After two years of rhetoric and banter, the two major players in the fair-share debate may be close to taking their seats at the bargaining table.

After University President Henry Bienen agreed in early July to meet with Evanston officials to discuss the results of the March fair-share referendum, City Council voted to form a three-person negotiating team composed of Ald. Arthur Newman (1st), Ald. Steven Bernstein (4th) and Ald. Ann Rainey (8th).

The only remaining obstacle is the parties’ decision whether to hold at least the first meeting in private. The city has insisted that all discussions must be open to the public, even if audience members are not allowed to comment.

“The public ought to know what’s going on,” Newman said. “There’s no reason for people to hear it second- or third-person.”

Eugene Sunshine, NU’s senior vice president for business and finance, said he believes the meeting will only be productive if it is held behind closed doors. And he said the university is unlikely to change its stance any time soon.

He said the council’s decision in late May to pass the Northeast Evanston Historic District showed NU administrators that the aldermen aren’t willing to make compromises on the university’s behalf.

The town-gown debate came to a head in the March 21 Illinois primary election, when more than 80 percent of voting Evanston residents supported City Council’s advisory referendum proposing that the city negotiate with NU for payment of its “fair share” of the cost of municipal services.

For more than 100 years, Evanston residents and NU administrators have been tangled in an oft-bitter debate on whether the university should do more to ensure the city’s financial security.

Because of its 1851 state charter, NU is exempt from paying property taxes that the city uses to fund services such as police and fire protection, road maintenance, and parks and recreation.

Sunshine said the university contributes to the city’s well-being in other ways — including paying the city more than $3.5 million in other taxes and fees, creating jobs for Evanston residents and purchasing more than $15 million in goods and services from Evanston businesses.

But city officials have long said NU doesn’t do enough, and the members of the council’s negotiation team hope to change that.

Bernstein said he is looking forward to representing the council on the team and thinks he was chosen because his fellow aldermen trust him to be fair in his representation of the city’s interests.

“I like to think I’m centered,” he said. “I don’t have any axes to grind against Northwestern.”

Bernstein also said he thinks he will be an asset for the negotiating team because of his strong council record as a peacemaker.

“I fight for a living, so I don’t want to fight all the time,” he said. “I always try to build a consensus.”

But Newman, who historically has been at odds with NU administrators though his ward includes much of the campus, said nomination to the team does come with some drawbacks.

“This is not a dream assignment,” he said. “You really don’t control your own destiny here.”