South Of Joliet Road: Other Side Of LTHS Tracks?

WILLOW SPRINGS, IL – Some residents south of Joliet Road feel they get the short end of the stick with Lyons Township High School.

The reference to "south of Joliet Road" was heard repeatedly at Tuesday's town hall in Willow Springs.

It's also been uttered in high school board meetings from those angry with the board's efforts to sell its Willow Springs land to an industrial developer.

All seven board members are from north of Joliet Road. Six of them are in La Grange School District 102.

At the town hall, one woman urged residents in Willow Springs to run for the school board. Others called for the firing of Superintendent Brian Waterman.

Waterman quietly watched the town hall in the crowd that spilled out in the hallway. It was left to the board's vice president, Jill Grech, to give a short statement during public comments.

Waterman was seen as leading the effort to keep the village of Willow Springs and Pleasantdale School District 107, with a school next to the high school's land, in the dark for months.

All of that was exposed when the attorney general ordered the board to release the recordings of two closed meetings about the land deal in January. Under the law, the sessions were supposed to be open.

Sitting on the dais at the town hall was Burt Odelson, an attorney for Willow Springs. He reminded the audience of what happened.

"An illegal closed session held by the high school was revealed in a scathing opinion from the Illinois attorney general," he said.

Also on the dais was Village President Melissa Neddermeyer. She said little about her opposition to the school's handling of the issue.

She took care of that at a school board meeting earlier this year. With Waterman watching, she called for his firing because of his role in the attempted land deal. She cited Patch's reporting that Waterman had communicated behind the scenes with one major developer without letting any other public bodies in the loop.

At the town hall, residents took the mic and recalled instances in which school officials insulted their town behind closed doors.

One remembered then-board member Julie Swinehart's digs. At the time, she said Willow Springs officials were "over their skis or haven't had sound legal counsel advise them. They might be under-educated or naive about it."

Another resident recalled Waterman's use of the word "napalmed" in a closed session. He was referring to the fallout of the school's decision to keep other public bodies out of the loop, namely the village, elementary school district and the local park district, which has parkland next to the high school's property.

"The relationship with all three entities is napalmed," Waterman told the board.

Several speakers Tuesday demanded an apology from school officials. None has been given.

In one way, school officials acknowledged a problem when it switched law firms in August.

That was after their attorney, Ares Dalianis, advised them in the January closed sessions that Willow Springs would be hard-pressed legally to deny a request for industrial zoning, something the village vowed not to permit. And he stayed silent as the board broke the state's open meetings law.