The Evanston City Council’s continuing inability to land a new city manager got some outside attention Monday.
The Chicago Tribune published a lengthy editorial headlined “Evanston can’t be so rough on its city manager that no one wants the job.”
It recounted the long search saga so far and endorsed the recent suggestion from Mayor Daniel Biss that for round three of the search the Council should just present one candidate to the community — rather than publicly identifying two finalists.
The Trib called Evanston a place “where contention floats through the air.”
And there was more evidence for that — with the Citizens Network of Protection emailing Biss and council members Sunday demanding that interim Police Chief Richard Eddington’s contract not be extended beyond the end of this month and insisting that a state police trooper be named to fill the interim job instead.
As for the city manager search itself — the Council has yet to schedule any special closed-door meetings this week to consider possible candidates for the job.
The Council has scheduled a special meeting for Monday afternoon for “ethics training” for its members — something the alders are supposed to undergo periodically.
Who belongs to the many groups that lobby City Council? The group names are always very grand, but do they represent only a very few people? What is Citizens Network of Protection?
CNP has a website that lists its board members.
Now we are going to spend even more money on a Consulting firm out of Baltimore to find our City Manager. I just don’t understand why we are not looking within our talented city staff to fill this position. They know the city and many of the residents. If they are qualified…for goodness sake hire them now and be done with it!!!!
Citizens Alliance for Better Government or CABG is another. In the last election they endorsed Devon Reid, Clare Kelly and Mary Rosinski.
They are essentially the same group as the “Citizens Network of Protection.” The guy who ran against Melissa Wynne is on the Board of Directors of both groups.
These are essentially NIMBY folks who show up at public comment finding something to complain about. Lots of them were part of the anti-Robert Crown group and the anti-Housing Opportunities for Women Dempster St. project.
Their constituency is minuscule but since they show up at everything the council apparently feels pressured by them. Maybe with good reason since Clare Kelly and Devon Reid were affiliated with these groups and then won seats on the council. You can see from Kelly’s brief tenure that she has very little in the way of constructive ideas for the city and her ward–just look at her opposition to redeveloping the eyesore Burger King lot.
(We don’t need to re-hash Reid’s ridiculous “agenda” and his penchant for making life for staff unbearable while also using his Judge Judy level of jurisprudence to argue constitutionality with actual trained lawyers)
It is just “no, no, no” from these folks without any pragmatic ideas about how to solve pressing problems related to housing, safety, sustainability, etc…
I’m the man for the job. First task is getting rid of the speed bumps in west village.
And Alderman Reid isn’t helping either.
The Trib called Evanston a place “where contention floats through the air.”
That’s accurate. ; )