Politics

WNNETKA, Ill. (CBS) ― A $174 million plan to renovate and add on to New Trier High School's Winnetka campus went solidly down in defeat Tuesday night.

With 97 percent of the precincts counted, 12,802 voters, or more than 62 percent of those going to the ballot box, rejected the request.

The project called for demolishing the both the east and west sides of the Winnetka Campus, including the Tech Arts building, Music/Performing Arts building, cafeteria, Gates Gym and the boiler plant.

Some parts of the campus date back to 1912.

Construction would have included 40 new classrooms, eight renovated classrooms and four new science teaching spaces. The sweeping renovation plan would have also provided a new gym and field house, as well as new spaces for performing arts, visual arts, practical arts, the kitchen and cafeteria, library, kinetic fitness and underground parking.

Residents -- on both sides of the question -- have been vocal throughout the campaign. Some opposed to the size of the proposed project -- specifically the $174 million price tag -- formed a committee named New Trier Choices with the aim to inform township residents why the referendum should not be approved.

"The people have spoken and now it's time for us all to work toward a plan the whole community can get behind and that's what this whole effort has been about -- to get the Board (of Education) to scale back the plan," said Winnetka resident Sharon Kristjanson.

Election judges at both Glencoe's Central School and New Trier's Winnetka campus said they believed the building referendum question was driving many of the voters to the polls Tuesday. The township's 16th Precinct, at New Trier itself, had a very high turn out, with nearly 50 percent of the precinct's 1,150 voters reporting to the polls as of late Tuesday afternoon, judges said.

Mary Garrison of Winnetka, said the New Trier referendum had "a pretty solid defeat" in the polls at the Winnetka Police Station where she was an election judge for Precinct 14.

More than 70 percent voted against the referendum in that precinct.

"I think people think something needs to be done, but that was a lot of somethings," Garrison said. "One lady came in and said, 'I want to vote against the trillion dollar referendum,'" Garrison said.

Residents also voiced skepticism about the district's stated plans for funding the project. District leaders said the most likely scenario in selling bonds involved taxpayers paying more initially, but with more level payments throughout the life of the bonds.

Through that structure, a homeowner would have owed about $400 on a $10,000 tax bill in 2011, including existing debt currently being paid off. That amount would have remained level for the life of the bonds, regardless of future increases in the homeowner's tax bill, district leaders said.

Still, some residents voiced strong support for the plan, saying the school was in dire need of dramatic renovations.

"I voted yes and I was in the minority," said Jan Gargula of Wilmette. "I worked on the planning committee. I bet 95 percent of the people in this room (at the New Trier Republican Organization in Kenilworth) did not take a tour (of the New Trier campus)."

Gargula acknowledged the timing was bad to ask taxpayers to pay more.

"It's a bad economic time and the tax bills came out this week," Gargula said.

Glencoe resident Onnie Scheyer, co-chair of pro-referendum group Our New Trier, said Tuesday night she suspects timing played a large part in New Trier's defeat. Voters also rejected bond-selling requests in Midlothian and River Forest, she noted.

Superintendent Linda Yonke voiced disappointment with the outcome of Tuesday's election.

"It is a very clear message that we need to evaluate and see what we need to do," she said. "The problems aren't going to go away and we need to think of something to address them, then come back again sometime in the future."

The District steering committee will convene soon and look closely at the results and assess more clearly what aspect people were voting against, whether is be the cost of the facilities project or the actual proposed plan, Yonke said.

Financial analyst and Monsters & Money in the Morning co-host Terry Savage says the rejection of the plan is evidence that everyone is struggling and trying to save, even on the wealthy North Shore.

"I think what it proves is that you can't assume anything about people's financial situation today; that this recession has cut across all lines, and although New Trier Township is obviously a very wealthy place with higher property values, those people were hurting in their own way too, and were not about to shell out," Savage said. "I bet they'll come back with some kind of revised plan."

The New Trier Board of Education next meets Feb. 16.

--Pioneer Press contributed to this report, via the Sun-Times Media Wire

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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