City of Evanston

Mr. Bobkiewicz: Congratulations on your new position and welcome to Evanston. While running unsuccessfully for 7th Ward Alderman earlier this year, I suggested during my campaign that the COE's publication "City Highlights" format be changed so that half the pages would reflect the reality of serious problems facing the COE. City finances (especially the ballooning pension deficits for the police and fire pensions, the "developer welfare" given to certain businesses in the form of sales tax rebates and property tax rebates ( while other businesses in town do not receive the same generosity and struggle to survive in our extemely dificuly economy), crime, lack of truly affordable housing and many other realities facing the City. Naturally, this idea has not taken root so far. Perhaps, under your watch there is hope. While your blog is a step in the right direction, until our elected City officials are truly open to straightforward, honest, two way communication with their taxpaying constituents, " City Highlights" will just be news about leaf blowing, parking regulations etc.,etc.. We're all big girls and boys ( I hope ) and our elected leaders taking ownership of the difficult problems facing the City of Evanston would facilitate a more constructive dialog allowing citizens to also take ownership also of our City's problems that don't get written about by the COE due to: political constraints, fears of not being reelected, hard budget decisions not being faced, the psychology of denial, "we've never lived within our means in Evanston government before" and finally the classic chestnut: " That's the way we've always done it! " Unless the content shared with citizens by the City is reality based, completely honest, thorough, balanced and admits mistakes have been made, the solving of " City Lowlights " (ie: difficult,unpopular problems) will be an even greater challenge. In summary, it's all about the "content" being delivered through any means of communication by our government: the taxpayers deserve honest, reality based communication about what's really not working, not just what is working. We (the taxpaying citizens) can handle it, can government?

Thank you,

Kevin O'Connor

September 14, 2009 11:18 AM