The rebuilding of Lincoln Hall was said to have been issued because of some internal problems.

“After several years of study, we found that the cost to repair most of the building, or to totally renovate the building was about the same cost as building a new one,” said superintendent Mark Klaisner.

According to lawyer and founder of the Lincolnwood Residents Group, Mark Collens, the reasoning for tearing down and rebuilding Lincoln Hall was completely absurd. Collens claimed to have had the building professionally observed, only to find out that there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

“They were going to build a new school without the opinion of the people of Lincolnwood,” he said. “We told them that they can’t do that, and that they needed to get a referendum. We told them that if they continued without a referendum, we would sue.”

Suing is exactly what it came down to.

“We asked the court to order them to have a referendum,” said Collens. “They could have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they would have just followed the law.”

Klaisner defended The Board and the Administration by claiming that they chose to use the same mechanism that other entities use for funding and for referenda.

“The district has been studying the issue for quite some time and our feeling was that time is of the essence. We originally planned to attach the building to Rutledge Hall. This decision would have allowed us to progress without a referendum,” he said.

“A few people decided that [the situation] was crazy because the taxes in Lincolnwood are already insane, and this project would have cost about 30 million dollars,” Collens said.

Because of the extreme prices, Collens and his followers decided to see how else the district was spending money.

“What we have is freedom of information, which is when the government agencies and boards have to provide records [of district spending.] What we found out was that they were spending money on themselves…about six million,” he said.

In light of this new information, Collens and a few neighbors joined together to set up board meetings and talk to the press. Before long, there were aboult 20 – 25 Lincolnwood residents who decided to get together and make sure that the full story was open the the people of Lincolnwood.

“We’re starting to have an effect,” he said. “The government is looking into it, and we’re encouraging the community to vote against the referendum.”

Klaisner, on the other hand, has different expectations.

“I hope that the vote passes and we have authorization to institute the funding and move ahead with planning for the building of a new Lincoln Hall Middle School. We will involve as many people as we can in the planning for this exciting endeavor for the whole community. Additionally, we are very interested in improving the educational environment to address 21st Century teaching and learning like S.T.E.M.”

Eligible students and teachers are welcome to cast their votes at Lincolnwood Polling Places, two of which include Fairview South Middle School, as well as Todd Hall School. Voting will be open from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.

For more information on the topic, visit http://www.lincolnwoodresidents.org/.