Hey President Bienen: You’ve got mail.

Evanston City Council’s Rules Committee voted 7-0 Monday night to mail a letter to University President Henry Bienen asking him to schedule a meeting with a city negotiation team to discuss the results of the March 21 fair-share referendum.

In the Illinois primary election, more than 80 percent of voting Evanston residents supported City Council’s advisory referendum proposing that the city negotiate with Northwestern for payment of its “fair share” of the cost of city municipal services.

Rules Committee members decided in their April 4 meeting to draft a letter to NU administrators regarding the negotiations. The consensus of the aldermen at that meeting was that the referendum presented a mandate to city officials to begin negotiations with NU, said Ald. Steven Bernstein (4th), the committee chairman.

After an hour of discussion, aldermen approved the final wording of the letter Monday night and voted to send it as soon as possible.

The aldermen made several changes to the draft letter presented to them by Bernstein at the beginning of the committee meeting.

In response to concerns raised by Ald. Ann Rainey (8th), the committee members shortened the letter by more than half, cutting out two of three paragraphs. The deleted paragraphs contained facts about taxes and tax exemption, as well as redundant information that the aldermen condensed into a few sentences.

“My idea of the correct letter would be about two sentences,” Rainey said. “No frills and no flourishes.”

Ald. Ed Moran (6th), who voted against holding the referendum in the first place, agreed that the city should not allow NU to determine the negotiations’ course. He recommended that the aldermen specify the amount of money it expects to receive from the university rather than allow the university to determine how it will pay the city.

“I don’t see why you ask Northwestern what they want to talk about,” Moran said. “The referendum didn’t say anything about what Northwestern would want.”

But Ald. Arthur Newman (1st) said the negotiators will need to keep an open mind if they hope to get anywhere with university administrators. He said he feared talks would shut down if they only asked for a financial contribution. But Newman also said the team had to avoid making compromises at the city’s expense.

“I’m not interested in having a quid pro quo discussion,” he said.

The aldermen also emphasized that they plan to hold most of the negotiations in a public forum.

“Northwestern is not entitled to any secret negotiations,” Newman said. “They’re no different than anybody else in this town. I think the public is entitled to know.”

The aldermen’s insistence on open negotiations follows charges made in early April that City Council violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act. In late 1998 Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Karen Griffin investigated the council’s executive sessions and found several violations.

Evanston resident Rick Steinberg addressed the committee Monday night and asked the aldermen to release the minutes of the meetings that Griffin had found to be in violation of the act.

“We feel shut out and we shouldn’t,” he said. “You’re our neighbors. You’re spending tons of our money and I think we should know about it.”

The aldermen voted to review the minutes of the closed sessions and release those that won’t affect ongoing negotiations.

“I want it all to get out there,” Newman said. “But I don’t want to hurt the community by giving someone a tip-off.”