After watching her three sons grow up playing baseball, Ald. Jane Grover (7th) decided to try it out herself by playing on a women’s recreational softball team and managing travel baseball teams. One of five freshman aldermen on the Evanston City Council, Grover makes sure she keeps a healthy work-out regiment during her middle years.
Though her marathon days are over-she ran three after the age of 40-Grover still runs 30 miles a week while juggling her new responsibilities as the face of the Seventh Ward on the city council, replacing Elizabeth Tisdahl, who is now Evanston’s mayor.
Grover said the biggest issue facing both the her ward and the city as a whole is Evanston’s structural deficit, a problem the council hopes to tackle by looking at the budget ahead of time and adjusting mid-year.
Improving relations between Northwestern and the city is another of Grover’s priorities, she said. One way she plans to connect NU students with Evanston is by involving students in the 2010 Census, not only by providing student jobs at the local census bureau, but also by counting students as a statistical minority in the census, which would protect the student voice from being gerrymandered out of the council chambers.
“We have a great opportunity with a fresh council, a new city manager and president-elect Morton Schapiro to change the tone of that discourse,” Grover said. “We can try to dispel the prevailing sentiment, which tends to be a negative one toward NU.”
Grover also hopes to help implement the climate action plan, including a recently proposed green building ordinance, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2012.
“We need to put Evanston on the map as a green city that values sustainability,” she said.
Born in Louisiana, Grover grew up in Michigan as the oldest of four siblings. She attended the University of Michigan as a math major – “until it got hard,” she said – and then switched to German and political science. Afterward, she received a joint degree in law and a masters in foreign service from Georgetown University, where she met her husband Bill Blanchard.
She then practiced litigation for 12 years but quit her law practice when she was pregnant with her third son. Her sons all attend Evanston’s public schools, where she has worked extensively with parents and teachers on school district issues.
Grover served on the Evanston Mental Health Board for eight years, chairing the board for three years. She was also the assistant director for Evanston Community Foundation’s Leadership Evanston programs, which trains individuals for community leadership.
After being elected, Grover stepped down from several positions in the community to avoid conflicts of interest but still sings in her church choir.
As a result of her volunteer experience, Grover “knows everybody,” said Pat Maunsell, a Seventh Ward resident who helped Grover’s campaign.
Maunsell describes Grover as “very smart and very committed” and said Grover made a huge impact in the ward when she pushed for more stop signs in a main shopping area on Central Street after an elderly couple was killed by a speeding car there.
“She just has a great intellect, temperament and leadership style,” Maunsell said. “Those are the things that will make her a terrific alderman and will help provide the leadership the city of Evanston needs.”
