There will be no tax crisis in Evanston this year.
If only there could be. The budget process would be much easier on everybody involved — residents, aldermen, city staff — if the world worked the way rhetoric about tax hikes in Evanston claims it does.
According to the argument that is dragged out every year, an invisible line exists somewhere on the property-tax spectrum that, when crossed, will compel the middle class to leave the city in droves. They would flee like migrants from “The Grapes of Wrath” — an exodus of North Shore Okies to Skokie, where they can dwell in Old Orchard the rest of their days.
If social science could easily predict such a scenario, aldermen would obviously seek to avoid it — unless they’re in the pockets of the condominium developers.
Unfortunately the consequences are not so immediate, which might be the reason Evanston City Council keeps relying on tax increases to balance its budget. If aldermen were to close a branch library or eliminate a program, the effects could be seen at the start of the next fiscal year. If they continued to downsize city staff or reduce department budgets, the complaints of inferior service would rack up before too long. Fines and fees are not so visible, but the clerks at the Evanston Civic Center will at least be able to hear people complain.
No one hears about the struggles of taxation because they are not always so obvious, even to those who face them. A middle-class family might think they can handle a tax hike this year — until they realize it is also time for county assessment and the value of their home has jumped. Or they might be one of the millions of families that have credit card debt outpacing their savings in the bank. Or they might have been doing everything right, but one of their kids needs an expensive operation, or a parent loses a job, or someone gets in a car accident. It’s then that they regret living in Evanston.
Many Evanston programs form a social safety net for the poor, and the city should be proud to support them. But reasonable taxes are another safety net, one that makes the city safe for families that cannot afford expenses like the ones listed above but will never qualify for social services. Every point added to city property taxes is another hole in that net.
This is a problem in all cities in all times, but it is particularly troublesome in Evanston because the net cannot be mended through the city’s usual bureaucratic process. The committees that criticize orange balconies and roof heights cannot order a neighborhood to restore social equality — though it wouldn’t be surprising if they tried.
Take, for instance, the current conflict over “McMansions” in the Sixth Ward. Residents there are seeking to create a permanent overlay district that would restrict newcomers from tearing down old houses and building much larger ones in their place. While I might agree with these activists’ aesthetics, their efforts might be too little, too late.
The McMansions debate is not just about house sizes but also about the kind of neighborhoods Evanston residents want — and there are few things more sickening than the illusion of a middle-class neighborhood when the middle class has fled.
If the residents of the Sixth Ward — and people in the rest of the city who sympathize with them — really want to keep their neighborhoods intact, they should be attending Saturday budget workshops, not squabbling with developers and architects at Planning and Development Committee meetings. They should tell their aldermen that preserving the character of their neighborhoods is worth eliminating a branch library, a beach or even a social program.
People pay high taxes in Evanston because they love this city. But if they really love it, they’ll find a way to keep their neighbors from leaving it.
City Editor Andy Nelson is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected].
