Vote On Separation Agreement With Evanston City Manager Postponed

EVANSTON, IL — After public comments decrying a secrecy clause contained in a draft separation agreement with City Manager Erika Storlie from more than a dozen residents Monday night, the City Council recessed into executive session for more than an hour and a half of closed-door discussion.

Mayor Daniel Biss returned to the dais after deliberations, saying the gravity of the matter was very clear from the comments from the public, conversations with constitutions and among councilmembers.

"There's a lot to talk through here. There are critical questions at stake," Biss said. "The stakes are enormous for our city government, and for our whole community — for the trust between our city government of the community — and so the resolution that was reached was to decline to take action tonight."

Storlie negotiated the severance deal with Corporation Counsel Nick Cummings, and its approval was recommended by Biss, according to materials accompanying the agenda for Monday's meeting.

The terms of the draft agreement would have seen Storlie depart in October with a compensation package and a confidentiality clause that critics claimed could cover up the circumstances of her departure by restricting the release of the contents of an outside law firm's investigation into city staff's handling of sexual misconduct allegations.

Diane Goldring was among the residents who called for councilmembers to delete the confidentiality clause from the agreement. The runner-up in this spring's race for 4th Ward alderman said during public comment that the decision of whether to disclose a redacted version of the report is up to the City Council.

"The outgoing city manager has absolutely no business preventing the report from being released publicly," Goldring said. "It's highly inappropriate and, frankly, suspicious that the city manager, as a condition of her separation, would require that the report be kept secret before it's even written. Presumably, no one yet knows what the report is going to say."

Related: Sex Scandal Secrecy Stipulated In City Manager's Severance Deal

Sebastian Nalls spoke on behalf of the group Community Alliance for a Better Government. The former mayoral candidate called on councilmembers to fulfill their campaign pledges of transparency.

"The independent investigation report into sexual misconduct allegations should be made available to the public in full, with redactions of personal information pertaining to survivors of the alleged misconduct," Nalls said. "Any pre-commitment of confidentiality before results have arrived will only further mistrust."

Karen Courtright said she had recently heard consistent answers in the course of conversations with several lifeguards — the city employees at the center of the sexual harassment scandal that preceded Storlie's seemingly imminent departure. They told her the lakefront has been understaffed for the past two years, and the level of hazing and harassment faced by new lifeguards made it difficult to recruit new employees.

"People just don't want to put up with that kind of treatment," Courtright said. "And the supervisors who are implicated in this kind of behavior are the same as the creepy supervisors in the sexual harassment issue."

Mollie Hartenstein, speaking on behalf of the group Evanston Fight for Black Lives, said there were parallels between the negotiated resignation of the city manager and former Police Chief Demitrous Cook's "forced" resignation in June.

"When they leave under the veil of secrecy, when the city continues to withhold information important to citizens to protect itself, there can be no accountability for anyone involved and nothing changes," Hartenstein said. "Instead of using these resignations as an opportunity for growth and to better reflect the needs of its residents, the city has doubled down on its self-serving and self-righteous behavior."

Related: Severance Deal For Evanston City Manager Erika Storlie On Agenda

A few residents shared criticisms of the separation agreement other than the confidentiality clause.

Pete Giangreco, 4th Ward resident and secretary of the nonprofit Friends of Robert Crown, said it was "ironic" that the City Council's "reaction" to a recent municipal award was an effort to "get rid" of the city manager.

"You should be ashamed of yourselves," Giangreco said. "Erika has served this city for 16 years. She not only made this award possible, more importantly, she ran the city as a smart manager problem solver who had no political agenda. So the question is, who's next? ... Are we going to have an interim city manager? Are we doing it on the fly? Are we going to hold up a national search for six months like it happened last time? Is there a secret plan? A little transparency would help."

After the executive session, Biss thanked Storlie and councilmembers for their "robust participation" in the discussion. He said city officials would attempt to address some of the concerns with the agreement and put it up for public inspection before to a vote.

"Because everyone on the dais knows and believes a decision of this magnitude that's made without meaningful public input is enormously risky for our whole community," he added. "So with that, the council has agreed to come back on Thursday evening."