Mayor Lorraine Morton delivered her State of the City address Friday afternoon, speaking about three issues facing Evanston.
Morton spoke in the Hotel Orrington’s ballroom in front of 225 people, including City Manager Julia Carroll, Chief of Police Richard Eddington, several aldermen and other local officials.
The mayor used the annual address to focus on three current policy issues: a potential property tax increase to fund the police officer and firefighter pensions, the proposed 49-story building at 708 Church St., and snow removal.
The property tax increase issue dominated her hour-long talk. Morton said the city needs more money to continue its services to the people.
“(This) is serious because we have a community that we want to preserve and we don’t want anything to happen to it,” she said. “We want to maintain what we’re doing and we need money to do it.”
The mayor announced Carroll has recommended to the council a one-time transfer of $1.2 million from the city’s general fund and a property tax increase of about 5 percent. The recommendations were passed at the budget hearing Saturday.
Morton also addressed fire and police pensions, saying the city has no control over how much they must contribute to the fund. The council voted earlier this month to give $12 million to the pension fund in this year’s budget.
“Our property taxes are raised because of the fire and police pensions,” said the mayor, saying the city is now caught in a catch-22 because it did not contribute enough in the past. “What the public here has to understand … (is that) the state legislature has told us what to do. … We can’t go to the state and say ‘This is killing us, therefore excuse us.’ We can’t control anything.”
Evanston real estate agent John Bingham, who attended the speech, said he was shocked to hear the city had no control over its contribution.
“I had no idea cities had no say-so in how high pensions go up,” said Bingham, who wrote a report on the city’s mortgage crisis. “I’m all for people getting paid well, and police officers and firefighters certainly deserve it, but oh my goodness, (the city) should have some say-so.”
Morton also discussed the proposed building at 708 Church St. She said in her 15 years as mayor, she had never had as many people speak to her about an issue as they have about the building. The proposal, passed 4-3 by the Evanston Plan Commission in December, calls for a 49-story skyscraper that would provide 218 living units in the middle of downtown Evanston.
“Reasonable people can disagree,” she said. “There is a middle ground at 708 Church Street, (and) I’m confident the City Council will strive to obtain it.”
On snow removal, the mayor said the city did the best it could, but simply could not deal with the unusual nature of this winter. She cited a report saying that Evanston has received more than twice the amount of snow that it does in a normal winter – 50 inches since Dec. 1.
The city has been criticized after a shortage of road salt has forced it to use sand and a liquid de-icer instead of more effective salt in trying to clear many residential streets.
“Please believe me, the city did the very best it could,” she said. “I’m proud of the manner in which crews rose to an emergency the likes of which the present employees had never seen.”
The mayor closed by thanking the citizens, who showed their appreciation for the mayor by rising in a standing ovation after the speech.
“The city is all about creating the most livable city in America,” Morton said. “I applaud you and I thank you for continuing to hang there with us we suffer through these processes every year.”
