Dear Editor,

According to an article on the relationship between Evanston and Northwestern, Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl recently described widespread community opposition to NU’s plans to build a parking deck on the city’s lakefront land as rallying against the university. She characterized citizen comments against the parking-deck proposal at the Nov. 12 city council meeting as “Northwestern bashing.”

Mayor Tisdahl’s remarks are a complete misrepresentation of reality. As one of many Evanston residents — and one of several NU alumni — who attended the meeting to object to the parking deck, I can tell you that our impassioned arguments and strong rhetoric were directed at the project’s size, location and damaging environmental impact, not at the university, which many of the speakers praised for its importance to the city.

If the mayor felt that some speakers were vehement in their comments, it’s probably because we were trying to make ourselves heard by aldermen who, for no good reason and with many important questions remaining unanswered, were determined to support a project that is bad for the lakefront and bad for the city. And if it’s bad for the city, it’s ultimately bad for the university, too.

If Mayor Tisdahl wants town-gown relations to improve, she should start by listening to Evanston residents’ concerns about NU rather than demeaning and dismissing community opposition to a project she is unable justify. We weren’t bashing Northwestern, Mayor. We were bashing you and the aldermen who ignored their constituents.

Matthew Mirapaul, Medill ’82