District 181 Recommends Mediation With Village Over Parking Deck

HINSDALE, IL — Discussions surrounding the design of the Hinsdale Middle School parking deck have continued between District 181 and the village of Hinsdale. At its board of education meeting on Jan. 28, the district administration recommended mediation as the next step.

“Given the continuing inability to resolve outstanding issues, the administration has recognized that mediation is necessary,” Dr. Hector Garcia, Superintendent, said in a release. “The District has continuously made an effort to engage the Village in discussion to meet the safety and architectural needs of the deck per the Intergovernmental Agreement.”

The district said it has remained focused on the on-time completion of the project and maintains that the commitments agreed upon in the Intergovernmental Agreement between the Village and the District must remain intact.

According to District 181, the village has proposed several modifications to the design of the parking deck which do not meet the performance requirements of the IGA, and which compromise student and community safety, according to an independent structural engineer. The remaining safety issues are related to the load-bearing capacity of the upper deck, access to the upper deck, and traffic flow.

The district said it has made every effort to engage in informal discussion with the village rather than resorting to mediation and arbitration. Since September 2018, there have been more than 20 meetings and exchanges of information with the Village in an attempt to resolve these issues.

According to the district, the two-level parking deck was originally going to be a single street-level parking lot for HMS staff and visitors. The surface lot evolved into a parking deck after the Village agreed to cover costs in excess of those of building a surface lot to solve Hinsdale's long-standing parking problem.

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