Severance Approved, City Manager Erika Storlie To Resign Oct. 8

EVANSTON, IL — Erika Storlie will resign as city manager, effective Oct. 8, after the Evanston City Council approved a separation agreement with the longtime city staffer.

Councilmembers voted 5-4 to sign off on the severance deal at a special meeting Thursday after postponing a vote scheduled for Monday's regular meeting.

The 72-hour delay allowed for some tweaks to language in the agreement relating to an ongoing investigation into the handling of allegations of sexual misconduct, abuse and assault among lakefront staff in the city's Parks, Recreation and Community Services.

Mayor Daniel Biss assured the public that the changes had ensured that the city retains the discretion to determine what to release to the public following the investigation.

"In my view, when we get this report back, things that for which there's no strong clear reason not to disclose ought to be disclosed and that's what I'll be advocating for. And my sense, talking with my colleagues up here, is that's not going to be a controversial view." Biss said.

"Nothing that has been done tonight binds our hands. We will make the decision regarding what to release, and I think there's a lot of support up here for the kind of transparency the community's demanding."

Alds. Melissa Wynne, 3th Ward; Jonathan Nieuwsma, 4th Ward; Bobby Burns, 5th Ward; Tom Suffredin, 6th Ward, and Eleanor Revelle, 7th Ward, voted in favor.

Alds. Clare Kelly, 1st Ward; Peter Braithwaite, 2nd Ward; Devon Reid, 8th Ward, and Cicely Fleming, 9th Ward, voted against the agreement.

Neither Storlie nor city attorney Nick Cummings, with whom she negotiated the agreement, attended Thursday evening's meeting.

Fleming said her vote against the agreement was purely based on Storlie's job performance.

"It was based on: a year of knowing something and not telling your supervisors is problematic," Fleming said. "It was based on what I have come to learn, maybe, [that it] was not quite the investigation we proclaimed it to be in the beginning, which is why I supported us hiring an outside attorney to look into it because I didn't feel like us looking into it inside this building made sense."

Kelly and Reid tried unsuccessfully to convince one of the five-alderperson majority to motion for reconsideration. Kelly called for the elimination of a confidentiality clause in the agreement that says that "the City agrees to keep confidential information relating to Storlie's employment by the City, except as required by law."

Personnel files, Kelly pointed out, are already mostly confidential under state law.

"Why can't we stick with that?" Kelly asked. " I don't understand. Why are we feeling this need to amplify it to 17 years of work experience that involves, again, almost every employee and particularly upper management in the city.

Patch has obtained a copy of the agreement with the outside firm, which city officials had previously declined to release, citing attorney-client privilege with the law firm Salvatore, Prescott, Porter & Porter.

The scope of representation is described as the allegations of misconduct, the existence and effectiveness of internal controls within the city's Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department, the city's response to receiving complaints about harassment in July 2020 and recommendations about policy improvements or discipline of employees.

"[S]aid differently, 'who knew what and when' and how did they respond,'" the agreement said.

After the votes were tallied, council members heard comments from the public.

Martha Logan, a former city spokesperson and longtime parks department staffer, recalled that for her it had been "absolute opposite of a toxic work environment" to work with Storlie in the office of former City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz.

"I do not have any insight into the lakefront — or what happened after the report was made — but I think most people in Evanston actually don't have any direct knowledge either, and that's why the investigation was called for," Logan said. "It appears that Erica is being forced out long before the investigation concludes. And I hope that wanting to act, to just act to do something, does not leave the city to lose one of his best and brightest just to show that you're doing something."

Resident Mike Davis, a funder of the Evanston Together LLC campaign group, called on council members to wait for the results of the investigation into the city's handling of the reported misconduct.

"We do not know what evidence has been gathered. We do not know what the law firm will conclude. We do not have a final report, far from it," Davis said. "Some people here, in this meeting — regrettably, sadly, very sadly — see opportunity in this matter. They seek to take advantage of this sad situation. Ms. Erika Storlie must not be scapegoated. She must not be bullied. Our mayor and this council must not railroad Ms. Storlie. We must not go down this path, this awful path."

Mike Vasilko, a prolific public commenter, blamed Storlie for misrepresenting financial and budget matters under Bobkiewicz and after succeeding the former city manager on an interim, an later permanent, basis.

"Erika is the responsible person in charge. The fact is, Erika Storlie leads a staff that has bad actors in authoritative positions. She did not clean house. She had the opportunity to do so," Vasilko said. "The lifeguard issue is just the most high-profile and outrageous of all the cover-ups that have taken place in that group in the city manager's office."

Read more:

• Confidentiality Clause Changed In Negotiated Resignation Deal
• Vote On Separation Agreement With Evanston City Manager Postponed
• Sex Scandal Secrecy Stipulated In City Manager's Severance Deal
• Severance Deal For Evanston City Manager Erika Storlie On Agenda
• Lakefront Sex Harassment Scandal Probe Assigned To Outside Firm
• Harassment Petition Not Shared By Staff, Evanston Mayor Says