Lawsuit over Metea Valley spending tossed

A lawsuit filed by the parents' group Neighborhood Schools for Our Children against Indian Prairie Unit District 204 was thrown out Thursday by DuPage County Circuit Judge Kenneth Popejoy.

Ruling that the group did not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place, Popejoy stated in his written decision that the court "cannot order the district to act a certain way on an issue that is within the district's discretion."

The grass-roots group sued the district in March in an attempt to prevent it from spending any more money to build the 3,000-student Metea Valley High School along Eola Road, south of Diehl Road in Aurora.

Members want the district to use the $127.4 million voters approved in 2006 to purchase the Brach-Brodie property off 75th Street and Commons Drive in Aurora and build the school there.

In his conclusion, Popejoy wrote, "Though the plaintiffs deny it, each of their arguments is a back-door method to obtain discretion over where the site of the new school will be built, or at least where it will not be built. This is not their right, but the right granted to the school district by Illinois law."

School district attorney Michael Scotti said Thursday's legal victory was a big one for the district.

"This was a clear and absolute victory for the district and that is rare to come at such an early stage in a case like this," Scotti said. "This completely vindicates the board and proves that they were, at all times, acting within the powers granted to them by the Illinois school code."

Shawn Collins, the attorney representing the parents' group, said he was disappointed with the ruling but not surprised "because of the novelty of the issue."

The group can now ask Popejoy to reconsider or appeal his decision when both sides go before the judge again at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.

"Given the thought Judge Popejoy obviously put into this decision, there's no point in asking him to reconsider," Collins said. "There's not a lot of nuance there. He doesn't like our case and I don't want to waste his time."

Collins expects to know by Tuesday whether his clients want to appeal.

Work already has begun on the Eola Road site and the district has said it plans to open most of the campus in August 2009 to house freshmen and sophomores.

District leaders said the school, which eventually will serve all four grade levels, is needed to ease crowding at Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie Valley high schools in the district that includes portions of Naperville, Aurora, Plainfield and Bolingbrook.