ASG’s liaison to City Council said Thursday that Northwestern and Evanston officials should have alerted students to a proposed increase in residence hall and Greek house rooming fees.
Associated Student Government passed a resolution Wednesday saying the proposed hike in rooming house fees is unfair to students. City Council’s proposal — a piece of the 2003-04 budget — would double the fees.
“Nobody had been told about it, which was alarming because the fees … have a really big impact on NU,” said ASG City Council liaison Courtney Brunsfeld. “Students had no idea this was being proposed.”
NU students should fight the increase currently under consideration, said Brunsfeld, who submitted the resolution.
“Students share an unfair burden of this increase,” she said.
The fee increase is part of a budget amendment proposed by Ald. Gene Feldman (9th) in January. The amendment would generate extra revenue to prevent cuts to police and fire service and to keep the South Branch Library open. Feldman said doubling the fees would bring in $188,000 of a total $888,000 in new funds generated by his amendment.
The fees, which were last increased in 2000, apply to hotels and Evanston rooming houses but bring in most of their revenue from NU.
City Council should have informed ASG and the university about the proposal, Brunsfeld said.
Brunsfeld said she will present a copy of the resolution to the council at Monday’s meeting, when aldermen are expected to make a final decision on the 2003-04 budget.
Students should call their aldermen and attend the meeting to let the council know what they think, Brunsfeld said. Then the city would know the increase would affect students personally.
“Students feel it impacts them, not just the university,” Brunsfeld said. She said the aldermen are “thinking it’s a blow to NU, not a blow to all the students who live at NU who are their constituents.”
Ald. Stephen Engelman (7th) has said the increase in license fees may not be necessary because City Manager Roger Crum said the city may have $200,000 more in total funds than expected.
The aldermen have discussed exempting hotels, the YMCA and owner-occupied rooming houses from the fee increase, but no one has mentioned a break for NU, but
Diane Korling, owner and occupant of a rooming house at 1914 Orrington Ave., said she considers a fee increase fair as long as it is proportional to the cost of inspecting buildings. But the fees should not be used solely to generate revenue, she said.
“If they begin to use these things as strictly revenue sources, there seems to be no end as to how high those charges might go,” Korling said. “That would concern me.”
The cost of inspecting rooming houses has increased since fees were last raised, said James Wolinski, Evanston’s director of community development. He said the high concentration of people living in rooming houses also leads to greater indirect costs, like more police and fire calls.
