A proposal to enact a $5 per month head tax on all Evanston businesses with more than 10 employees, including Northwestern, will be on November’s ballot if approved by the Evanston Township’s board of trustees.
The motion was put forth by members of the Fair Share Action Committee at Tuesday night’s annual township meeting. The township encompasses the same area as the city and provides assistance to the poor, such as helping residents with medical expenses and job training. The City Council comprises the township’s board of trustees and convened as the board before its regular meeting Tuesday night.
City attorney Herbert Hill said the township did not have the power to levy the proposed taxes and that a law passed by the township could not create such a tax in the city.
“I do not believe the township has the authority to pass a head tax,” Hill said.
Mike Rothschild, the Fair Share committee’s treasurer, disagreed.
“The fact that it’s a township meeting doesn’t preclude referendums about the city,” Rothschild said.
The Fair Share committee was founded to negotiate funds from NU. It placed a referendum on the ballot in March 2000 calling for the council to do so, which passed with more than 83 percent of the vote.
City Council has rejected bids to create a head tax two years in a row.
Ald. Arthur Newman (1st) urged the proposal’s supporters to fully consider the consequences of a head tax. He said that it will make it more difficult to attract businesses to Evanston and provide a disincentive for businesses to locate their premises in the city.
“This will end up backfiring on those of you who want to increase tax revenue,” Newman said.
Evanston resident Roberta Hudson said she was “appalled” by Newman’s focus on the tax’s effect on business.
“He has no consideration for those residents who are losing their homes,” Hudson said.
The annual meeting is usually used to give an update on the township’s financial situation.
But there is an opportunity for items to be added to the meeting’s agenda with approval from three-fifths of the registered Evanston voters in attendance. Once on the agenda, only the approval of a majority of the voters is needed to pass the proposal.
Before anything could be passed, City Clerk Mary Morris had to create a way for those in attendance to vote. She went around the room and asked all the people in attendance if they were registered Evanston voters.
Morris collected the names without checking the voter rolls or forcing voters to show identification, facts that worried Ald. Edmund Moran (6th).
“It’s going to make Florida look like a walk in the park,” Moran said, making reference to the 2000 presidential election.
In the past, Newman said, motions were passed by a simple “yea” or “nay” vote of all those in attendance.
“We just ought to accept on the good faith of the people that are here that they are electors,” Newman said.
This would discredit the process, Rothschild said, making it more difficult for the referendum to survive until November.
The votes were taken by asking all those in favor to stand up to be counted. The number of votes needed for a majority on motions changed throughout the night as several people left the meeting.
Newman said he regretted the fact that more people opposed to the motion were not in attendance, but Ald. Ann Rainey (8th) said the blame for that should go only to those who were absent.
