School board OKs abatement bonds parking lot project
With no displayed resistance from taxpayers Monday, April 15, the Glencoe-Silver Lake School Board unanimously approved plans to sell general obligation tax-abatement bonds to fund improvements to parking lots at the junior-senior high school and Lakeside Elementary School.
The decision means after years of complaints from visitors to the junior-senior high school and field house in Glencoe, the pothole-laden parking lot on the north side of the school will finally be upgraded. The gravel parking lot at Lakeside Elementary School in Silver Lake will be paved. The work is expected to be completed by the end of August.
In hopeful anticipation of approval, the district has stopped significant maintenance work on the parking lot at the junior-senior high school. The district has tried not to spend money on short-term temporary fixes, Superintendent Chris Sonju said at Monday’s board meeting.
“It’s awful,” he said. “We’re not going to be spending any money to get by.”
Plans at the junior-senior high school call for the lot to be repaved. The middle of the lot will be crowned to encourage storm water to runoff to the edges of the lot where the water will drain to wetlands on the east end of the lot and a holding pond on the west end. Parking curbs will prevent drivers from cutting across the lot diagonally. A center island outside the entrance to the field house will provide a walkway for people waking to their cars. Lights will be placed on the island to provide a safer walk across the lot at night.
The paved lot across the street from Lakeside Elementary School is expected to provide additional parking spaces.
(For the complete story, see the April 17 print edition of The Chronicle.)