Legislators may be skeptical of funding new Cole Hall at NIU

March 2nd, 2008 at 09:40pm Chuck Sweeny

My hunch is that legislators in Springfield are going to back off that boneheaded plan of Gov. Rod Blagojevich (I know, which one?) and Northern Illinois University to replace Cole Hall with a state-of-the-art, $40 million classroom building, which according to state Sen. Brad Burzynski, R-Clare, could cost $60 million when the bonds are repaid over 20 years.

Burzynski was asked by the governor to introduce a funding bill and he said he would. But when I heard Burzynski in a radio interview on Friday, he seemed to be be a little more cautious about  the plan.

Cole Hall, you remember, was the scene of mass murder on Feb. 14. Five students died and the gunman killed himself.

There have been plenty of comments on this plan, and all have been negative. Every lawmaker has a list of projects that need to be done. Every state university has a backlog of deferred maintenance on buildings that are often much older than Cole Hall, built in 1968.

1968 is not “old,” by the way. Most of Rockford’s schools were built before 1968. Lincoln Middle School, for instance, dates back to the 1920s, and it’s still going strong.

NIU might be better advised to remodel the lecture room where the killings occurred and reopen the building in the fall.

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