Despite push for delay, park board OKs spending for Palatine Stables demolition

A Palatine Park District board member who has advocated for saving the Palatine Stables unsuccessfully tried to convince fellow commissioners this week to remove the cost of tearing down the facility from the 2025 budget.

“I think (the budget line item) needs to be removed and reconsidered at another time, after we have more information,” Sue Gould said at Monday’s park board meeting.

But the other commissioners instead voted to include $225,000 for demolition in the district’s $38.1 million budget. Gould cast the only dissenting vote.

Gould has been critical of the board since it voted last year to close the equestrian facility at Northwest Highway and Dundee Road. That continued Monday, when she said the park district should have sought competitive bids for needed repairs instead of shutting down the stables.

“My point is that we did not follow our normal procedures and protocols with the stables decision,” Gould said.

Park district Executive Director Benjamin Rea responded that the agency would have sought bids for repairs if that direction was given by the park board.

But Gould said that when she asked for a motion to solicit bids be placed on a board agenda, she was told by Rea that only he and the board president could do so.

Gould also criticized the way the district parted with the stables’ school horses. The group Equine Guardians is raising funds for the care of 20 of the horses in their new homes for the rest of their lives.

“We should have something in our budget for the care of those horses,” she said, likening the horses to employees of the district.

Gould wasn’t the only board critic Monday.

“I'm appalled with you guys, whose only job is to make children happy, have chosen to ruin their Thanksgiving, their Christmas, and now it looks like you're going to try and ruin their New Year's,” Palatine resident Frank Skorski said.