Area officials backing District 56 building effort

Gurnee Mayor Kristina Kovarik and other area leaders Thursday showed solid support for a local school district's effort to gain voter approval to borrow about $28.5 million for a new building.

Voters on Nov. 2 will decide whether Gurnee Elementary District 56 can use the cash primarily to build the new school in Wadsworth. The district would leave flood-prone Gurnee Grade School near the Des Plaines River.

At Thursday's village hall news conference, Kovarik said the time has come to remove the 60-year-old school from the flood zone. Major flood-protection efforts recently occurred in 2007 and 2004.

"We live and breathe this," Kovarik said. "We're constantly worried when we get rain."

Warren Township Supervisor Suzanne Simpson said it's not the best use of taxpayers' money to fight floods at a school that no longer should be open.

Kovarik and other officials say the poor economy will allow District 56 to obtain low-interest rates and more competitive bidding that'll result in reduced construction costs.

District 56 board members Wednesday night voted 7-0 in favor of placing the borrowing question on the ballot. District 56 would demolish Gurnee Grade School if the new structure is built.

Figures show the District 56 bond-and-interest tax rate for property owners would mostly hold steady if voters approved the $28.5 million budgeted for the Wadsworth school. Officials say that's because about $15 million in debt would be repaid by 2014, with only the new loan to cover.

An owner of a $300,000 market value home this year will pay about $495 toward the district's bond-and-interest fund. That would fall to $420 in the 2010 tax year and reach $462 in 2015 if the ballot measure is approved.

If the referendum question is rejected, the $300,000 homeowner would pay $525 to the bond-and-interest fund in 2010. However, the payment would decline to about $207 in 2015.

Gurnee Grade School houses children in kindergarten through eighth grade in what's been developed as an option building.

Replacing it would be a structure for grades three through five on a 75-acre site the district owns in Wadsworth. The school would accommodate 600 students north of Wadsworth and Delany roads.

O'Plaine Elementary School adjacent to Gurnee village hall would be reconfigured to serve kindergarten through eighth grade if the new building is constructed. Referendum money would go toward the O'Plaine work as well.

District 56 Superintendent John Hutton reiterated anticipation that two federal grants totaling $2.7 million will be approved for demolition of the school and other structures on Kilbourne Road.

Kovarik said Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have told her the school site should be restored as wetlands. She said she first began discussing the idea of removing Gurnee Grade when she met FEMA representatives during the 2007 flood.