Education begins; dispute continues

Correction appended

The placards have sat steadfastly along Park Boulevard and Hillside Avenue since last year — “Preserve Our Neighborhood” and “Say No!”

Earlier this month, the gallery of signs got a new addition.

The lighted, ground-level “Diamante Montessori” sign stands out among the most noticeable additions to the cottage-style former church at Park and Hillside. For many nearby residents, the introduction of the preschool to their neighborhood still is too much to tolerate.

Last week the Montessori preschool opened at its new location just southeast of downtown Glen Ellyn after almost two years of dispute with a group of its new neighbors — a conflict that continues today with a lawsuit in DuPage County Circuit Court.

Finding home
For Ron Repking and his wife, who founded the nonprofit Diamante Montessori in 2002, the school’s opening means the school’s first permanent home after four temporary locations. He said he would rather put the contentious past behind him and focus on settling in.

Almost everything except a few pictures is in place in the two classrooms, and in the first few weeks the school’s instructors — called “directresses” in the less-rigid Montessori model — gradually are adjusting the youngest students to spending a half-day away from their parents.

Some residents have come to terms with their new neighbor. Martin Anderson has taken down his yard sign, and while he still has issues with the process, he admits the preschool has beautified the former church property.

“At this point, I guess I’m complacent,” he said.

But other neighbors maintain that the school’s opening does not mark the end of the property dispute.

In April, a dozen residents filed a lawsuit against school administrators and the village. They are claiming the school’s move violates Glen Ellyn zoning laws and allege they did not get a fair chance to challenge the move fully during the months of village meetings and public hearings last winter.

One possible outcome is for the judge to rule in favor of the neighbors and order the property returned to its original state. Steve Ruffalo, the residents’ attorney, said he does not see room to compromise on that goal.

“It’s certainly our intention to proceed full steam ahead,” Ruffalo said. “I don’t believe that it’s possible to settle. … If the project violates the zoning code how do you settle that? Do you ignore the zoning code?”

Village officials declined to comment on the prospect of a settlement, citing policy not to discuss ongoing litigation.

But the opposing neighbors’ concerns go beyond interpretations of the village’s zoning codes. In interviews this week, several neighbors talked about everything from the very early steps of the move two years ago to fears of growth and traffic in the future.

“The problem is still the same problem,” said Lauri Reeves, whose front door looks across the street at Diamante. “You put a high-traffic business in a … residential area.”

School of hard—knock feelings
While it remains to be seen how those concerns will play out, it is tough to imagine the hard feelings subsiding anytime soon.

The Repkings founded Diamante seven years ago with a Montessori instructor who worked with their child — she is now the school’s director. There was a demand for preschools in Glen Ellyn, Repking said.

“We launched the school in September. We were full by December,” he said. “That’s really been our only struggle: finding space.”

The schoolhouse gives them permanence and security they have not had, Repking said.

“We put things in the rooms that we couldn’t put there before,” he said.

Throughout the years, the Repkings ran the school out of their home, a Glen Ellyn Park District facility and two churches before finding the vacant church at 625 Hillside Ave. in fall of 2007.

That is the point in the timeline where the disagreements begin.

Repking said the building and lot fit the preschool’s needs, and they leapt at the chance to sign it. Neighbors complain the vacant church did not go on the market before that.

Neighbors say they were not properly notified, and from the start the move seemed inevitable, despite their protests. Repking said he tried to get information out to the neighbors after signing the contract before Christmas 2007, but by the time he and his wife returned from a trip, misinformation and ire already was circulating.

“Things kind of went bad from there,” Repking said, “and, unfortunately, the way that things turned out was just … unfortunate.”

Looking forward
At the start of this year, the dispute carried over during hours of public hearing held over several weeks and again as the Village Board permitted the move in March.

The meetings touched on property easements, parking and flooding, but the biggest concern — then and now — was traffic. Each side predicted differently how the school would affect traffic in the area, and congestion was the biggest concern of the residents interviewed this week.

While most neighbors said they have not noticed a change in traffic, Reeves said in the first week she saw queued-up cars spilling out of the driveway into the street.

“It took four days,” she said. “It’s going to get worse.”

Chuck Reiss also is concerned about what the long term will bring. He has specific issues about backyard flooding he wants addressed, but he also worries that, like a business, the school will want to expand in future years.

“Our concern is not where they’re starting,” Reiss said, “it’s where they’re going to end up.”

Repking said he is not the kind of person to look back at the past. Looking at the future, on the other hand, he does not want to expand the school, and he does not want to fight with neighbors.

“We’re in the neighborhood,” he said. “We’ll try to do the best we can to minimize the effect.”

Correction: Sept. 18

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Glen Ellyn resident Lauri Reeves.