City of Evanston Blog
Mayor Tisdahl Goes to Washington
Mayor Tisdahl and I began a day and a half trip to Washington, DC early this morning with a flight from O'Hare. It is still a little unsettling for me after all the years I flew red eyes from California to Washington to be able to get here in less than two hours.
We had three main meetings today. First we met with staff from the Environmental Protection Agency primarily to talk about funding for water infrastructure projects. We learned that the loan funds we are already accessing through the State of Illinois are the primary funds available for these kind of projects. The Mayor was a little unhappy to hear this and pressed the five staff members present from the EPA's Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations on what other money might be available from EPA for Evanston.
The EPA staff then began to describe efforts on urban waterways and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative which might hold some promise. The EPA staff was impressed with what they have read on Evanston's sustainability initiatives and offered assisted through their Energy Star partner program geared at state and local government buildings. We were also told of a partnership program between EPA, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on sustainable communities. Mayor Tisdahl pitched the importance of funding initiatives in cities that have already worked to combine housing, transportation and the environment (like Evanston) and need funds to keep this mix going. The staff was very interested in this and promised to get back to us about some pilot program opportunities with this new initiative.
The program that peaked the Mayor's interest most was EPA's green jobs program. This program provides assistance to communities to train individuals for work in "green" industries through the EPA's brownfields program. Mayor Tisdahl thought that made great sense for Evanston and we will be having further discussions on opportunities there.
From EPA, we headed to the Capitol for meetings with Senators Burris and Durbin. We headed to Senator Burris first. His offices are split between two floors and as we sat in the reception area we were able to hear three very polite staff members taking calls from interested constituents. Almost all were about health care legislation. It was impressive to hear how well these three staffers handled the calls with attention and professionalism.
The Senate was in session this afternoon, so Burris came back from the Senate floor between votes to his office to meet with us. This was the first time Mayor Tisdahl had met Burris. He was very cordial as the Mayor made her pitch for support of the City's $40 million neighborhood stabilization program grant to HUD. Burris directed a staff member to work on a letter of support from him and to strategize on other ways to be helpful.
From our ten minute conversation we learned that Burris has family in Evanston and he really likes former Mayor Lorraine Morton. The Mayor told him a story how her mother always voted for him as he ran for various offices over the years because he was such a "nice young man." Senator Burris smiled broadly, laughed and excused himself to go back to the Senate floor.
Next up was Senator Durbin. Durbin is the Assistant Majority Leader of the Senate so in addition to his regular office he also has a beautiful office in the Capitol as well, not far from the Senate floor. Our appointment with him was in that office. This picture (taken by Durbin's staff) only begins to give you a sense of the beauty of this office. The Mayor has known Durbin for sometime, so they were able to get right to business. The Mayor made her pitch for the $40 million HUD grant, Durbin asked his staff "what can we do to help," the staff had an overview of what is happening with the review process. The Mayor is meeting with HUD tomorrow and Durbin asked her to get in touch with his staff right after the meeting with an update. It is great to see government at work.
The Mayor also shared some other issues of concern and in great Senatorial fashion Durbin looked at his staff members present and said, "Lets see what we can do to help Evanston."
A successful day of making contacts and getting our word out. More tomorrow.
Wally - I am glad you and the Mayor are enjoying your trip. It appears to me their is little real money available to help us solve our "real" budget problem.
The money the federal government has available appears to me to be money to be used for new programs, not to keep current operations going.? ( we don't need new programs!)
The 40 million dollar HUD grant in my view would just continue to keep the wasteful affordable housing efforts going, a better budget solution would be to eliminate the affordable housing programs along with the staff members who support it.
I think we should all remember their is no free money - someone pays for the federal funds and it the taxpayers of Evanston along with everyone else. There is alot of need in this country and the feds giving us money to waste, when other communities may have far greater needs makes little sense to me.
October 23, 2009 7:40 AM