A challenge to the petitions filed in June to force a referendum on Riverside-Brookfield High School District 208’s plan to issue working cash bonds had not been decided by the time the Landmark went to press Tuesday afternoon.
A hearing June 26 on the challenge was continued until Tuesday night, July 1, following some preliminary skirmishing.
At the meeting of the District 208 electoral board last week, one organizer of the petition drive claimed that the District 208 electoral board did not have jurisdiction because he had not been timely served with notice of the challenge.
Bob DeDera claimed that state law required him to be served with notice of the challenge by noon on June 24 and that state law required him to be served no later than 24 hours after the challenge was received by the chairman of the Board of Education.
DeDera, a former District 208 school board member, filed his challenge to the petitions on June 20 at 9:36 a.m., according to a copy of the challenge provided to the Landmark by RB.
DeDera claimed in his objection that he was not served until 4:45 p.m. on June 25 when Superintendent/Principal Jack Baldermann served notice of the objection to DeDera’s wife.
However, attorney Todd Faulkner, advising the electoral board, said that the petition drive organizers failed to include a certificate with their petitions stating who should be served in case of objections. With that, the panel, which includes school board President Larry Herbst, Vice President Sue Kleinmeyer and board Secretary Mary Ann Nardi, voted unanimously to continue the matter to July 1 to give the proponents of the petitions more time to prepare their case.
A total of 1,864 valid signatures are required to force RB’s plans to issue up to $5.7 million in working cash bonds to a vote in November. If the electoral board finds that 1,864 valid signatures were not submitted by June 13, then RB can sell the bonds without getting approval from the voters.
The school board wishes to sell the bonds a soon as possible to provide a cash cushion to RB. If RB is unable to sell the bonds this summer it would have to issue tax anticipation warrants in the fall because it would likely run out of cash in September until the fall property tax revenue comes in from the county.
RB says it needs to sell the bonds to provide a cash cushion and to cover the operating deficits it ran during the fiscal year that ended June 30 and plans to run in the current fiscal year, which began yesterday.