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Environment Board Honors Seven

Len Sciarra, left, and Mayor Lorraine Morton present Richard Seaman with an awraed for environmental acitvism.

Ms. Willis says she thinks she joined the Traveler's Garden Club in the 1930s. "However," she said, "there's no one around to ask." She and her husband were early benefactors of the Ecology Center in the 1970s, and she is "still involved with Evanston's beautification," according to her award, which her daughter accepted. Marjorie Fisher, chair of the Green Sanctuary Committee, accepted the award for "Outstanding Environmental Achievement by an Evanston Organization" for sustainability initiatives and environmental practices.

Linda Lutz

Those honored for their individual activism were Debbie Hillman of the Network of Evanston's Future, Steve Grbavic of Evanston Township High School, Steve Perkins of the Evanston Interreligious Sustainability Circle, social and environmental activist Rich Seaman and Linda Lutz, coordinator of the Ecology Center.

Police Identify Body Found in Lake

Over the weekend Evanston Police began an investigation into the death of a male they said was 25-30 years old and of Asian descent. He was later identified as Hyuk Jin Choi of 1915 Maple Ave.
Mr. Choi, 30, was conducting post-graduate work in chemistry at Northwestern, said Deputy Chief Joe Bellino.

The City's fire department recovered the body Friday morning from the lake approximately 50 yards off the Northwestern University shoreline, about a half mile south of Lincoln Street, said Deputy Chief Bellino. The coroner's office said the death consistent with suicide, he added.

Increased Police Patrols for Summer

By Bill Smith

Evanston aldermen have approved spending an extra $108,000 to beef up police patrols over the summer in neighborhoods that have experienced problems with unruly behavior by teenagers.
Police Chief Frank Kaminski says the department will continue assigning three patrol officers - two more than usual - on the 4 p.m. to midnight shift to the area around Brummel Park in the Eighth Ward. Those additional patrols started early in May and are planned to continue at least through the end of June.

The department also plans to assign two youth outreach workers and a service desk officer who formerly worked as a community organizer to do that job in the Brummel Park area.

The department also plans to add an additional officer to the downtown detail throughout the summer on the 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift. It also plans to add two more officers on overtime to work an overnight shift at various locations around the City through the summer, a repeat of a program in place for the past several years.

The intense focus on Brummel Park raised some concerns among aldermen from other wards. Alderman Lionel Jean-Baptiste, 2nd Ward, said areas like the intersections of Dempster Street and Dodge Avenue, Fowler Street and Lake Avenue, Greenwood Street and Dodge, and the area from Madison Street to Cleveland Street along Dewey Avenue have all have had substantial problems in the past.

Deputy Police Chief Dennis Nilsson said the additional cars would not be assigned permanently to Brummel Park and will be directed wherever they are needed.

"That includes some of the areas you mentioned, and other areas like the lakefront parks and beaches," he said.

"Through the early morning hours we repeatedly have to go back to get people out of the parks and off the rocks," he added, "Where the aldermen tell us there are problems, that's what some of those extra cars will be doing."

Deputy Chief Nilsson said the police also expect to deploy extra officers for summer art festivals, block partiess and similar events.

Of Brummel Park, he said, "I've been down there three to four nights a week myself at all hours. Sometimes we've had 75 kids roaming around in groups of 10 to 15. We've been reaching out to the community and working with the Chicago Police Department, because some of the troublemakers are coming from their side of Howard Street. We've also been doing drug raids to clean up that area."

As for the need for extra officers downtown, Deputy Chief Nilsson said, "On a summer night 36 years ago when I started on the force I was pretty much the only person down there. Now at 11 or 12 at night three are hundreds of people downtown."

Sherman Avenue Garage Set to Open Tomorrow; Parking Will Be Free in June

City of Evanston Facilities Manager Max Rubin took early visitors to the top of the new Sherman Avenue parking garage.

Tomorrow, June 1, the new 12-story Sherman Avenue garage will be open to the public, with free parking through midnight July 4. Entry and exit will be from Davis Street until the garage is finally finished and the barriers removed from Benson Avenue and its sidewalk in mid-July, said Max Rubin, facilities manager for the City.

The garage will thus be ready in August when six stores open their doors in the two floors of retail space along Church Street and Sherman Avenue: Barnes and Noble, Ann Taylor Loft, Cereality, Red Door Spa, LA Fitness, Pier 1 and Washington Mutual.

With 1,583 parking spaces, it is taller and narrower than the six-story, 1,400-space Maple Avenue garage; however, it will have even fewer public parking spaces, as the City will sell 303 of the spaces to the Sherman Plaza condominium development for its residents. They will use a private ramp for their parking, located on the southwest side of floors 5 through 10 of the garage, Mr. Rubin said.

Jen Chaplain, the project engineer for W.E. O'Neil, which built the garage, said the project came in on time, "We hit on target with substantial completion," she said.

"We came in pretty close to budget," Mr. Rubin told the RoundTable. "We told the City Council it would be about $44 million total." That figure includes the $6 million Sherman Plaza will pay the City for its 303 parking spaces. Funds from the Washington National tax-increment financing (TIF) district were used to finance the cost of the garage.

The garage will be open 24/7, said Mr. Rubin, and customers will pay at the first-floor, unmanned kiosks. Though there will be no one to collect payments, there will be round-the-clock security guards, said Mr. Rubin. One will be stationed in the third-floor security center, where live security cameras feed into eight monitors, each monitor viewing 16 cameras, said Dale Hathcock of Chicago Parking Systems, which manages all three City garages. Another will be a roving guard, who will offer help to motorists who may have locked their keys in the car or whose battery needs a jump, said Mr. Hathcock.

Pictures of Evanston landmarks adorn the elevator lobbies, as mnemonics for those who find numbers difficult to remember. The color of the floor tile and the floor number on the wall tie in with the photo as another way of remembering location, said Mr. Rubin. Floor three, for example, has a red-tiled floor, a red 3 on the wall and a photo of the Farmers Market in fall, with red apples and other fall fruits and vegetables.

Local media representatives who toured the facility last Friday found the view from the top floor spectacular. While the condo development blocks the view to the east ("can't see the Fourth of July fireworks from here," says Mr. Rubin), the Chicago skyline is clearly visible to the south, the Gross Point Light Station and the Baha'i Temple to the north and tufts of green to the west.

On the very quick but smooth ride down the glass-backed elevator on the Benson Avenue side, the City of Evanston appears, from building tops to tree tops, to CTA tracks to the ground.