Building a better relationship with Northwestern students is a priority, First Ward aldermanic candidate Judy Fiske told 17 residents at a neighborhood meeting Thursday night.
Fiske is running against Cheryl Wollin to replace retiring Ald. Arthur Newman (1st). Most residence halls west of Sheridan Road are in the First Ward.
NU students add vitality to Evanston, Fiske said. They also have many interests in common with other Evanston residents: making neighborhoods safer, maintaining El service and improving communication between students and the Evanston City Council.
Student involvement will be important in keeping Chicago Transit Authority officials from making cuts to El service in Evanston, Fiske said. Historically, collaboration has worked. Twelve years ago, students and residents petitioned CTA officials and successfully prevented the Davis or Noyes stations from being shut down, she said.
“It wasn’t just neighborhood residents–it was the students really showing up,” Fiske said after the meeting.
Fiske said she will try to pass out materials to students this weekend as part of her last-minute campaign efforts, saying it had been difficult for her to reach students by e-mail or telephone.
On other issues, Fiske declined to support Mather LifeWays’ plan to tear down The Georgian, 422 Davis St., and replace it with a more modern retirement complex. Fiske has written proposals to turn The Georgian into a city and national landmark.
“The city council should look at the merits of the application,” Fiske said.
Wollin, Fiske’s opponent, has said she supports Mather’s redevelopment because she thinks Mather has worked well with the building’s neighbors on the proposal. Fiske said she was “disappointed” that Wollin had publicly stated her approval without seeing the proposal.
To improve NU-Evanston relations, Fiske said she wants to involve the university’s Board of Trustees in the dialogue. The board was instrumental in resolving the lawsuit between NU and Evanston. The board can provide more perspective about the conflict, she said.
“They’re the ones we really have to talk to in order to break through what sometimes is a logjam in communications,” Fiske said.
Suzanne Whiteley, who lives in the First Ward, said the meeting convinced her to vote for Fiske. She previously was unsure about the candidates’ stances on issues such as development and NU-Evanston relations, Whitely said.
“I talked to Art Newman at length, and his take on his dealings with NU was that there was no talking to them,” she said. “If she has another take on a way of dealing with them that would be more fruitful, I’m willing to give it a chance.”
Newman has not endorsed a candidate, but he attended Fiske’s kickoff and told The Daily he was unimpressed with Wollin’s 1989-1993 term as Seventh Ward Alderman.
Reach Tina Peng at [email protected].
