Evanstonians for Responsible Planning

08/25/2026

Council Meeting:

Thank you, Ald Clare Kelly, who made a motion that was approved to REJECT staff's suggested change to the zoning consultant RFP budget to "reduce the level of effort [by consultant) associated with the draft and final work plan." (!) This was concerning on several levels, especially the vague reduction in the consultant's effort on the final product and the increased responsibilities being assigned to staff. The last thing we want is to shift responsibilities to heavy-handed staff with a history of forcing predetermined outcomes. PASSES.

Ald. Kelly also rejected staff's proposal to reduce working group oversight. PASSES. Not sure why she didn't also push back on staff taking on more responsibilities, like coordinating meeting agendas. Staff needs to stop SHAPING policy in these ways.

Ald. Kelly also tried to have the final zoning contract come back to Council, since many items are still up in the air and will be "negotiated by the city manager." She wanted the exact details in writing and not just relying on the city manager to make many decisions.

For some reason, Mayor Biss mocks her for this.

Ald Kelly: "Why Daniel, are you surprised that we would final approval on one of the biggest contracts we are undertaking?"

Burns has a compromise...city staff will email councilmembers a contract for review before it is signed. If anything significant is missing, council members can ask that it go back to Council.

Another key learning: City Staff member Liz Williams, *who is a Skokie resident* will "own this process" and will be THE point person on the zoning rewite. Sarah Flax and others on her team will be involved, of course. Why is it acceptable that a staff member who does not live here, will not be impacted by a major transformation in Evanston, gets to have this role? What happened to city staff being required to live in Evanston? We need someone else in this role.

Biss: It is 10pm, pursuant to new rules, so Council should adjourn. Once again, Ald Nieuwsma votes to extend the hours of the meeting! What is the point of the rule? Last meeting was 9 hours, went through a dangerous storm and was NINE HOURS LONG.

08/25/2026

City Council meeting tonight - Envision Evanston zoning contract.

08/05/2026

We now have our answer: Evanston City Clerk Stephanie Mendoza, a staunch Biss ally and key player in Evanston Machine politics, will be the Biss 2.0 candidate.

Early indications are that Mendoza would/will further Biss's misguided, uncompromising, divisive, ideology-driven tenure, regardless of the actual impact on Evanston and Evanstonians. Another candidate who will likely put City of Evanston staff (many non-residents) in the driver's seat, overstepping their unelected role in pushing outcomes.

It is time to have a candidate who centers the best interests of Evanston and Evanstonians, not just those of luxury developers. It is time for a mayor to be more thoughtful and careful as a caretaker of this city. And not pretend that careless, blanket upzoning for market-rate development that will incentivize the replacement of our low- and moderate-income housing with luxury development will help rather than hurt our residents and town and transform this city in the opposite as intended way. We already know that forcing an uncompromising agenda, instead of governing with pragmatism or a focus on doing the expected job well, will lead to disastrous results - just look at District 65's recent past as a cautionary tale.

Let's get behind a pragmatic and responsible candidate who centers and values Evanston and the people who live here now. Not a continuation of an approach that many believe has been largely divisive, unsuccessful and unhelpful for our city.

08/01/2026

Which current elected official will run to be the Biss 2.0 mayoral candidate?

07/29/2026

Daniel Biss submitted his official resignation yesterday. Last day: October 18.

07/29/2026

Last night, City Council held a NINE-hour meeting from 3 p.m. to midnight during one of the worst storms in recent memory, with potentially dangerous conditions for people trying to attend: flooded streets, downed trees, live wires, and massive tree branches still falling. Some residents who wanted to speak at the meeting could not because they had no power or were dealing with flooded basements and live wires.

At 10 p.m., the seven-hour mark, Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma moved to overrule the council's 10 p.m. stop rule to ensure the meeting continued.

Ironically, while the meeting was underway, the City of Evanston sent out emails about the storm, recovery efforts, and how it would be helping the hundreds of people calling, the thousands without power, the blocked sewer drains, downed trees, etc.

While some cities canceled their city council meetings "due to inclement weather and out of an abundance of caution for the safety of our residents, elected officials, and staff," Evanston pushed its meeting through the storm, and the council majority, led by Ald. Nieuwsma, ensured it became a marathon.
The city manager should have canceled or postponed the meeting, and once it became clear the dangerous conditions and widespread outages would continue into the evening. At the very least, residents should have been encouraged not to attend in person.

And Evanston must never, ever have a meeting that lasts nine hours. The 10 p.m. stop rule should never be overruled under circumstances like these.

Really puzzling why the council majority—and Ald. Nieuwsma in particular—continue to insist on marathon meetings, regardless of the circumstances.

Here is the notification from the city, as the meeting was in hour two…

To note: actually, it’s not puzzling. There were meetings nearly this long during Biss’s rush review schedule of the Envision Evanston comp plan. The reason? The near obsession with changing our zoning code to blanket upzoning for market rate development no matter what. On Monday, the Biss bloc had hoped they could push the one and only serious zoning RFP response through. They also rejected calls to reopen the RFP to get additional responses.

City Notice: Storm Recovery Upate City of Evanston, Illinois sent this bulletin at 07/27/2026 05:49 PM CDT Monday, July 27, 2026 | View in browser Storm Recovery Update Public Safety Police and Fire Department personnel continue to respond to hundreds of calls about downed trees, etc. Numerous stree...

07/28/2026

Ald Rodgers will place a hold on the RFP for a zoning consultant.

Ald Nieuwsma wants to overturn the motion to hold.

Ald Suffredin wants to know why we ended up with only 1 response in the entire industry.

Liz Williams: 11 individuals downloaded the plan, but one is a local newspaper. One is a different type of firm. That is the universe that received.

Ald. Suffredin: what can we do?

Williams: You have to rewrite your RFP. We gave 6.5 weeks. Council would likely review and vote on draft RFP. Next August. Would be 13 weeks.

Ald. Kelly: Have lots of questions. Could we request to have a Q and A with the firm?

We could work this into the process.

Juan Geracaris: Wants to make a decision.

[THE DIFFERENCE IN STANDARDS IS SO UNFAIR.]

Rodgers: We are asking firms to make a huge investment. If I had my way, I would vote it down and re-look at the process. Code Studio is good, but how do I know. Also, I am not willing to accept that all the problems come from the code. We keep getting few responses and we just keep going forward like that. Great example of how we can fix.

Nieuwsma: Lack of players. But by holding, we are putting fuel on that. I am ready to move [surprise.]

Suffredin: If we switched to RFQ, would that be shorter? [Yes.] There should have been more alarms. What can we do to improve the wider array of responses? "Get it right" should be a sold goal instead of just go forward with the one proposal we have.

Rodgers: Do we look at the RFP? Do we want to have that discussion tonight? I do not think we are prepared.

Burns: I am supportive of a hold. Not that we can resolve our RFP in the three months. I would like at least another meeting, especially around community engagement.

Motion to overturn the hold: DOES NOT PASS.

The RFP will be held until next meeting.

07/28/2026

Ald Kelly points out that there is a rule that Council should adjourn at 10 pm, and would like to adjourn.

Ald Nieuwsma would like to overrule the rules and vote to stay!

Ald. Kelly points out that it is unreasonable to ask council members to continue to deliberate beyond 7 hours.

Ald Rodgers is willing to move ahead (Why? This is ridiculous!)

They will continue with their work.

Not only that, but this meeting occurred through a terrible and dangerous storm that caused a lot of damage in Evanston with 6,000 residents without power. Some residents wanted to come and participate in the meeting, but had no power, had flooding, had downed trees and live wires.

WHY? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?!!!!

How long is too long? 8 hours? 9 hours?

07/28/2026

Ald Davis is proposing to change NU's alcohol license to extend the time from half an hour to an hour before the end of a game when alcohol service must stop.

NU was not expecting this.

07/28/2026

This City Council meeting - listed as beginning at 3:15 pm, is going on *7 hours!* This is outrageous. What is wrong with the City of Evanston - why pack the agenda with so many items?