With today’s Evanston endorsement, the Tribune Editorial Board begins a series of mayoral endorsements in a selection of suburban contests in advance of the April 1 election. We plan to also endorse in coming days in the mayoral races in Arlington Heights, Orland Park, Aurora and Oak Park as well as offer our guidance on some of the ballot initiatives suburban readers will find when they go to vote. We also plan to discuss several other suburban election issues and races after our endorsements.
The history of Evanston and Northwestern University are inextricably linked. And, it seems, fated to be eternally in conflict, given that the state of Illinois issued the university a mid-19th century charter stating it did not have to pay property taxes. That means every time Northwestern acquires a building, the city loses revenue and residents howl.
Of course, the prestigious school also is a massive economic generator for the famously progressive, and beautiful, close-in Chicago suburb, a community with grand old homes and enviable lakefront vistas but also some downtown business problems and struggling neighborhoods demanding attention. With a famously educated, and famously contentious, populace, Evanston’s city government often seems stuck in a groove of having little or no money to do the many things its residents expect.
The battle between Evanston and Northwestern blew up anew after the university announced plans for a new football stadium on the existing Central Street footprint, fully funded to the tune of some of some $850 million by the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan family. We’ve written about this stadium several times and we’re on record as supporting it; Northwestern did not ask for public funds, unlike the Chicago Bears.
However, Northwestern did ask for the right to stage concerts, arguing that they were needed to make the stadium economically viable, and the prospect thereof appalled those many neighbors who argued that choosing to live near a college stadium was not the same as living near a music venue. In the end, it was agreed to allow six concerts a year. But to say the opposition was fervent is to understate; after we wrote approvingly of what seemed to us a modest, even a fun, concession, one reader wrote to say he had respected us for years, but no more.
Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, 47, who is running for re-election April 1, was caught in those crosshairs, branded by some as “Comprobiss” after he broke the City Council tie on the vote to approve the stadium deal. We suspect that many of those neighbors will vote for mayoral challenger Jeff Boarini, an Evanston resident since 1990 who enjoyed a long career in corporate media production, including a stint at McDonald’s. Boarini, 70, retired in 2016 and has since been a volunteer tutor and non-profit board member in the city.
Biss is well-known in Evanston and an experienced campaigner. Mayor since 2021, he once taught math at the University of Chicago and served as a member of the Illinois House and Senate for eight years prior to becoming mayor. He probably is best described as a pragmatic progressive, given his decision to compromise on the stadium and also his support for Evanston’s innovative approach to the question of reparations for its Black residents.
We met in person with the two men and found them both to be congenial and committed to their community.
“For me, responsiveness is a religion,” Biss told us, saying he will continue to respond to those upset by the stadium issue even though he says (and wrote on our pages) that he got the “best deal possible” for a city that needed the income from permits and other fees, as well as payments Northwestern agreed to make to the city. Boarini differed with that characterization and argued that the city should have engaged a lawyer who specializes in these kinds of negotiations so Evanston could extract what it deserved from the university.
Biss described more thoughtful planning and “downtown revitalization” as key priorities and appeared willing to cut onerous regulations and other impediments to private development, especially downtown. He noted the fall in the city’s number of murders and told us he supported the elimination of the so-called “R1” zoning regulation, which limits swaths of the city to single-family homes, although he said he also supported Evanston’s historic districts. Boarini said he was concerned that Evanston government “had moved away from its residents,” and he said it had made poor use of the “wealth of talent” among the city’s residents.
Boarini also said he was committed to developing downtown and said his campaign was focused on harnessing those local talents, putting the interests and needs of Evanstonians first and on finding common ground.
In practice, the two men would probably not be that different in office, but we feel that Biss has produced some real achievements in office during a difficult period of time.
One commonality of what we admire most is how he has taken the fractious idealism of his city and implemented those ideas in a more moderate way: His approach to reparations, for example, has been tied to real estate and long-term home ownership, which is smart, and he managed to harness the anti-police sentiment in Evanston into the creation and maintenance of a “care team” that responds to a lot of 911 calls and now has a strong working relationship with police. So much so that the police often call for them, too, when they see that is what a situation needs.
“Comprobiss” is not necessarily a pejorative. And while we doubt this will the end of Biss’ political ambitions, he says he’ll stick around for another term. Biss is endorsed.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
