Dist. 204 legal battle moves forward
With a required mediation session behind them, Indian Prairie Unit District 204 officials now will ask the courts to throw out a lawsuit filed by Neighborhood Schools For Our Children.
Attorneys for both sides met Tuesday with retired Judge Edward Duncan in an attempt to settle the litigation out of court.
Neither side would discuss what happened behind closed doors, but attorneys from both sides agreed the parties likely won't meet again.
"I can only say that the mediation has concluded, there was no resolution and no plans to meet again," said attorney Shawn Collins, who represents the citizens group that hopes to prevent the district from building its proposed 3,000-seat Metea Valley High School at any site other than the 80-acre Brach-Brodie location at 75th Street and Commons Drive in Aurora. "The parties agreed with the mediator that they would not discuss, outside the mediation, what had occurred there."
Michael Scotti, the attorney representing the district, agreed, saying only that the "mediation went forward as planned."
"Now we prepare for when the court will hear our motion to dismiss," Scotti said Wednesday.
That motion will be argued at 9:30 a.m. May 23 in front of Circuit Judge Kenneth Popejoy.
The district switched gears on the Metea site after a condemnation jury set the price for the Brach-Brodie land at $31 million -- $17 million more than the district anticipated.
The district then attempted to buy land on Eola Road owned by Midwest Generation and St. John AME Church. That, too, fell through when Midwest Generation backed out of the deal due to public controversy.
The parents group had filed a lawsuit over environmental concerns at the site and accusations that the district promised to build on the Brach-Brodie site during its referendum campaign.
Last month, the district bought 84 acres solely owned by the church, but the parents group is pursuing its lawsuit.
Metea is scheduled to open for freshmen and sophomores in August 2009. Officials have said the school is needed to relieve overcrowding in the district, which includes portions of Naperville, Aurora, Bolingbrook and Plainfield.