9th Ward City Council Hopefuls Make Public Pitch For Appointment

EVANSTON, IL — Seven residents of Evanston's 9th Ward seeking to be Mayor Daniel Biss' choice to succeed former Ald. Cicely Fleming on the City Council appeared Thursday at a forum.

The seven appointee hopefuls included two former candidate for the aldermanic seat and one of Biss' primary opponents in last year's mayoral election.

Each candidate provided an introductory statement, addressed how they would communicate with 9th Ward residents, and what would be their top priority, if appointed.

Stacia Campbell, who described herself as a writer, educator, public servant, wife and mother, is a college counselor who recently completed her first novel. She said her first priority was the search for the next city manager.

"Then the second thing that I'm really keen on is really seeing how environmental justice connects with social justice at every turn," Campbell said. "Because if we don't have an environment that is healthy for us, with healthy land, clean water, all of it, then we don't have the ability to really take care of each other at a fundamental level."

Dan Coyne is a licensed social worker for Evanston/Skokie School District 65, a member of the Reba Development Corporation board and a former Ridgeville Park District board member who has previously sought appointment as 9th Ward alderman.

"The most passionate aspect of my work right now is affordable housing," Coyne said. "How can we help our citizens afford to live here? We're not all earning $200,000 or $300,000 a year. Not all of us can afford $4,000 a month rent."

Juan Geracaris, the vice president of Evanston Latinos and the co-founder of Evanston Skates, said many resident probably know him as the owner of a house on a corner with a large garden with all the chickens.

"My main focus is I want to keep Evanston affordable for everyone," Geracaris said. "This is a town I want everyone to experience and stay here."

Kathelyn Hayes is an Evanston native who spent more than 24 years working for Cook County government before retiring. She has worked with Ceasefire violence interruption group and spent more than 20 years on the board of the Sankofa Safe Child Initiative, which provides trauma-informed services to underserved communities.

"I want to do it all, and as a newly retired lady I get to have time to follow as many passions as I so desire," Hayes said. "I've been blessed to achieve many of the personal goals that many people take for granted but I want to see everyone have that ability to be able to do these things. My main issue is public safety. Because if you don't feel safe, if you aren't in a place of comfort you won't be able to achieve any of those issues."

Frederic Goodwill is an attorney who has spent about a decade with a solo legal practice after spending about 25 years working mostly in the area of environmental law. He said there are opportunities to address crises before they occur.

"If I were to pick one [priority,] I would say the intersection between housing and environmental justice," he said. "It's the impact that people say because they don't have the mobility that I have, they don't have the ability to move from one location to another or away from the locations where they're living so one of the things that's really important is to address that opportunity gap on a larger scale."

Shawn Jones, who ran against Fleming in 2017, has a solo law practice in downtown Evanston and formerly covered the City Council for the Evanston Roundtable. He has served on the city's Housing and Community Development Committee and the Alternatives to Arrest Committee.

"My passion is in small business development and getting the butcher paper off those storefronts downtown. Our property tax burden is a big, big part of our affordable housing problem," Jones said. "Generating sales tax revenue limits property taxes. Right now we generate $16 million to $18 million in sales tax, we get a little over $6.5 million from property taxes that go into our general fund. If we increase our sales tax revenue, we don't have to increase property taxes."

Sebastian Nalls is a Purdue University undergraduate who became a community activist after running for mayor last year. He was subsequently appointed to the governor's inaugural Office of Equity. He said residents told him affordability and livability were the biggest issues.

"What I would like to do within the first year of being in office is looking at new revenue streams, whether that's being a part of the PILOT program, the Payment In Lieu Of Taxes Task Force that Councilmember [Clare] Kelly has been seeking to create that would essentially give a new revenue stream for some nonprofit entities in Evanston so that they would be paying, or contributing, to our overall budget that we say a $2.5 million deficit this previous budget season, entities such as Northwestern who take up about $35 million of non-taxable land."

Biss said he plans to name his appointment by the middle of next week with an eye to have the new councilmember confirmed by the City Council at its next scheduled meeting on Feb. 28.

The mayor said he was confident any one of the candidates who appeared at the forum would be easily confirmed by the council. Whoever is appointed will serve through next year's spring municipal elections.

An eighth candidate, Nickolas Stamed, did not appear at the forum. Biss said he had been unable to reach him.

"This has been a very aggravating evening for me because you all have made my choice extremely difficult," Biss said.

"This has been very, very impressive and — corny tongue-in-cheek jokes aside — it's been very uplifting for me to see this group of really different people," he continued. "All very thoughtful, all committed to public service, all wanting to give of themselves and all speaking in really different and inspiring ways about how they can work together to make things better in this pretty special community."