"HMS is Beyond Repair": Citizens for a New HMS States Its Case for $53-Million Referendum

Citizens for a New HMS will be voting next Tuesday in favor of a $53-million referendum to rebuild Hinsdale Middle School.

Earlier this week, advocacy group Citizens for Clarendon Hills published a public letter detailing its opposition to School District 181's referendum, claiming the district was presenting voters with false information about the impact a new school would have on taxpayers.

The Citizens for a New HMS advocacy group disagrees — strongly. Denise Pacioni, a resident of the Hinsdale area and a member of the group, drafted a statment Friday making a case against C4CH and for the construction of a brand-new Hinsdale Middle School.

“The current HMS building is beyond repair,” Pacioni wrote in the statement. “Three architects — including the district’s architect of record — have recommended rebuilding over renovation. The school is so overcrowded that the entire sixth grade attends class in temporary trailers.”

In fact, she said, it would be fiscally irresponsible to even consider renovation over rebuilding. Costs to renovate would exceed 60 percent of the cost to rebuild the school.

On another note, the entirety of HMS had to be evacuated for two weeks two years ago due to black mold in the building. This negatively impacted Clarendon Hills Middle School students as well, she said, since they had to share classroom space with an entire extra set of students.

C4CH had argued in its letter that while HMS was getting a lot of political attention, “not $1 is going to CHMS, which has needs after all these years.”

Pacioni told Patch she voted ‘yes’ on the referendum the last time it made an appearance on an election ballot, and that she figured it failed due to the high costs of the project.

District 181 has since surveyed 2,000 community residents to find out what they want in a new HMS, Pacioni explained, and from those answers the district drafted a new referendum that she said is an “excellent deal.”

“The cost is lower, the property tax is minimal and the design is that of a 21st-century school,” she wrote. “On a median-priced home ($765,000), homeowners pay only $100 initially. In 2024, when current debt is paid off, D181-related property taxes actually decrease by $326 — even with the construction of a new school.”

One of C4CH’s strongest claims is that the district is misleading its community with the $53-million figure. The group’s spokesperson said that District 181 isn’t being transparent with the number, since there will eventually be another $30 million tacked on to the sum after interest.

Pacioni pointed out, however, that the district has been clear about its intentions all along.

“All prior D181 referendums have been based on building costs excluding interest,” she wrote. “Home values are treated in a similar fashion — when you see a home listed at $800,000, you don’t call it a $1,400,000 home after amortized interest. The same holds true for this school.”

Pacioni said that bright red yard signs openly opposing the referendum worry her because they’re so misleading. The signs, which read “No to HMS,” present the numbers — with interest — that C4CH’s platform thrives on.

“It’s actually insulting to the community to think that we’re not savvy enough to know what goes into building a building, constructing a school or to know how interest works,” she said.

Something else Pacioni finds insulting? C4CH’s list of top-ten reasons to not build a new school. The list includes suggested fixes to problems like the mold issue — “All issues fully resolved and tested (scare tactic being used),” the group wrote — and the fact that temporary classrooms lack a good heating system — “Turn up the thermostat until the (proposed) Annex is built.”

The item that really got Pacioni, though, had to do with HMS’s current issues with parking and drop-off. C4CH suggested the school simply spend money to upgrade its drive-in and parking spaces, ask more kids to walk to and from school, and to “drink (a) latte at home.”

Pacioni said she doesn’t think the situation is one to be made light of.

“They put ‘kids should drink a latte’ like that will fix anything,” she said. “It’s rude and it’s disrespectful to the community.”

“Their attempt at comic relief comes at the expense of young children,” she wrote in the Citizens for a New HMS statement.

In her own list of sorts, Pacioni explains several reasons why her advocacy group believes that spending $53 million to build a new HMS would have a positive effect on the community.

First off, property values — which C4CH members claim will be negatively affected — will not be compromised, she writes. Home values are negatively affected when a school district doesn’t maintain its schools, not when it does. Newer schools would actually positively affect property values in the Clarendon Hills, Hinsdale and Monroe areas, especially since the fewer dollars spent on HMS repairs would allow more money in the budget to maintain other D181 schools.

The tax impact on homeowners also won’t hurt anyone, she wrote.

“Because of current low bond rates and the district’s excellent AAA rating, the current rate for a new Hinsdale Middle School is 25 percent less than the bond interest rate we are still paying on the CHMS referendum,” she wrote. “This interest rate benefit and repayment schedule causes little change to property taxes.”

Pacioni said she doesn’t believe C4CH has any real ground in their claims that the referendum would be a negative thing for the community, and said she has been working to educate people about the realities — not the falsities C4CH has presented — of the referendum.

“The facts speak for themselves,” she wrote in her statement. “It’s time to vote ‘yes’ for a new HMS.”

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