Rowdy public commenters at City Council meetings. Rude emails from residents to city staff members. Arguments in the comments section of Facebook posts.

These are some examples of the latest issue the League of Women Voters of Evanston hopes to tackle: civility in city government. 

LWVE started a project this fall looking into a lack of civility in Evanston’s local government and, if it exists, how to fix it, according to Ginny Darakjian, who chairs LWVE’s new Committee on Civil Discourse.

League members have already begun the first step of the project: interviewing city staff, councilmembers and civically engaged residents. They ask all interviewees the same three questions.

“Do you feel there is an issue with civility in our public discourse in Evanston? How has that manifested itself?” Darakjian said. “And do you have any suggestions or thoughts on how to address the problem?”

While LWVE won’t release specific data until its final report, Darakjian said interviewees have shared that incivility in discourse about city policies seems to be more common online than in person. 

Two issues where incivility is particularly prevalent are sustainability and land use, she said. The most recent example of a tense land use battle in the city is Northwestern’s plan to rebuild Ryan Field and host concerts at the stadium.

But Darakjian, a 29-year Evanston resident, said the rebuild of the Robert Crown Community Center and the ongoing debate over the city-owned Harley Clarke Mansion also spurred bad manners from residents.

Heated debates about what the city should and shouldn’t be doing don’t just happen behind screens. LWVE’s probe aims to address incivility from public commenters in the council chambers and impoliteness among councilmembers — something the council has acted on itself.

In June, City Council voted unanimously to adopt a civility pledge that promotes “remembering that everyone is held equally responsible and accountable for improving their community and developing different ideas that will accomplish that task.” 

“There are a lot of really uncivil things that all of us have to experience being in this job. It’s a part of public service,” Ald. Devon Reid (8th) said at a June 12 council meeting. He added that a resident suggested councilmembers take an IQ test instead of a civility pledge for the “idiotic” ideas he puts forward. 

Evanston’s pledge was drafted by the Illinois Municipal League, which advocates on behalf of municipalities around the state. The June memorandum notes that Evanston’s various local government bodies “have largely remained positive and productive spaces.” 

Darakjian said Evanston is also in touch with other LWV chapters that are looking into misinformation in local government, which she said is “a chicken and an egg” with incivility.

Anne Sullivan, a co-chair of the Mis- and Disinformation Task Force for LWV’s statewide organization, cited groups pushing local school boards to ban books they think are inappropriate as an example of local-level misinformation.

“There are organizations, political committees and other groups that make an effort to mislead the public a bit about different things that happen in state and local government,” Sullivan said.

LWVE hopes to finish interviews for the civility project by the end of November before moving on to examining its findings and producing a final report.

Meanwhile, Darakjian said she can only share that civility in Evanston’s local government has room for improvement.

“I don’t know that I could say that there is any other trend we’re seeing, other than ‘Yes, there is a problem,’” she said. 

Email: [email protected] 

Twitter: @saullpink

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