After lowering the microphone to her 11-year-old’ height, Caitlin Westerfield spoke from behind the lectern at the Evanston City Council budget meeting Saturday morning against the proposed closure of the branch libraries.

‘Cutting the branches of a tree destroys a tree. Cutting the branch libraries destroys opportunities for kids like me to learn,’ said the Haven Middle School sixth-grader.

Westerfield was one of more than 30 citizens to speak in behalf of organizations such as the branch libraries, the Evanston Ecology Center and the Evanston Community Media Center, all of which were threatened with funding cuts under City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz’s proposed budget. Bobkiewicz, Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl and aldermen listened to budget concerns during the hour-long section of public comment. The budget intends to even out the $9.5 million deficit and cut up to an additional $1.5 million to raise the city’s reserves.

‘I don’t think this community can handle another million-and-a-half in cuts,’ Tisdahl said. ‘At least a half a million going into reserves would be very wise given the incredible problems the state of Illinois is facing in terms of their budget and my lack of faith that money from the state will be forthcoming.’

Ald. Donald Wilson (4th) echoed Tisdahl’s tone, saying he doesn’t see any guarantee revenue will increase next year or even stay constant, resulting in visible decreases in services.

‘You are going to notice changes next year,’ Wilson said. ‘You’re going to notice hours are going to be reduced, you’re going to notice lines are longer, you’re going to notice response times take a bit longer as well.’

Tisdahl said the proposed budget will reduce services because it doesn’t increase taxes, which protects the people in Evanston’s lower economic strata.

‘The thing that we value most about this community is the diversity of this community,’ Tisdahl said. ‘We are having a large number of foreclosures, particularly in the second and fifth ward, and we do not want to increase taxes and thereby increase the number of people who are losing their homes due to foreclosure.’

Based off an informal straw vote, aldermen implied they are against eliminating the ecology center and are looking for other options to cushion the negative impact of the cuts, such as turning toward volunteers instead of hiring paid workers.

‘It seems to me that we’re hearing a call from people who come up and say ‘Pick me! I want to volunteer, I want to be part of this community,’ said Ald. Coleen Burrus (9th).

Burrus and other aldermen suggested using volunteers as doggie beach staffers, crossing guards and clean-up crew members after the Fourth of July Parade to trim costs.

Shortening hours at city-run places such as beaches and libraries was also mentioned to relieve the deficit.

Ald. Delores Holmes (5th) and others supported postponing medicating elms for Dutch Elm Disease for a year, which would save $160,000.

‘I personally would rather care about the elderly getting to where they need to go and single mothers having day care than our trees being trimmed perfectly,’ Burrus said. ‘I just think we need to put people before trees.’

Aldermen also communicated anxieties about cutting the fire department’s funds since this would mainly affect personnel, which is 90 to 92 percent of the department’s budget, said Fire Chief Alan Berkowsky.

‘It’s such an important topic, it deserves a lot of discussion,’ said Ald. Mark Tendam (6th). ‘This is about the safety of our family, our friends, our homes, our property.’

Almost all the aldermen said they supported cutting ‘below the line,’ or cutting additional funds to help strengthen reserves, especially because of the state’s current economic climate.

‘We’re having to use cash from other internal sources basically to float alone to cover our day-to-day, week-to-week expenses because we are $1 million in arrears from the state of Illinois,’ said Marty Lyons, the assistant city manager.

City officials made it clear the budget process would involve difficult decisions and stressed cooperation through a difficult time.

‘I want everybody to remember that this is going to be a collaborative effort,’ Wilson said. ‘We have to work together.’ [email protected]