Judge Dismisses District 97 Referendum Lawsuit

The results of the referendum will stand.

In a ruling issued late Friday afternoon, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Mary L. Mikva set aside the two principal arguments Taxpayers United of America made in against the district: that the language on the April 5 election ballot intentionally misled voters about the impact of the referendum on their property taxes and that the district failed to use the equalizer in determining the real cost to the taxpayers.

The swiftness of the decision – about three weeks sooner than Mikva originally forecasted at — stunned supporters and opponents. 

A copy of the ruling accompanies this story as a PDF. 

School Board President Peter Barber called the ruling "fantastic."

“It validates the decision that the citizens made and that we followed all the proper rules, which we had been saying all along. We tried to make sure that our citizens understood the impact so they could make an informed decision,” Barber said.

Contacted by Patch, TUA attorney Andrew Spiegel was not aware that the decision had been handed down. He said the group will likely file an appeal in this case, and in a case dismissed last month after the anti-tax group filed suit against .

In her five-page opinion, Mikva stated that “in this Court’s view, this case is resolved simply on the basis that the statutory disclosure requirements were met by the district.” In addition to ballot disclosure there was "full-bodied" public discussion surrounding the referendum and the cost to taxpayers, Mikva said.

Specifically, that public discussion included brochures and other literature — all provided in a filed in June by the Committee to Support Oak Park Schools and other pro-referendum residents.

TUA also argued that the calculation of the impact of the tax increase was understated by two-thirds because the district did not use the equalizer or multiplier factor that is applied in Cook County to adjust the county’s assessment level.

The district contended that the statute that sets out how language is to be crafted applies to the entire state — not just Cook County — and that in many counties the equalizer is not a factor, according to the opinion.

“The Court agrees that the District’s reading of the statute makes the most sense,” Mikva wrote. “While policy arguments could be made for instructing the taxing district to use a calculation that included the equalized assessed valuation…that is not the calculation that is set out in the instructions…for much of the state the equalization factor is not a factor and thus the legislature might not have been focused on how this instruction would impact Cook County,” Mikva wrote.

She also noted that even if the district’s understanding of the calculation instructions were wrong, state law makes clear that this would not affect the validity of the tax increase.

“In the Court’s view,” Mikva wrote, “even if the District did use the wrong formula that would be an ‘error in computing’ within the meaning of the statute….”

Jassen Strokosch, a co-chair of the Support Oak Park Schools campaign, was happy at the outcome. “It was a clear ruling,” he said. “The referendum won by an almost – it was overwhelming – and I hated to see one person overturn the majority at the polls.”

So far, the lawsuit has cost District 97 more than $43,000 in legal fees, district officials said.