of now or like a leaky roof that does not get fixed or a medical problem that goes untreated, our cost will be more in the future.

D-113 is not the reason for our high taxes, think pensions, Lake County et al for the reason. No other tax gives you as an individual home owner more return for your dollar on several levels to include net worth than education. VOTE YES

So did you borrow to do all that work on your house or did you save up and use those funds judiciously?

Who ya gonna sell to? Probably a young family that cares about the education their kids will receive at the local schools. If we say no to schools now, they will move elsewhere and you'll be stuck with your home. Vote YES and improve the standing of our community for those homebuyers (the smart ones ) who will look at the condition of the schools before taking the plunge into our neighborhood.

I moved to HP from the east coast 2 years ago. We looked at homes all over Chicagoland (Naperville, Oak Park, LaGrange, Wheaton, Lake Forest, etc). We chose HP in part because of the relatively LOW taxes compared with the rest of the metro area! If you think our taxes are high, start doing your research. Further, we were attracted to what we saw in the schools (both districts) and the many lovely older, well kept homes. After 2 years here, we see how much the high schools need this renovation. We both attended the oldest university in the country (William and Mary), and like Harvard and Princeton, they have been kept up by donors and state bonds. No elite school will maintain its standing without proper science and lab facilities. Universities typically have top notch athletic facilities as well. There is clearly a mind-body connection. I wish people did not focus on the pool as a "luxary" item. It is used all day for PE classes and then rented out all night (yes, it MAKES MONEY!!!) to clubs. It is not just used for team practices. If the pool is not safe, the district risks losing rent income as well as a place for PE classes. It's not just about the teams. HP built a pool just a few years ago in the rec center. Too bad the community and the school district cannot work together. That pool could have been made into what the school needs.

Well said! There are many lower tax areas to move where education perhaps does not take the same level of importance. Remember when you sell, the buyer is likely to be someone that values education:)

Got an answer for me yet, Comrade Forest?

Walter:

As Patch is a venue for opinions relative to community issues, I try to respect everyone's opinion and merely offer mine without resorting to the often personal and insulting tone that some unfortunately feel compelled to take. I do not expect everyone to share my opinion just I I do not share everyone's.

However, an intelligent logical thought is always appreciated no matter if someone shares my opinion or not. I am not sure that your reference to "Comrade" fits into that category or warrants a reply. I would suppose that if indeed we were Comrades we could spend an evening together resolving the worlds issues and no longer have a need to voice an opinion on the patch.

Still ducking the question, eh? That's fine but you were the one that brought your home renovations into the discussion, not me. OK, I'll stop asking and assume that means you did not have to finance your renovations. I think that's outstanding. Proper planning for maintenance and repair is always the best alternative.

Joe - if you really read about the finances, you would know that the $5 million/year for 5 years can be incorporated because capital and maintenance projects are being either included or eliminated due to the referendum projects.

The community steering committee recognized this as an opportunity to keep the referendum cost lower (doing more larger projects, rather than small piecemeal band-aids), and the board unanimously agreed (along with every current board candidate).

The finance study group looked at all available options, discussed other community needs, considered auditor advice, financial consultant advice, best practices, future knowns/unknowns, etc.

Why, if the money were really already available, go through the pain and aggravation of a referendum?

I wish we had Harvard's endowment! An extra $30 billion would be helpful to have laying around...

Susan:

It is obvious from your recent posts that you haven't looked at the proposed plan. In fact, the proposal keeps B Building (the 4 story classroom building on St. Johns) and repurposes it into departmental offices and classrooms. The proposal does remove the C building, but only because it does not make economic sense to do that then to make them into either appropriate PE spaces or repurpose it for other uses. And I believe many of the opponents are interested spending as little as reasonable, so this responds to that.

Regarding the Deerfield library, that will be transformed into a space that reflects the ways students use libraries toda. More collaborative spaces, more technology, etc.

I have no problem with people not supporting the plan. I do, however, if you take the time to understand what the plan really is and how we arrived at these decisions, all of which is public, you can see where people believe it offers the best value, not the cheapest solution, for taxpayers,

Susan: One of the criteria that came out of the Committee I sat on was that we wanted 25-50 years out of whatever work was done. It was felt that anything less than that would be throwing good money after bad.

So in the case of the pools, sure, we *could* fix them for less. But we'd likely only get 10 years out of the work and that would end up costing us about $1.3 million/year.

If we add some more money, and replace them, we get 50-75 years out of the work, and the cost goes down to $392K/year. Sure, not everything is going to last 50-75 years, we'll likely have to replace the filters at least once during that time frame, but overall, it's more cost effective.

The "C" building's infrastructure was shot - rehabbing it would cost more than a wholesale teardown and rebuild. It does trigger a couple of other items in domino fashion, but the rebuild also allows us to centralize the utilities and put things into place that any future work which may occur can take advantage of (instead of having to rip out that which we've already done to accommodate something new, as it's seemed to be done in the past). The Master Plan is designed to help us save money over the next 50-75 years and to be a living document which will be updated and refined as we move forward.

All this information is available on the District's website.