2007 ELECTION
Eight candidates, including three incumbents, filed to run for four seats on the Riverside-Brookfield High School District 208 school board last week. The big surprises were filings by three new candidates, including two members of the Citizens Advisory Committee which has been advising the board on the nearly $64-million renovation and addition to RB. Those filings arguably make this the most competitive and interesting District 208 school board race in years. All told, eight candidates will be vying for the four four-year terms on the ballot.
Citizens’ Advisory Committee members Christopher Robling and James Marciniak said they decided to run for the District 208 board because of their concerns about the current board’s ability to oversee the project. They also encouraged another candidate, David Hilpp of Riverside, to run.
The election will take place on April 17. The last date for filing nominating petitions was Feb. 5.
The three say they are not running as a formal slate, but they did circulate each other’s petitions. All three decided to run in the last month or so, according to Robling.
“I would describe it as like-minded individuals running individually,” said Marciniak, who is a mechanical engineer with Borg Warner Corporation and a member of the Riverside Preservation Commission. Marciniak and Hilpp went to high school together, both graduating from Lyons Township High School in 1982. Hilpp is a stockbroker with A.G. Edwards.
Robling, a principal with the public relations firm Jayne Thompson & Associates and a former member of the Riverside Preservation commission, said he is running to provide voters with a choice.
“I’m not running against anybody on the board,” said Robling. “The building program is still only just getting under way, and there’s still a lot of time to influence how it’s managed by the board. Most of the money has not yet been spent, and, frankly, that is a major reason why I decided to take this plunge right now. It is important to manage a $60 million project very well. That’s why I’m running.”
Robling has been critical of the initial draft of the contract with the project’s construction manager, the James McHugh Construction Company, which was brought before the board. That contract was extensively revised with the help of citizens’ committee before it was signed.
“The board created a process in which they received a contract weeks and weeks after it should have been received. And when it finally turned up, it was something that was manifestly injurious to the interests of the district and the taxpayers,” said Robling. “The contract received by the board was the contract, but for the citizens committee, that was going to be executed. That contract was a disaster waiting to happen. There is no other way to say it.”
Members of the citizens committee have been disappointed with what they saw as a lack of communication from the board, especially in the last three months.
“There hasn’t been the level of communication that we were led to expect,” said Marciniak. “There is only so much we can do as a non-official body as far as influencing the direction of that project in a positive direction and that is what leads me the step of running for the board.”
Incumbent board members running for reelection are board President Larry Herbst of Riverside, along with Sue Kleinmeyer and Marty Crowley, both of Brookfield. Board Vice President Nancy Chmell of Riverside decided not to run after serving two terms on the board. Also filing to run were Frank West of Brookfield and MariAnn Leibrandt of Brookfield.
Kleinmeyer said that the candidacies of Robling, Marciniak and Hilpp came as a surprise to her.
“I think some of us were surprised,” said Kleinmeyer.
Herbst said that he did not feel targeted.
“I’m fine with it,” said Herbst. “I certainly don’t feel threatened by it. I didn’t interpret it as an oust-the-old or bring-in-the-new or anything like that. We have nothing to be ashamed of. We’re proud of what the board and the school has been able to do over the last five years.”
In that time academic standards have risen at RB, and the school has received much recognition for its academic achievement, including being ranked as the sixth best high school in the state by Newsweek magazine in May of 2005.
“When a lot of people want to run for the school board, either things are going badly and they want a change or things are going well and they want to be a part of it,” said Kleinmeyer. “I assume it’s because things are going well, and they want to be a part of it.”
Crowley who was appointed to the board in 2005 to fill out the term of Greg Franzo, who had resigned, said that he is running for a full term because he wants to see the renovation/addition through to completion.
“I want to be around to finish what we started,” said Crowley who is the owner/operator of Crowley Express Services, a local trucking business.
The three incumbents are not running as a team, but they are supportive of each other.
“I wouldn’t call us a slate, but all of us are supporting each other,” said Kleinmeyer, who is the building administrator of Woodbine School in Cicero as well as a past president of the Brookfield-LaGrange Park Elementary School District 95.
West was active in the 2006 District 208 referendum campaign. Leibrandt served from 1998 to 2005 on the District 95 board and was president of the District 95 board for three years.
