The idea for a bicycle path around the new DeKalb High School came to DeKalb Park District Director Cindy Capek when she was riding her bike this summer.

“I happened to ride my bicycle along Dresser, and I noticed that it wasn’t very safe.” Capek said to the DeKalb School Board District 428 during Monday’s board meeting.

The proposal includes building a bike path along Dresser Road and connecting it to the already existing path that runs around the DeKalb County Rehabilitation and Health Services building.

Board President Mike Verbic said Capek was asking the board to approve an alternate bid that would make it possible to build a bike path, instead of just sidewalks around the school.

“It’s cheaper to put it in the right way, and do it now as part of the planning process,” Capek said, “so that we may eventually connect the park district portion to the private landowners and the county portion, too.”

Capek said all of this might not happen immediately, but if the board doesn’t look at it now, it will be too late to do anything about it.

Superintendent Jim Briscoe agreed with Capek.

“The reason I asked [Capek] to come is we are getting very close to fine tuning our plan for our facility, so maybe there is a possibility to look at an alternate bid so we can make a decision down the road before it’s too late,” Briscoe said.

Most school board members that spoke were in support of the bike path.

The board also heard a presentation from Andrea Gorla, assistant superintendent of business and finance, about the 2008 tax levy for the school district.

Gorla said her office receives estimates for how much revenue the district is expected to receive for the following fiscal year.

“This year, we are asking the levy to be raised to 18 percent, but realistically we are expecting only an increase to 6.02 percent,” Gorla said.

The reason for over estimating is to “capture revenue” that would be lost if they went with the assessment, Gorla said.

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