The Weekly: Putting Assets to Work meeting, opioid overdose resources, hearing in Abughazaleh protest case

Eliza Martin and Cydney Waterman

March 2, 2026

The Daily Northwestern · The Weekly: Putting Assets to Work meeting, opioid overdose resources, hearing in Abughazaleh protest case

What is Evanston’s Putting Assets to Work program? How has the city expanded its opioid overdose prevention resources? How has Kat Abughazaleh’s federal indictment impacted her campaign for the 9th Congressional District? The Daily answers these questions and recaps other top stories from the last week.

ELIZA MARTIN: On this week’s episode: A meeting for Evanston’s Putting Assets to Work program, breaking down the expansion of overdose prevention resources in the city and a hearing in congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh’s federal indictment case. From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Eliza Martin.

CYDNEY WATERMAN: And I’m Cydney Waterman. This is The Weekly, a breakdown of the top headlines from the past week.

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CYDNEY WATERMAN: First, I’m here with Daily reporter and Multimedia Managing Editor Yong-Yu Huang to discuss the recent Putting Assets to Work meeting. To start off, can you describe the Putting Assets to Work program and how this will affect the Evanston community?

YONG-YU HUANG: Yeah, so the Putting Assets to Work program is a federally funded initiative aimed at kind of reimagining and rehabilitating city properties that are currently considered underutilized. So right now in Evanston, that is kind of referring to the old Civic Center on Ridge, the Evanston Police and Fire Headquarters and the Noyes Cultural Arts Center.

And right now, the program in Evanston is kind of in the ideation and brainstorming phase, just kind of collecting community input from residents by holding meetings with wards, local stakeholders and just larger community meetings in general.

CYDNEY WATERMAN: So, what are like some other current ideas that they have discussed?

YONG-YU HUANG: Well, Wednesday’s meeting really was just mostly the consultants who have been hired as part of the program, talking to residents, explaining the whole situation and kind of the timeline they’re anticipating. Then they’ve gone into breakout groups, and then so there are some ideas (that) were bounced around, but it was mostly just residents kind of brainstorming on their own and chatting with each other. So there’s been no definitive proposal brought forth, because right now they’re just kind of encouraging residents to talk amongst themselves and submit proposals on their website, just to kind of get the ball rolling.

CYDNEY WATERMAN: After this ideation stage, what happens next?

YONG-YU HUANG: So after this ideation phase, they’re going to pick some ideas, I think, and conduct a feasibility analysis for those ideas, and then propose a recommended action plan later in the year. I believe in September is the timeline they proposed. At that point, they’ll have some more ideas developed.

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ELIZA MARTIN: Next, I sat down with Daily reporter and Assistant City Editor Wallis Rogin. This week, Wallis reported on the expansion of opioid overdose prevention resources in Evanston.

Wallis, how was the Illinois Local Library Act amended, and how does that affect Evanston Public Library?

WALLIS ROGIN: Yeah, so specifically in Evanston — Evanston, since 2023, has been producing Narcan supplies in the first floor of their library. And so this is something Evanston has already been doing, but because the Illinois Local Library Act went in effect in January, now the Evanston public libraries have expanded their services, and so now they offer Narcan on every single floor, and all of their staff is trained to respond to any need that a community member might have.

I talked to Ellen Riggsbee, which is their Communications and Marketing Manager, and she was saying how it is a no-brainer for them, and how for libraries, they see a lot of vulnerable populations, and that it is important for them as a community space to provide these resources.

ELIZA MARTIN: How frequent are opioid overdoses in Evanston?

WALLIS ROGIN: So specifically, they do not mirror the national rates as much. But according to the Evanston Fire Department, there were 157 opioid overdoses reported from 2021 to 2025. And so that is a number that Evanston has. But in general, I had talked to Natalie Larson of PEER Services, which is a nonprofit that does work on substance abuse prevention, and she said that these numbers are typically under-reported because of the reporting system that works nationally.

And so Evanston’s numbers have been decreasing since their peak in 2021, according to Ryan Glew from the police department. But in general, I did some reporting that these numbers were under-reported.

ELIZA MARTIN: Can you describe why it might be difficult to correctly report on opioid overdose numbers?

WALLIS ROGIN: So there’s not a national system of reporting, and so what Larson said is it poses difficulties for identifying and making sure all of those cases get logged into a system that is broad. And so what happened is, in Illinois specifically, they’ve been looking to address this issue.

So there was a house bill that was sponsored by State Senator Laura Fine about logging and reporting not just opioid overdoses, but overdoses in general. And so that law sets better standards for reporting them, and so it sets up the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program, the ODMAP that municipalities in Illinois are required to use now to kind of standardize that system and make sure that reporting is more standardized.

ELIZA MARTIN: How might we see policymakers continuing to advance opioid legislation?

WALLIS ROGIN: This was something Natalie Larson was saying specifically, is she is aiming to see more legislation enacted when it comes to overdoses in general and opioid overdoses. Because she was talking about, there’s the stigma around overdoses specifically, and she said she thinks that there is more to be done. Even though she is happy with the progress Illinois has made when it comes to overdoses, she said there’s more to be done on the legislative side in destigmatizing overdoses specifically.

ELIZA MARTIN: Do you have anything else you’d like to add about this story, the process behind it?

WALLIS ROGIN: Specifically, I think it was really interesting to kind of dive deep into what Evanston does and Evanston’s community when it comes to protecting the community. And I think it was interesting, Larson’s point about how opioid overdoses can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time, and how it isn’t an issue with specifically fentanyl being laced in certain things. And I think this is an important issue that I’m glad that I could cover it.

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ELIZA MARTIN: Thanks for coming on The Weekly, Wallis.

WALLIS ROGIN: Thank you.

CYDNEY WATERMAN: I’m back with Daily reporter and Multimedia Managing Editor Yong-Yu Huang to talk about the recent hearing regarding the federal charges brought up against Kat Abughazaleh and five other co-defendants. To start, can you provide background details about this federal court case?

YONG-YU HUANG: Yeah, so Kat and five other co-defendants were federally indicted back in the fall for protest actions taken at the ICE detention center in Broadview, Illinois. All of them plead not guilty. Their trial date is scheduled for May, I believe.

And so Wednesday was just kind of another one of those status hearings. And on Wednesday, the federal prosecutor said that they were going to narrow allegations.

CYDNEY WATERMAN: Prosecutors are categorizing the alleged conspiracy as spontaneous. In this context, what exactly does that mean?

YONG-YU HUANG: So in this context, I believe what it means is that there is no explicit evidence that there was prior planning or communication to take these actions prior to like, in the moment. So that’s what the prosecutors are saying that it was a spontaneous conspiracy and not something that was pre-planned before they all showed up at Broadview, essentially that day.

CYDNEY WATERMAN: Abugazaleh is currently one of the front-runners for Illinois’s ninth congressional district. How has this court case affected her candidacy and campaign?

YONG-YU HUANG: I think of one of the other status hearings back in late January. Her lawyer had said that this was something that was kind of hanging over her, and so they were going, they were hopefully trying to get it over and done with, essentially, because he mentioned that it was difficult to, like, run a campaign and also be fighting this case at the same time.

CYDNEY WATERMAN: Thank you so much, Yong-Yu.

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CYDNEY WATERMAN: Here are the other top headlines from the week:

Girl Scouts spread the ‘happiness of cookies’ to Evanston Residents

Northwestern scholars celebrate Indigenous knowledge, heritage at research presentation

Mayfest Productions announces new ‘The Burrow,’ stage for Dillo Day 2026

Baseball: Northwestern finds its rhythm, sweeps Hub City Invitational

And from Best of Evanston, Best Pizza: Union Squared proves Detroit-style wins in Illinois

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Cydney Waterman.

ELIZA MARTIN: And I’m Eliza Martin.

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Weekly. This episode was reported by Cydney Waterman and Eliza Martin and produced by Eliza Martin.

The Audio Editor is Ruby Dowling. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Femi Horrall, Yong-Yu Huang and Jonah McClure. The Editor in Chief is Emily Lichty.

Our theme music is “Night Owl” by Broke for Free, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License and provided by the Free Music Archive.

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