The following is a link to a story of interest to those who live in southern Du Page County.
The gist of the story is that a group of Oak Brook, IL residents have petitioned to secede from School districts 58 and high school district 99 with the purpose of being annexed into local school district 53 and high school district 86. While no reason was given, there is a strong implication that the reason for the petition filing is that the residents of the Ginger Creek subdivision are seeking to pay lower taxes.
It was noted that none of the residents have children in the Downers Grove school districts, but these are not residents that are saying that they shouldn’t pay taxes for the schools. The petitioners are saying that they should be paying less in taxes for their schools. As a resident of Downers Grove, I’m very surprised to hear that school district taxes for Downers Grove are higher than those for Hinsdale and Oakbrook. It’s also an eye-opener to learn that BOTH Downers Grove School Districts had their lawyers from the law firm Franczek Radelet P.C (a high powered law firm that has had one of its founding partners as the general
counsel to the Department of Education
http://www.franczek.com/assets/attachments/FR-name-May6-pr.pdf
) challenge the petitions. The districts do not want to just give “their” revenue away.
The bigger story is that what is going on in Oakbrook, the attempt to escape excessive taxation, is a microcosm of what is happening statewide in Illinois. Illinois is declining in population like every other deep blue voting state. Our population decrease has led to the loss of a U.S. House member, and the headlines are filled with companies threatening to move or lay off hard-working Illinoisans in order to survive. With fewer jobs, the labor force needs to move to survive. We as Illinoisans love it here. This is where our friends and families are. This is where we want to raise our children. The state and our local taxing bodies are making that a difficult choice these days.
