School board discusses traffic signal agreement

A 20-year agreement between Lake Bluff School District 65, the Lake Bluff Park District and Shields Township to pay for a traffic signal at the corner of Route 43/Waukegan Road and Foster Avenue in unincorporated Knollwood — which expired in 2004 — was the main subject of discussion at the Lake Bluff District 65 Board of Education’s Tuesday, Feb. 17 meeting.

At the meeting, District 65 Director of Finance and Operations Jay Kahn reported to the board that in 1984, the Illinois Department of Transportation improved a section of Route 43/Waukegan Road from Route 176 to Abbot Road. As part of this project, the school district, the park district and Shields Township jointly requested that a traffic signal be placed at the corner of Route 43/Waukegan Road and Foster Avenue. The purpose of the traffic signal was to provide children a safe way to cross Waukegan Road to walk to West Elementary School, which is now closed, and West School Park, Kahn said.

However, the intergovernmental agreement lasted 20 years, expired in 2004, but no one bothered to renew it or look into it until now. The park district, school district and township kept paying the bills.

“We signed an intergovernmental agreement that lasted for 20 years that basically said that IDOT would maintain the [traffic] signal and bill those parties equally for 20 years,” Kahn said. “At the end of the 20 years, the agreement expired and they didn’t extend our written agreement. The story is that apparently this fell through the cracks and no one ever renewed it. [IDOT] kept sending the bills and everybody kept paying them. I got one of the bills [recently], started looking into it and asking questions.”

Kahn added that because the traffic signal is technically owned by the school district, park district and township, IDOT just maintains it and bills the governmental entities. The cost for the park district, township and school district for the construction of the traffic signal was $1,125 each, with the state chipping in $10,125 and the federal government paying $76,500. The annual cost of operating and maintaining the traffic signal at the Waukegan Road and Foster Avenue intersection is $1,200 per local governmental entity, not including the cost of electricity.

Kahn said that since the discovery of the agreement expiration, the District 65 can do one of three things: negotiate the traffic signal’s expenses with the park district and township; decide not to continue paying for the traffic signal, in which case IDOT will perform a traffic study at that intersection; or keep paying the operations and maintenance bills as they have for the past 30 years.

“If we don’t want it anymore, [IDOT] will do a traffic study to determine if it’s warranted to be there,” Kahn said. “It wasn’t warranted [in 1984], so the concern is that they’ll do a study and find that there’s no traffic reason [for it] to be there. [Then] they’ll remove it, and then that could be an issue for the community. It could be an issue for us if our buses can’t turn [at that intersection].”

The board then discussed the utility of the traffic signal for the school district.

“[The Lake Bluff Park District] feels very strongly that we should [keep] it,” Superintendent Dr. Jean Sophie said. “My question is what’s in it for the kids? We’re a school district and schools aren’t there. It would be a crossing for kids who walk, and we don’t have kids who walk there, and the buses would pull out there. ... [However], two of our partners feel like it needs to stay there.”

A few board members expressed their concerns that the traffic signal was no longer useful to the community because a school is no longer located at that intersection.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with our kids,” board member Richard Hegg said. “No one walks out there. They have bus service — let’s get out of it.”

However, the school district’s buses have to turn at that intersection to drive in and out of the neighborhoods there, so the board was wary to remove the traffic signal completely.

Board President Mark Barry said that the traffic signal is not just the school district’s issue; it’s a Lake Bluff community issue.

“I think the community expects us to work with the taxpayer in mind and with what the community might want, as opposed to looking out for our interests only,” Barry said. “The bigger picture suggests that the community wants that traffic light. Kids can cross the street to play at that park, and those are kids that we educate. I would be inclined to continue the agreement.”

Board member Julie Gottshall suggested that the board needs more information. Sophie agreed.

“Maybe the good thing for us to do is to enter into negotiations and find out how to lower our portion of the cost,” Sophie said. “Let’s keep getting information and keep paying the bill.”

Round It Up

A brief recap of District 65 action Feb. 17:

• The board unanimously approved the 2015-2016 school calendar. School will begin Aug. 19, 2015 and ending June 1, 2016.

• The board unanimously approved the 2016-2017 school calendar framework, pending a change in the winter break schedule to align with District 115/Lake Forest High School.

• The board unanimously approved the 2015-2016 parent/student handbook.

• The board unanimously approved their revised policies for preventing and responding to bullying; student harassment; student discipline; isolated time out and physical restraint and misconduct by students with disabilities.