Vito Brugliera, McCormick ’55, has served as Evanston’s self-described “resident curmudgeon” for more than 30 years. A fixture at City Council meetings and a member of several grassroots groups, Brugliera answered questions about the city’s financial crisis, the Civic Center and how Northwestern and Evanston could make peace.
Q: What was your Northwestern experience like?
A: Tech (now McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science) was a fantastic experience for me. I met my wife at Northwestern. We were married in 1960, and we moved here in 1965.
Q: You call yourself a “professional curmudgeon.” What does that mean?
A: A curmudgeon is a cranky old fart. I hate bureaucracies, and I love to be a thorn.
Q: You are known around Evanston as an outspoken community activist. What got you involved in local politics?
A: I like to see efficient operations. I’m an engineer; I’m a rational pragmatist, and when I see things that aren’t functioning as well as they could…. The way you get attention is to “rub raw the sores of discontent.” When we moved here in 1965, we sent our kids to Dewey. But we had to fight for Dewey. At one point District 65 was going to shut Dewey down. A bunch of us got together, and we tried to get demographic data from District 65. One of the criteria that they used to justify closing Dewey was equivalent to students per square foot. The reason they got such a low number was that they didn’t count three classes of developmentally-disabled kids. Once we found out that the census data was in our favor, that was it
