Some residents of Glen Ellyn still believe they didn’t have their say on the proposed relocation of a school. Are they kidding?
Diamante Montessori wants to relocate to a vacant church at Park Boulevard and Hillside Avenue. The Glen Ellyn Village Board signed off on the plan in March, after the village’s Plan Commission held five public hearings.
Yet this didn’t satisfy some folks, who recently filed a lawsuit in DuPage County Circuit Court to reverse the board’s decision. They said the school’s move would increase vehicular traffic.
The lawsuit says residents didn’t have sufficient time to challenge the deal. Plaintiffs claim there were delays in obtaining details about the plan through Freedom of Information Act requests. The suit also says a member of the Plan Commission recused himself from voting on the matter but spoke on the record as a resident.
It’s unfortunate if FOIA requests were delayed, and perhaps the Plan Commission member shouldn’t have offered his opinion at all. But if the main concern is increased traffic, wouldn’t plaintiffs have known this without filing FOIA requests?
Any new school is going to attract more cars. And we live in one of the largest urban areas of the country. Traffic is a fact of life.
At least some of the families who’ll use the school live in the area, so they won’t add traffic that doesn’t already exist. The lawsuit should be withdrawn so the school can open as planned.
