Southeast Evanston Association Positions noted for community

July 23, 2024

Dear SEA Members,

The Board of the Southeast Evanston Association (SEA) would like to thank you for your interest in our community and to add our thanks to the City Council and City officials for their hard work and efforts to make Evanston successful. On Sunday, July 14, the organization gathered for its annual open house meeting to share our collective thoughts about decisions that impact residents in southeast Evanston, as well as the larger city. We were delighted to include new Land Use Commissioner, Darush Mabadi, amongst our guests.

SEA and its Board aims to fulfill these essential tenets of our bylaws with the help of our members:

*Preserve the essentially residential character of Southeast Evanston through developing citizen participation in the processes of city zoning and planning.

*Maintain and improve practices and regulations affecting Evanston land use.

*Aid in the solution of community problems and encourage informed citizen participation in community affairs.

*Foster research, education and study of various aspects of legislation directly affecting our community.

*Provide a clearinghouse for information on community affairs.

*Actively monitoring development along the lakefront, as well as events and uses that are scheduled and requested. We believe in an active, healthy and vibrant lakefront, that allows people to freely enjoy nature without overcrowding or misuse

While keeping our core values in mind, the group collectively expressed some frustration with the City’s decision making. The concerns included:

• Too many planned events along the lakefront is making passive enjoyment very difficult from April into October and in some cases make certain portions of the lakefront inaccessible for days at a time.
• Unpermitted gatherings, such as worship services and tai chi classes, which have not gone through the proper processes as outlined by the Parks and Recreation Department.
• A focus on monetizing the lakefront area in seemingly small ways that do not seem to provide any real monetary gain, and are often considered without research or fact-based decision making.
• Non-linear decision making for the Noyes Cultural Center and Civic Center infrastructure needs. Lack of long-term planning for those large buildings, both of which show a clear need for “renewal” that has been ignored.
• An over reliance on expensive consultants, which have at times led to wasted expenditures. We note below that the full-time staff in Evanston is about double that of other communities in the area and while Evanston may provide more services, the numbers may also indicate that the city should be doing more without the use of outside consultants:

Comparison to some other communities:

No. of FTE Employees City Population

Wilmette 140 28,000

Winnetka 153 12,256

Skokie 168 64,021

Park Ridge 193 39,563

Des Plaines 300 60,675

Oak Park 327 51,282

Evanston 700 79,800

Number of FTE positions per resident can be affected by: public safety issues, density, priorities of the city, number of libraries, call response time by

police/fire departments, etc. I.e., all the services that make living here desirable.

• Finally, as many Evanstonians continue to express, we wish Northwestern was able to provide more funds for and collaboration with the city and its residents.

We welcome thoughts, concerns and efforts to collaborate with our organization. Our email address is info@southeastevanston.org.

Sincerely,

Josh Bowes-Carlson, SEA President

Martha Ash, SEA Board Member

Zafiro Papastratakos, SEA Board Member

Jean Prindiville, SEA Board Member

Mimi Roeder, SEA Board Member

Marcus Thimm, SEA Board Member

John Walsh, SEA Board Member

Laurie Zoloth, SEA Board Member