Following Ald. Melissa Wynne’s (3rd) announcement that she will not seek reelection in 2025 after 28 years on City Council, three candidates are running for her seat: environmentalist Gennifer Geer, shelter director Shawn Iles and businessperson John Kennedy.
The consolidated general election will take place April 1, 2025. Wynne told The Daily she plans to endorse a candidate but has yet to do so.
All three candidates are running for public office for the first time. Here’s a look at the candidates and what they hope to accomplish if elected to the council.
Gennifer Geer
If elected, Geer (WCAS ‘24) said she would be the first Japanese American and Gen Z council member. Geer moved to Evanston in 2020 during the pandemic to pursue a master’s degree in Asian American history at Northwestern.
Geer first became involved with politics in high school as an intern for Illinois State Senator Melinda Bush. Geer said she worked with Bush to secure state resources for maintaining the decommissioned Zion Nuclear Power Station.
An outreach coordinator for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, Geer said she will bring her passion for environmentalism to the council. If elected, she hopes to protect public green spaces and increase the city’s bike lanes and electric vehicle charging stations.
“Gen Z, in particular, is really focused on being adaptable for the challenges we’ll face in the next 50 years, so having that voice that is very existentially aware of climate change is really important,” Geer said.
As an elected official, Geer said she will increase civic engagement by expanding participatory budgeting and helping implement ranked choice voting in municipal elections. Participatory budgeting was not funded for the 2024 cycle.
Geer serves on the board of the Young Democrats of Illinois, where she said she has learned the importance of listening to constituents’ concerns and being transparent in office.
“Holding elected office is an honor and a privilege, and no one is entitled to it,” Geer said. “During a campaign, you have to be willing to listen to work and to put yourself out there.”
Shawn Iles
Since moving to Evanston in 2011, Iles has been an active volunteer in the Evanston community. Iles serves as the president of both Lincoln Elementary School’s PTA president, Evanston Public Library Board and Rotary Club of Evanston president.
Iles said his budgeting and leadership experience on the library board has helped him learn how to make tough decisions and listen to residents’ concerns.
“Evanstonians are not shy about coming to public meetings and giving their opinions,” Iles said. “You need to be able to hear what people are saying and take those things into account when you’re making decisions.”
Since the pandemic, Iles has served as director of the overnight shelter at Interfaith Action of Evanston, where he manages the center’s staff, works with case workers at Connections for the Homeless and helps people when they first arrive at the shelter.
If elected, Iles said he wants to expand the Crisis Alternative Response Evanston team, a group of civilian responders who answer non-emergency 911 calls. Iles, who helped advise the team on how to work with unhoused populations, said the initiative is crucial to community trust-building.
“It’s really important to have an unarmed response to some of these situations when you’re dealing with the mentally ill or the unhoused,” Iles said. “When a police officer arrives, just having them arrive with the car and all the lights and all the gear can be escalating sometimes.”
John Kennedy
The founder of three software businesses, Kennedy said he would bring a finance-oriented approach to the council. Kennedy, who has lived in Evanston for 40 years, said he hopes to reduce city spending by utilizing all of the city’s excess funds.
“The city is trying to figure out how to raise taxes, even though we have excessive funds in the bank,” Kennedy said. “Standing on the outside trying to throw stones at the castle doesn’t make a lot of sense. So I decided to run because I needed a seat at the table.”
Kennedy has been an advocate for mitigating city expenses, including raising a proposal to the council in July that would reduce the cost of providing wheelchair access to Evanston Dog Beach.
Kennedy said he got quotes from two companies that both said they could construct a wheelchair ramp for $65,000, significantly less than the city’s $800,000 plan to build an accessible path.
Kennedy said he is also concerned about the lack of transparency around budgeting decisions and said, if elected, he would seek community input for council proposals. He said his priority as a council member would be to ensure Evanston is affordable for all residents.
“Evanston is a very unique environment,” Kennedy said. “We have a lake that is wonderful. We’re close to a major metropolitan area. We have a mixed, diverse community. But we’re in jeopardy of making Evanston too unaffordable to live here.”
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