Here is Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley’s take on the District 155 bleacher issue:

Aaron Shepley

Disappointed.

The word that best describes the sinking feeling the City Council had when we learned of District 155’s actions in what may someday be referred to as the great bleacher debacle.

We believe that D155 is among the best school systems in the State of Illinois and we are thankful for the District’s contributions to the community.

That’s why their actions are so disappointing.

D155’s decision to move forward with the construction of the bleachers at CL South without warning was a deviation from a fifty year tradition of cooperation and collaboration between the District and the City.

In the process, the District violated Crystal Lake’s ordinances and impacted property values without affording neighbors even the most basic level of due process.

With actions so out of character, the immediate question is why?

Why would the District harm neighbors without notice and jeopardize a long-standing relationship with the City?

No matter what the District may say, the most plausible theory is that the District had no desire to go through the City’s process because they knew that the project could not meet City standards.

If they had asked for approval from the City as they had 26 times in the past 25 years, they may have been told “no” and that was an answer they could not live with.

So they followed the “ask for forgiveness rather than permission” approach and worked hastily.

Perhaps they believed that the neighbors would not have the will to challenge them.

Perhaps they believed the City would turn a deaf ear to the neighbors.

Either way they were wrong and now there is a lawsuit with taxpayer supported lawyers on both sides.

Sadly, rather than admitting that they made a mistake and trying to fix it, the District is digging in.

Through its lawyers, the District would have taxpayers believe that the legal picture is “murky” and that the School Code “trumps” local zoning ordinances.

Both the Illinois Attorney General and the Illinois Supreme Court would beg to differ.

The Attorney General has publicly confirmed that School Districts in Illinois are subject to local zoning ordinances.

The School Code expressly authorizes districts to apply for zoning variations, which raises the question of
why that authorization is necessary if schools are not required to seek such approvals.

No, the legal picture is not nearly as murky as the District would have taxpayers believe.

The weakness of their position is confirmed by the District’s actions over the last 50 years.

District lawyers may claim that the 26 times that they sought permits or approvals in the last 25 years were
somehow different.

Perhaps, but only because this is the biggest intrusion on neighbors rights in the history of the District.

Some say the neighbors are in the minority and that they should keep quiet because they “came to the nuisance”.

Unfortunately, that position is not factually true because the neighbors did not move next to that stadium.

The position is also inconsistent with how we behave in a democratic society.

Democracy is not simply “majority rules”; it is majority rules with protections for minority rights because our founders were worried about situations just like this one.

D155 history teachers will confirm that the founders’ fears were of the “tyranny of the majority”.

That is why the Bill of Rights promises among other things that no person shall be deprived of life liberty or property without due process of the law.

In this case, the neighbors were not simply denied due process; they were denied any process.

Therefore, it is not fair to ask them to forego their rights and “take one for the team”.

So what now?

It is beyond question that a lawsuit with taxpayer supported lawyers on both sides of the issue will cost taxpayers and that is wrong.

Fortunately, the right thing to do also happens to be most economical: The District

• should snap out of whatever funk they are operating under and
• should take affirmative steps to model the values that they teach our children every day;
• they should immediately vote to follow the City’s rules;
• they should proceed through the City’s process and let the chips fall where they may.

Lawsuit over, problem solved.

These are the rules that everyone else in Crystal Lake is required to follow and the rules that the District has followed for the last half century. Neither the neighbors who filed the suit nor the City are asking for more.