Here’s a recap of our live coverage of tonight’s City Council meeting.
Recap: City Council
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8th and 9th ward aldermen – The Voices of Reason
But Grover says:
Actually, I heard Grover say that the Branch supporters accomplished their goal ( like George Bush). They didn’t.. they fell short. Rainey is right.
What we are seeing on TV tonight looks a whole lot like the Tower meetings…where a bunch of noisy activists show up at Council and try to pretend that they represent all residents of Evanston.
Aldermen Have Library Egg All Over Their Face!
Rather than waiting for a full presentation from the EPLF group before commenting at last night’s City Council meeting, some aldermen & Mr. Who Knows made them selves look more ridiculous than usual. One would not think that is possible. Perhaps, their energy could be better used by investigating how the COE got bankrupt in the first place. The City continues to give money out as if there is not a $175 million dollar pension deficit on our books. The EDC (Economic Development Committee) has given 100 k to a tech incubator, voted to give 50k for a tot lot @ 1125 Dewey (1 1/2 blocks from Robert Crown, where a tot lot is part of a request for proposals)and voted to give up to 20k to Ventura Realty to spruce up the property directly east of the police station on Elmwood (not one EDC member asked how much the buyer paid and if that amount was way under market value. The COE continues to "privatize profit & property values while socializing risk". Also, the comment was made by Ald. Wynne @ the June 23rd EDC meeting that the EDC had gotten more done in the last 5 weeks (with the addition of 2 new employees) than the previous 5 years. One would consider a quote like this to be "headline news", however I haven’t seen it anywhere with our local, alleged, journalistic watchdogs. Mayor Tisdahl and the other veteran aldermen that served on the EDC the last 5 years should be ashamed of the poor job they did @ EDC. In a small defense of Dennis Marino & Morris Robinson (who recently retired), they were never given the money to staff the EDC properly. Evanston’s financial problems did not happen overnight nor in a vacumn. The coming tax increase for the pension deficit (Mayor Tisdahl’s statement @ library press conference) happened on her watch along with her fellow veteran aldermen. The branch libraries would never (and should never) have been an issue if our elected officials had not given the store away to developers, unions (some who donated $500.00 & political labor to candidates) and non-conservative fiscal spending. We all know now that closing the branch libraries, rather than cutting patronage, cutting give aways to developers, and cutting other expenses was a terrible idea both from a political perspective & from a bad publicity perspective. I would suggest a large dish of crow & humble pie be served cold to those that don’t seem to understand that our misguided priorities in the COE will doom us. Why is the outrage not directed at the politicians that put us in this economic disaster, rather than a grass roots community group that unfortunately had to get involved to fund the library. Any casual observer of the COE government in action knows that our elected officials would lose 160k just walking around the block. It’s been going on for years. Where is the outrage about that? Fortunately, for the whole COE, a grass roots group like the EPLF, rose up to be listened & responded to in great numbers. We and future generations of Evanston citizens owe them deeply for saving us from ourselves and some of our elected officials.