Live Coverage Tonight of the School Consolidation Town Hall Meeting

In February, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn told the Illinois General Assembly that consolidation of school districts throughout the state would help cut administrative costs. About two weeks later, Rep. Bob Rita (D-Blue Island) submitted House Bill 1886, which called for the consolidation of all school districts in Illinois into one or two districts per county within 18 months of the bill's passing.

The response was near-unanimously against this measure, and Rita was sharply criticized for not taking input from . One group in particular, based within Community Consolidated School District 146, which includes residents from Orland Park, Oak Forest and Tinley Park, started a Facebook page against the bill that attracted over . A Youtube page was also .

Rita decided not to push , but he and others in Springfield still believe consolidation . Now, two other bills, HB 1216 and SB 1324 are making their way through the General Assembly.

Tonight at 7, concerned residents are meeting in a Town Hall at Central Middle School to let their voices be heard about consolidation, and Patch will be there.

We will run real-time updates on a Town Hall blog running on the Orland, Tinley and Oak Forest sites. We also will be producing video at the event that will be posted throughout the evening.

Those of you who cannot attend the meeting are encouraged to express your thoughts in our comments section under the blog.