Editorial

Time to Reflect on Policies for Open Meetings

The Illinois Open Meetings Act was recently amended by Public Act 94-1058, effective Jan. 1, 2007. The Act has historically required that meetings of public bodies, such as city councils and school boards, be held in public.

The amendment expands the definition of a "meeting" to mean "any gathering, whether in person or by video or audio conference, telephone call, electronic means (such as, without limitation, electronic mail, electronic chat, and instant messaging), or other means of contemporaneous interactive communication, of a majority of a quorum of the members of a public body held for the purpose of discussing public business."

We think this amendment provides an opportunity for the public bodies in Evanston to review their policies and practices under the Open Meetings Act.

The amendments make clear that the new Open Meetings Act will apply to e-mails, at least when a majority of a quorum of the public body is participating.

E-mailing amongst members of a public body raises thorny issues, even if only one or two members are involved in the initial e-mail, because e-mails may be forwarded to other members – resulting in communication among a majority of a quorum without the benefit of public observation.

We urge each public body to revisit its policy with regard to sending e-mails. This will provide two benefits: First, it will ensure that the policy complies with the letter and spirit of the Open Meetings Act. Second, it will help to ensure that the public will have confidence that the public's business is indeed being conducted in the public.

But several concerns remain. Closed sessions should be held at the beginning or the end of a public meeting, not in the middle.

Holding a closed session in the middle of an otherwise open meeting imposes on the citizens who have taken the time to attend the meeting by forcing them to wait – sometimes an hour or more – while closed-session business is conducted. It also discourages them from remaining and participating in the balance of the meeting.

In addition, the exceptions to conducting meetings in public should not be abused.

A closed meeting held under the so-called exception of a board retreat should not be used to discuss strategic or policy issues on the premise that it is preferable that the public not see or hear disagreement among members of the public body.

Disagreement and robust debate is a hallmark of good government. Debate behind closed doors erodes the public trust.

Flowers Blooming Yet? These flowers were grown from the seeds the RoundTable distributed aRound town to make Evanston beautiful. We look forward to other blooming successes. Send the pictures to flowers@evanstonroundtable.com.

More

By Charles Wilkinson

Don't ask me why, but for some reason I keep seeing the word "more" all over the place, not only in print but almost everywhere my consciousness takes me. If I merely listed the different contexts in which I encounter more of this and more of that, I would have no space to make the point I am hoping to make.

Life is a process that is all and always about progress. Good can always get better, slow can always go faster, small can always be bigger, smart brighter, strong mightier and on and on. Philosophical perspectives, reality, even evolution, make a kind of sense about the meaning of "more" and the meaning of life that does not work as well – or as disturbingly – on practical and personal levels. "Less is more" makes sense – and a stunning kind of art – to some architects. But in our acquisitive lifestyles less is, well, less. And more is definitely not that.

What I am getting at are all the tear-downs on the North Shore and the rash of "McMansions" that serve as extra-large safe-deposit boxes for those who can afford them. Tear-downs are a way of making more out of less and in the process creating space for – what else – more of everything. This is not a complaint; simply an observation, probably part of the aftermath of down-sizing, that leaves me with the questions, "When is enough enough? Or is it ever?"

Some would agree that Evanston itself has become a tear-down of sorts over recent years. The need for more has been a driving force behind the surging skyline (skyline!) and condos multiplying like Al Capp Shmoos in a town that was once quaint and college-y.

I am not recommending that what has been (is being) done be undone. I am simply making an observation that fits my feelings while driving around the near North Shore.
Something tangible is being lost, and I am sad about that. And I am afraid that the need for more – of whatever – will subvert the simpler need in all of us to make the most of what is.

Don't ask me why, but for some reason I keep seeing the word "more" all over the place, not only in print but almost everywhere my consciousness takes me. If I merely listed the different contexts in which I encounter more of this and more of that, I would have no space to make the point I am hoping to make.

Life is a process that is all and always about progress. Good can always get better, slow can always go faster, small can always be bigger, smart brighter, strong mightier and on and on. Philosophical perspectives, reality, even evolution, make a kind of sense about the meaning of "more" and the meaning of life that does not work as well – or as disturbingly – on practical and personal levels. "Less is more" makes sense – and a stunning kind of art – to some architects. But in our acquisitive lifestyles less is, well, less. And more is definitely not that.

What I am getting at are all the tear-downs on the North Shore and the rash of "McMansions" that serve as extra-large safe-deposit boxes for those who can afford them. Tear-downs are a way of making more out of less and in the process creating space for – what else – more of everything. This is not a complaint; simply an observation, probably part of the aftermath of down-sizing, that leaves me with the questions, "When is enough enough? Or is it ever?"

Too Hot!

By Peggy Tarr

Whew! I let out a sigh.
The temperature was much too high.
I resented being outside where I was sure I was being fried.
I scowled up at the sun, its heat making me want to run.
A bit of shade I sought, but my efforts were of naught.
There wasn't a single tree in the right spot to shelter me.
Yow! How could this be? Such thermal misery.
It was so terribly hot that I wanted to drink a lot.
I wiped my brow of sweat. My body was uncomfortably wet.
I thought every one of my pores was waging hydration wars.
At last I got to my house. With cold water my face I did douse.
How long could this inferno last? I'd listen to the forecast.
Oh no! What I heard was not bright.
It appeared there was no relief in sight.
"It's too hot," I said in a huff. "This heat. Enough is enough!"
But I knew that this fire that made me perspire would again make
tomorrow as rough.
I felt I was close to the brink of not being able to think.
My energy sapped, I quickly snapped, "Would someone bring me a
drink?"
I sat down with a fan and iced tea, and moaned, "What will be, will be!"
There was little more to say when Mother Nature had her way but to resign oneself to her decree.

"If you can't change your fate, change your attitude." - Amy Tan
(b. 1952, American writer)

Letters

City Must Take Affordable Housing Seriously
Editor:

It has been two months since Evanston, the community that prides itself on its tolerance and support of diversity, voted down 27 units of affordable housing at Church Street and Darrow Avenue as a "dangerous concentration of poverty."

By a 5-4 (five Council members voting against two of their peers who represent the neighborhood), the City Council upheld the vote of the Plan Commission.

When is Evanston going to take the need for affordable housing seriously?

This project was not only a huge loss for the Church and Dodge neighborhood, which has seen a contaminated site near the high school stay vacant for more than 30 years, but also a loss for Evanston.

Why has there been no outcry against this? I admit that my three years of residency still qualify me as an outsider, not an Evanstonian, but I don't get it. This is not the part of Evanston that everyone talks about. I mean the Evanston proud to support the people of Darfur, monks in Tibet and freeing Ibrahim (whoever he may be).

This is some other Evanston; an Evanston that is willing to have teachers, nurses and members of the police and fire forces save lives in Evanston but prefers they find housing elsewhere.

The reality is that land values have increased rapidly in Evanston, and available properties are being snapped up just as fast for market-rate housing. Existing residents in modest homes are being pushed out of their neighborhoods.

The two aldermen representing the area realized that their constituents, many long-time Evanston residents, were losing their homes to developers.

They supported the project as the first step of many to help their residents to stay in the area and build the equity necessary for home ownership.

Darrow Corners was a good project. The non-profit developer was experienced and highly regarded.

The funding mechanism, Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), is the most important resource for building affordable housing in this country.

More than 1.2 million units have been built using this funding source since the program's inception in 1986.

This was an attractive, high-quality, yet affordable, rent-to-own project intended for Evanston residents who work here but can no longer afford to live here. The project was supported at the state level by an award of $6.4 million in Low Income Housing Tax Credits. One of the more exciting elements of the project, rare in affordable housing initiatives, the non-profit developer was pledging to match equity contributions with residents so that they would have the down payment needed to purchase their units at the end of the required 15-year rental period. This project would have been an asset to the neighborhood and the community at large. And, no City funds were required.

What are we going to do now as a community to make up for this loss? How will we make up the loss of $6.4 million in investment to the West Side? How will we make up the loss of homeownership to 27 families? The tax credits would have allowed 27 families to purchase homes valued at $300,000 for $185,000. When will we make a serious commitment to affordable housing? We can debate traffic and parking, but is Evanston really not the place it purports to be: a place that would support its residents and not sacrifice the less-affluent, existing renters who live and work here in favor of wealthy ones moving in from outside?
--Diane Lupke, Board of Directors, Evanston Community Development Corporation

Electric Car Conversion a Group Effort
Editor:

I would like to clarify a statement made in the article "Owners of Electric Car Get a Charge Out of a Movie." My electric car was converted 11 years ago by the Fox Valley Electric Auto Association (FVEAA) and was a group effort. As the car owner, I have made a number of modifications.

The FVEAA promotes efficient and clean electric-vehicle use and educates the public on these issues. We help our members convert vehicles to electric power. Meetings are held on the third Friday of each month. All interested people are invited to attend. For more information, please visit our website at www.fveaa.org.
-- George Gladic

Disappointed with Coverage of ETHS
Editor:

Page 34 of the July 12 RoundTable reads as if it was edited by an amateur. All three pieces on that page relate to ETHS. The hard news is below the fold; it says ETHS has a deficit for the second time in 50 years.

Above that is an innocuous bit announcing a public meeting to discuss "goals," one of which appears to be the budget but none of which relates to raising taxes to balance that budget. Lastly, the lead article is a soft piece on the new Superintendent. It is wholly silent about money; one assumes the subject never got raised.

The ETHS Board hired a salesman, rather than an educator, as Superintendent, because it knew it needed to sell a tax increase to the community.

Hiding the hard news is what the PR staff of the high school would prefer that the RoundTable do at this early stage in the run up to the election. But the RoundTable is a newspaper, not an adjunct to the ETHS Board. Its job is to tell the public what is going actually going on, not playing the game the Board is trying to play.
-Dan Feldman

Gerry Macsai is Right About Evanston
Editor:

I too mourn the loss of Darrow Corners [the proposed affordable housing development at Church Street and Darrow Avenue]. It would have been a wonderful addition to the affordable-housing scene in Evanston, fulfilling a need for affordable rentals in town and offering the remarkable opportunity to renters to become owners of their unit down the road.

An alderman commented at the Council meeting, in which he voted against the proposal, that he was sure that some marvelous opportunity for affordable homeownership – what the neighbors said they wanted – would appear for that property. Nothing of the sort seems to be on the radar screen.

In fact, the owner (not Housing Opportunity Development Corp.) is proposing that it become a parking lot for the redevelopment he wants to do at 1911-17 Church St.

There may be differing opinions on whether a parking lot on that site, more than a block away from the proposed development, will provide an upgrade for the neighborhood. However, I feel downhearted every time I go by that lot and think of the attractive building planned by HODC, which would have greatly enhanced that long-vacant, sad-looking space.

Perhaps the saddest thing of all about this missed opportunity is the loss of $6 million worth of affordable housing that would have provided wonderful, brand-new living space for Evanston residents without costing Evanston a penny.

There are two puzzling aspects to this Council decision.

First, both the aldermen of the neighborhood were in favor of this development. I'd like someone to cite for me situations where developments were proposed for an alderman's ward, supported by that alderman but voted down by his/her fellow aldermen. I don't recall its ever happening, in the last four or five years at least.

Second, I wonder how the dissenting aldermen align their decisions with the section of the Strategic Plan that they just adopted: Goal 2, which addresses "well- maintained, diverse housing stock throughout the City" and pledges to "create workforce ownership and rental- housing opportunities."

I urge the Council to pledge to search diligently for developers who will build for our City new affordable housing as handsome as that which we lost when they turned down Darrow Corners.
-- Sue Carlson

Outraged at Council Vote on Kendall
Editor:

I am writing to express my disappointment, no, my outrage at the Evanston City Council's actions on the proposed development at Kendall College and the lack of leadership on the part of First Ward Alderman Cheryl Wollin in whose ward the property at issue is located.

Alderman Wollin refuses to represent the desires of a plurality of her constituents in northeast Evanston, and she has failed to advocate for the interests of a majority of the Kendall neighborhood to her fellow aldermen.

The City Council has arbitrarily decided that it does not need to follow its own ordinances in regard to demolition and construction within a historic district. These behaviors are unconscionable.

For the past three years, Kendall Neighbors has represented the interests of the neighbors whose homes surround the Kendall property.

Neighbors have demonstrated their support for reasonable development of the Kendall property by, among other actions, placing signs supporting development consistent with their 100-year-old neighborhood on their lawns.

While Smithfield Properties, the developer, has made significant improvements in their proposed plan for the Kendall property, the current plan still has major flaws. These flaws could be easily remedied if the City Council insisted on eliminating them by following its own legal enactments.

What are the problems with the current plan? First, the plan calls for a small section of the Kendall block to be zoned R3 to permit the developer to build four duplexes.

Nowhere in Evanston is there currently a pocket of R3 completely surrounded by R1 single-family zoning. If R3 is permitted on the Kendall property, there is nothing to prevent a developer, or even a private citizen, from buying up two single family houses, tearing them down, and then requesting R3 zoning, citing Kendall as additional precedent. No R1 neighborhood would be immune from this threat.

Second, the precedent has already been set with the Sienna project in which a developer had a plan approved, could not sell all of the plan's particular type of home as quickly as he wanted, returned to the City pleading hardship and received approval to build more higher- density units, just as he wished to do.

There is a major concern among the Kendall neighbors that if Smithfield doesn't sell the single-family homes in a timely manner, he will return to the City and request authorization to build more duplexes and expand the R3-zoned area.

Third, the site plan has no interior circulation. All traffic enters and leaves the development on Sherman Avenue, creating a significant traffic concern for the families living on the west side of Sherman, all of whom have small children.

Last, the City Code requires that all demolitions and construction within a historic district, which includes the Kendall property, receive Certificates of Appropriateness from the Preservation Commission.

The Preservation Commission is also charged, by ordinance, with the responsibility to approve all aspects of design and materials on construction within a historic district. The Preservation Commission denied Smithfield's request for a Certificate of Appropriateness to demolish all the buildings on the Kendall block a year and a half ago. Despite this, the City has arbitrarily decided that Smithfield's current plan does not need to go back to the Preservation Commission for any review. Does this mean that a citizen can choose which laws he/she chooses to obey?

We, a distinct majority of the Kendall neighborhood, want the City Council to zone the entire Kendall block R1. The developer can make a handsome profit with R1 zoning ,and single-family homes only on R1 lots will generate taxes equal to taxes generated by a combination of R1 and R3.

The City needs to follow its own rules. Alderman Wollin needs to find the one vote needed to prevent the current plan from being approved. That is her responsibility to her constituents.

Citizens in all areas of Evanston need to be concerned about what happens at Kendall. If it happens here – R3 in the middle of R1 – it can happen to you.
--Ruthanne DeWolfe

Ed. note: An agreement between a neighborhood group and Smithfield Properties has been reached. The agreement, not yet considered by City Council, would have only single-family homes built on the property.

Exercising First Amendment Rights

Editor:

Recently, the Pro-Life Action League visited Evanston as part of our annual Face the Truth Tour, during which we lined major intersections with large signs showing the victims of abortion.

Local police were outstanding in preserving our First Amendment rights and looking out for the safety of both demonstrators and drivers.

For the most part, residents who saw our signs were receptive to our message, although some became angry enough to shout obscenities and otherwise indicate that we and our pictures were not welcome.

We realize that it is difficult to see the mangled bodies of aborted babies. It is a national tragedy that this evil is allowed to exist.

One of the sad facts about a society that permits abortion is that other innocent people suffer, including our children who are growing up in a culture of death that does not respect human beings.

Some people are outraged that when we display the graphic pictures along a road, young children may see them. Adults can explain to them that these aborted children have been hurt and that we are trying to prevent this from happening.

But if we hide these unborn victims of abortion from sight with the excuse that children shouldn't have to see such violence, we fail in our mission to tell the truth and protect human life.

We urge all Evanston RoundTable readers to learn more about abortion and about the alternatives to abortion, and to become involved in the fight to restore respect for human life at all stages. For information, call 773-777-2900 or visit our website at prolifeacvtion.org.
--Joseph M. Sheidler, National Director, Pro- Life Action Leage