Supporters of a $140 million Hinsdale D86 referendum disrupted the Burr Ridge Board meeting Monday night, accusing interim mayor Zach Mottl of constitutional violations and “scorched earth” tactics in his fight against the tax increase proposal. Mottl, working through the grassroots group D 86 Can Do Better, has called the April 2 referendum “unfair, wasteful and unaffordable.”
The commotion came near the end of the meeting when non-Burr Ridge residents were allotted some time to speak. All spoke in support of the referendum. At one point, Burr Ridge Chief of Police John Madden asked an unidentified woman who rushed unannounced to the lectern to sit back down. Three additional supporters were called out of order by the Village’s attorney for speaking on a subject not germane to the board’s agenda, and were asked to sit down.
One referendum supporter, Yvonne Mayer, Burr Ridge resident and candidate for the Hinsdale D86 school board, asked the board to support a pending move to remove Mottl, who is on the April 2 ballot for mayor, as interim mayor. The move failed on a 3-3 vote. Mayer spoke earlier in the meeting during the time reserved for Burr Ridge residents.
Mayer has been a frequent, harsh critic of Mottl. A week after the failure of the district's proposed $166 million ballot initiative in November, Mayer posted Mottl’s home address among a thread of Facebook posts – one contained images of charred bodies. Mottl fought against that proposed tax increase as well.
Mottl told the DuPage Policy Journal that the eruption at the Burr Ridge meeting was another indication of how desperate supporters of the referendum were getting with a little over a month left before the April 2 vote.
“You’re seeing it across all forums,” Mottl said. “The personal attacks are getting worse. They are blocking comments on social media. They know they’re headed for failure again.”
On Feb. 23, the neighborhood social media site Nextdoor chastised Ed Corcoran, president of a taxpayers’ group, Citizens for Clarendon Hills (C4CH), for posting “SOS!! STOP THE OVERSPENDING in D86.” The Nextdoor content manager wrote that the message had been reported: “A message you posted was reported by another Nextdoor member as violating Nextdoor's Community Guideline: Be Helpful, not Hurtful.”
On Feb. 26, Corcoran wrote in an C4CH update that a local survey shows that the majority of Hinsdale D86 residents don’t trust the school board.
“In a recent survey by D86 itself with 1,161 participants, 55% rated the Board a "D", "F" or "Did Not Know" on the handling of taxpayer money,” he wrote. “75% of respondents rated the D86 a "C" or below. Taxpayers simply do not trust this Board handling their hard earned money. A reset is needed.”
Corcoran also wrote that the wording of the referendum has recently been changed to “prettier” language, “yet it is the same wasteful spending proposed before, this time with less conditions and less accountability for a Board which taxpayers don't trust.”
A spokesperson for the district did not return a call for comment on why the wording was changed.
In December, the school district voted to cut fall sports, including football, at its two high schools, Central and South. The sports will return, board members said, if the April referendum is approved, a move that Mottl says unfairly puts the children in the middle of the fight.
And just last week, Hinsdale Superintendent Bruce Law resigned in what Mottl said would be the “nail in the coffin” for the referendum.
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