In a city that prides itself on having an active citizenry, a full list of citizens waiting to comment at Evanston City Council meetings should come as no surprise. Residents appear every other week, filling the council chambers and telling aldermen what they think – whether the council members are ready to hear it or not.
“I feel that it’s really important to speak truth to power in whatever community you’re in,” Evanston resident Mimi Peterson said. “I think that the more information that you can give to residents, to interested people, the more interest there will be (in an issue).”
Peterson said her interest in the community began long before her run for Ninth Ward alderman in 2004. She has spent the last 12 years speaking about issues that concern her, from high crime rates and safety to saving the city’s Dutch Elm population from disease.
“Residents tend to organize around neighborhood issues that directly affect them,” she said. “It can range from being really effective to having very little effect … at the end of it all is the vote on the council.”
The citizen comment time has seen several Evanston residents return meeting after meeting during the past year to express their concerns on various issues. Common faces, including neighborhood groups and Northwestern students, tend to show up repeatedly during the discussion of a specific issue rather than throughout the year.
Peterson said she thinks the citizen comment period is an important venue for public expression, but the aldermen sometimes fail to give it their complete attention.
“Half the time members are distracted and not really interested in what you say, but it depends on what the topic is,” she said.
After years of community involvement, Peterson has become a recognizable figure. Now she is more likely to speak when a past issue returns, such as healthy elm trees or town-gown relations, a topic on which she spoke several weeks ago after Northwestern’s purchase of property at 1945 Orrington Ave.
“It makes some sense to have some kind of a plan, to use your ability to sway or create interest with some caution,” Peterson said of citizen comments.
Not all community activists are as vocal as Peterson is about her civic interest.
Betty Papangelis, chairwoman of the observers corps for the League of Women Voters of Evanston, said the group of 13 members attends the city council, the standing committee and several other committee meetings. The group serves to “improve citizen interest and oversee its work.”
“The league has always had an observer corps as a part of its program,” Papangelis said. “We’ve found observer reports from about 10 to 15 years ago. For the last two years, we’ve had a very active observer corps.”
The observers are present at each meeting but do not comment on the discussions, she said. Any suggestion or input is done by the league, which reviews each meeting’s notes and will occasionally meet with aldermen. The league presented a report to the council in December 2005, which said officials could improve the arrangement of the meeting room so audience members could also view proposals. The report also said the council could work to start meetings at the correct time.
“They were extremely courteous and eager to make some of the changes we suggested,” Papangelis said. “They still need to keep their meetings on time – it’s getting better.”
Papangelis said the council welcomes community input, but it has difficulty finding time for all the voices that wish to be heard.
“We have a community that is very interested and rises to every occasion, which is great, but it places a burden on the council,” Papangelis said. “I think they struggle to make this as fair as they can given the problem of time.”
Despite her silence during much of the past year, Peterson could name recent issues she said do not receive enough attention from the council.
“The issues never end,” she said.
Reach Laura Olson at [email protected].
