WBEZ | Evanston

Evanston prevails over new Jewish boys’ school

Fri, 03 May 2013 09:03:00 -0500

An Orthodox Jewish school has lost a legal battle with the City of Evanston in its bid to open a new learning facility there. In 2006, the Joan Dachs Bais Yaakov Elementary School purchased the former Shure Brothers electronics company building along Evanston’s southwest border. They hoped to renovate the property into a new facility for early child education and for its growing boys’ school, which is currently located in Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood on the far North Side.

In a ruling this week, Cook County Judge Mary Anne Mason sided with the City of Evanston, which denied the school permission to use the land for anything other than industrial purposes.

“They made a business decision to go ahead and purchase the property, knowing that they still had a number of steps to go through afterwards to secure city approval,” said Grant Farrar, Corporation Counsel for the City of Evanston. “The City of Evanston was concerned about removing this property from the tax rolls.”

Forty percent of Evanston’s land is tax-exempt, owned by religious institutions, universities, and nonprofits. Some Evanston aldermen expressed concern that reclassifying the zoning for the school’s property from light industrial to commercial, which would allow for use as a school, would permanently chip away at an already-diminishing property tax base. Evanston’s industrial sector has thinned during the last several decades.

The board purchased the property for $2 million with knowledge that they would have to secure a change or exception to the zoning rule. They did not include a contingency clause in their purchase that would nullify the purchase if they failed to obtain the zoning -- a precaution that is common in similar cases. Still, representatives of the Joan Dachs Bais Yaakov Elementary School say they intend to fight further by appealing the ruling.

“We continue to believe that that is an ideal property,” said Moshe Davis, president of the school’s board. “We’re looking at all options because we have to make sure that our children are taken care of.”

Odette Yousef is the reporter for WBEZ's North Side Bureau. Follow her @oyousef.

State invests $1 million in NU Internet service

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 11:24:00 -0600

EVANSTON, Ill. — The state of Illinois is investing $1 million to bring ultra-high speed Internet service to the Chicago suburb of Evanston, which is home to about 160 technology startup businesses. Northwestern University will also benefit from the new service.

In a news release, Gov. Pat Quinn says the investment will help Evanston become what is called an Illinois Gigabit Community. Quinn's office says such a move is crucial in developing an "economic innovation corridor" that will attract more entrepreneurs who will create even more jobs in the region.

Quinn's office says the investment will help connect fiber optic gigabit Internet service from downtown Chicago to Evanston, where Northwestern is located.

Evanston considers banning hands-free devices while driving

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:44:00 -0600

City Council members in Evanston are considering a proposal that would ban hands-free devices while driving. The ordinance would be one of the toughest cell phone bans in the country, keeping all electronic devices out of driver's hands.

Ald. Jane Grover (7th) sponsored the proposal, which would amend the current city law that allows drivers to only use hands-free devices. Grover was the sponsor of that ordinance as well, which has resulted in almost 3,000 tickets since it was enacted in 2010. According to Grover, the laws aren't tough enough to prevent accidents from distracted driving.

"It's the same level of cognitive impairment whether a driver is using a handheld device or using a hands-free device," she said. "There's really no difference in the risk of crashing."

In December, the National Transportation Safety Board called for a national ban of all electronic devices, especially those that are hands-free. Officials say the level of distraction a driver experiences is the same on a hands-free device as it is on a regular cell phone.

But the ordinance isn't getting unanimous support from the city council. Ald. Judy Fiske (1st) voted against the bill in committee. She said she voted for the current law, but thinks amending it to include all devices would go too far.

"I think it will just lead to ill will between taxpayers and the city government in Evanston because it is unenforceable," Fiske said.

Fiske said she believes creating cell phone bans is the responsibility of the state, not separate municipalities. She said it's less confusing for drivers who travel throughout Illinois. Fiske and her fellow aldermen will be discussing the bill in the coming days, with a vote scheduled for the full city council meeting later this month.

Correction on 03/19/12 at 10:24: An earlier version of this story misspelled Grover.

Owning chickens scratches up controversy

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:48:00 -0600

Nationwide, the issue of raising chickens for eggs in residential areas keeps coming up - and same goes for Chicago's suburbs. West-suburban Naperville may start limiting the number of chickens its residents can raise.

Some towns have banned chickens altogether, while others like Northbrook and Naperville are still considering it. Naperville councilman Robert Fieseler said the few chicken coops in town have neighbors concerned.

"The unsightliness of a fairly crude chicken coop - it looks almost like a trash dumpster. And then the odor, and attracting predators - especially coyotes," Fieseler said.

At a Tuesday council meeting, the once-tabled issue came up again, and the council is now drafting an ordinance to cap ownership at eight chickens, require a registration fee and for coops to be a certain distance away from neighboring property. Naperville may vote on the ordinance as soon as next month.

Since December 2010, Evanston has allowed a max of six hens per household. Carl Caneva is the environmental health division manager for Evanston. He said seven households are currently registered and raising chickens, and so far there have been no officially reported complaints.

Brad Powers with Chicago's department of Animal Care and Control said Chicago does not currently have an explicit ordinance capping chicken ownership. He said other ordinances though do work to control potentially related violations. For instance, a rooster owner could get cited if the animal was too noisy, and his department would intervene if a person had too many animals to properly care for or was treating them inhumanely.

Charles Gates Dawes: The forgotten man and his home

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:45:00 -0600

"Once upon a time there were two brothers. One of them went to sea, and the other became Vice President of the United States. Neither of them was ever heard of again."

That's an old vaudeville joke, and it always got a laugh. It was true enough. Charles Gates Dawes was our 30th vice president, and he lived right here in Illinois. But unless you're from Evanston, you probably never heard of the guy.

Dawes was born in Ohio in 1865, became a lawyer, and practiced in Nebraska for a while. Then he got into banking and Republican politics. In 1909 he moved into the house at 225 Greenwood Street in Evanston.

During World War I, Dawes was a brigadier general in charge of procurement. He was called before a congressional committee investigating waste. The questions became heated, and he finally exploded. "Hell and Maria, we weren't keeping a set of books!" he yelled. "We were trying to win the war!" The newspapers loved it, and he became known as Hell-and-Maria Dawes.

(We will pause here to ponder what Dawes meant by "Hell and Maria." Does anybody cuss like that today?)

After the war Dawes went to work in the Harding Administration. He was Budget Director, and was later put in charge of German reparations payments. Because they'd lost the war, Germany had to pay billions of dollars to the victors.

So Dawes came up with the Dawes Plan, which worked something like this--(1) U.S. loaned money to Germany, (2) Germany used the money to pay reparations to Britain and France, and (3) Britain and France sent the money back to U.S. to pay their own war debt.

If you're not an international banker, this may sound like an odd way of doing business. But the plan did win Dawes the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1924 Calvin Coolidge was president, and running for re-election. Party leaders wanted someone from swing-state Illinois on the ticket. After ex-Governor Frank Lowden turned down the VP slot, Dawes was selected. He delivered his acceptance speech from the porch of the house on Greenwood.

Coolidge and Dawes won the election. After that the two men didn't get along. It didn't help when Vice President Dawes missed a crucial tie-breaking vote in the Senate. He was back in his hotel, taking a nap.

After his single term as vice president, Dawes was ambassador to Britain, then returned to banking. He died in 1951. Today his Evanston home is a museum.

Dawes was also an amateur composer. His "Melody in A Major" was often played as his theme song at political gatherings. Lyrics were added to the original Dawes music later, and in 1958 Tommy Edwards's recording "It's All in the Game" reached #1 on the Billboard chart. Can Cheney or Biden match that?

Evanston eases marijuana penalties

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:30:00 -0600

North suburban Evanston is easing penalties for marijuana possession. Anyone caught in Evanston with 10 grams of marijuana or less will be getting a ticket instead of being sent to jail.

The Evanston city council voted unanimously in favor of the ordinance Monday night. Councilman Donald Wilson cited two main reasons for it.

"One is to reduce the load and burden on the criminal justice system, but also with regard to someone who is guilty of such a violation, not to put such a dark mark on somebody's permanent record," Wilson said.

Illinois state law punishes those with small amounts of pot with up to six months in prison and a $1,500 fine. But Evanston offenders will instead face a city fine between $50 and $500.

Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl said the idea first crossed her radar a few months ago. A friend called her up after hearing an NPR story about a similar law in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Tisdahl said the more she thought about it, the more sense it made.

The National Organization on the Reform of Marijuana Laws spokesperson Allen St. Pierre said 14 states and about 50 cities around the country have similar marijuana laws. St. Pierre said he's not surprised Evanston would take up this ordinance because college towns are among the leaders in this trend.

Alan Cubbage is the vice president for university relations at Evanston's Northwestern campus. He said he was surprised to hear of the ordinance, and he doesn't think that it will have much of an impact on the university's approximately 15,000 students in Evanston.

"At least to my knowledge there has not been a real problem or concern in terms of Northwestern students being arrested for possession of marijuana," Cubbage said.

Mayor Tisdahl said she hopes the ordinance ultimately helps young people get jobs as small amounts of marijuana possession won't result in them having a criminal record.

Cook County and some Chicago alderman are also pushing for similar measures.

Weekender with Alison Cuddy

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:39:00 -0500

Piano. from Paul Rayment on Vimeo.

Chicago has no shortage of film festivals. Seriously you could spend practically every weekend checking out the best in international film or new movies for children or even films about bikes! A relative newcomer to the film fest scene is the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation. The fest is four programs over two days - you can watch old and new, classic or rare animated shorts. For a preview take a look at Piano, which screens Sunday. It is just one of the pieces of eye and ear candy I've picked out for you this weekend!

Here are Weekender's top six picks:

1. The Interview Show

Friday 6:30pm

The Hideout 1354 W Wabansia

Hear Mark Bazer's Weekly Guide

2. Moonrise

Dr. Jose Francisco Salgado and the Chicago Sinfonietta perform

Saturday 8:00pm North Central College Naperville

Hear Dr. Salgado's interview here

3. Michael Ian Black

Stand-up Comedian Michael Ian Black at Park West

Saturday 8:00pm

Park West 322 W Armitage Ave

4. The Mighty Twig

Six month celebration of the opening of Evanston's volunteer-run library, The Mighty Twig

Saturday 5:00pm 900 Chicago Ave Evanston

Paul Friedman explains why he loves Evanston here

5. Milano

Chicago band Milano play Dudeypalooza

Martyrs' 3855 N Lincoln Ave

Hear a live performance from Milano here

6. Eyeworks Festival

Eyeworks Animation Festival

Saturday and Sunday

DePaul CDM Theater 247 S. State Street, basement level

Click here to subscribe to the Weekender podcast.

Comparing Evanston and Chicago

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:03:00 -0500

Evanston and Chicago, both lakefront communities with a lot going for them, including diverse populations and impressive cultural and economic draws; but Eight Forty-Eight wondered, when stacked against each other, how do they compare? Both municipalities have been in the midst of their budget processes. In Evanston there has been talk of a referendum to dissolve the township governing structure to save money on future budget obligations. Meanwhile, Chicago has proposed a mix of cuts and rate hikes, including one for water. If that proposal passed, it could prove a boon to Evanston’s own efforts in the water business. To learn more Eight Forty-Eight was joined by TribLocal reporter Jonathan Bullington and Paul Friedman, WBEZ’s director of corporate sponsorship and business development.

Summer ripened fight over Evanston waste station

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:00:00 -0500

It was a smelly summer on the west side of Evanston — so much so that some residents are determined to run the culprit out of town.

This summer, they launched a website and protested outside the Veolia Waste Transfer Station on Church Street to ratchet up pressure on the company. The objectors say Veolia’s three-acre lot is too small for what it does, and that the site deters local development. But Veolia officials say the new hostilities are really about the neighborhood’s gentrification. They also say new homeowners are scapegoating the company for the drop in home values that the housing bubble created.

“When I first moved here, I don't recall smelling it that frequently,” said Kristen White, “but now all of the time when I drive by, I smell it.” White has been living in her Evanston home, half a mile away from the transfer station, for eight years. “People have been complaining for decades, but nothing has happened,” she said. “Now, I think there is a critical mass of people who are complaining consistently.”

The complaints are mostly about the smell, but residents also have other grievances. Everyday, garbage trucks go in and out of the station to dump their waste hauls onto a huge pile of trash in a hangar-like facility, then leave to continue their collections. Veolia then loads that garbage onto larger, enclosed trucks to ship to landfills the same day. Neighbors say all the truck activity is noisy, and that the site has brought rats to the neighborhood.

White herself helped corral the anti-Veolia cohort, and she estimates that there are about ten people consistently involved in the effort. Last year, they started encouraging residents to call Evanston’s citizen support hotline at 311 with complaints whenever they smelled a bad odor from the station.

“If there's a certain number of people who call in, then the city sends a health worker out,” explained White. “If that person smells it as well, they can issue a citation.” White says this will build a history of complaints against the company.

It seems to be working. In November 2010, the Evanston Health Department hired a full-time city inspector simply to handle the volume of complaints about the Veolia station. The inspector visits the site daily, and this summer started issuing citations against the station for “Strong Garbage Odor.” Between June and early September the city issued five such citations. Veolia has paid for two of them, for a total of $375, and the others continue to wind their way through the adjudication process.

This summer, Evanston also reaffirmed a “tonnage fee” that it began imposing on Veolia last December. It charges Veolia $2 for each ton of trash that goes into the station, which currently takes in about 500 tons a day. Veolia has passed the cost on to trash hauling companies that bring their waste to the station, but it has notified Evanston that it will sue over this. In addition, Evanston has asked the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for jurisdiction over two site modifications to the station. Veolia wants to widen the driveway that trash trucks pull into, and replace a single large folding door to its trash holding facility with four smaller doors. Ironically, while many neighbors oppose these changes, Veolia says they’re intended to improve safety and mitigate odor.

From Veolia’s standpoint, Evanston’s actions and the surge in neighbors’ hostility has felt like a pile-on, says Melanie Williams, Community and Government Relations Manager for Veolia’s Central Region.

“We’ve definitely put money, a great deal of money and time and effort, trying to be responsive to what some of the things were being mentioned,” said Williams.

She says the station installed a new misting system and a ceiling charcoal filter in the holding facility to neutralize the odor. “We’ve done a sound study,” added Williams. “It’s really to find out what the decibel levels are and what the impacts are.” Williams said the company changed some of the equipment to create more white noise at the station. The company has also hired a landscaper to nurture some greenery between the station and the new Church Street Village condominium complex immediately to the east.

Williams attributes most of the tension to the residents of that townhome complex. Veolia’s been in the neighborhood since 1984, says Williams. “Nothing’s changed over here,” she said, “but there’s certainly been a very real real estate crisis.”

Williams says the new neighbors may be frustrated that they bought their homes for more than they’re worth now — and blaming Veolia for the drop in value. “The sale of many of them are still vacant,” said Williams. “I understand there are some financial issues with the ones that are remaining, of the condos, and I think that some of the folks probably paid $100,000 more than they could sell them for today.”

The neighborhood to the west of the facility looks quite different, with older homes, some empty with boarded-up windows and doors. Residents there say they notice the smell, too, and they agree that it got worse this summer than before. “Like, we had to close the windows,” said Floyd Gibert. “It was horrible. Horrible.”

Devon Lemond says the station is noisy and smells bad, but he’s never complained to city or state authorities. “Everybody talks about it,” he said, “but we just live with it.” Still, he credits Veolia with regularly sending cleaning people to his street to clean up litter that’s blown over.

Many residents west of the station say they wouldn’t mind if the station left the neighborhood, but it’s not something they’re fighting for. In fact, Jasmine Blankman says she didn’t know there was a waste transfer station during most of the year that she’s lived in her home nearby. She figured it out when summer came, though. “The days it’s really, really hot, you can smell it,” said Blankman. “I don’t understand why they built the condos next to a garbage place,” Blankman added, referring to the Church Street Village complex. “If you don’t want to smell it, why build there?”

With the passing of summer, the heated debate may simmer down. But Veolia’s suiting up for its lawsuit, and Kristen White says her grassroots group has enlisted counsel to explore legal strategies that residents can take to oust the company. In addition, White says they’re going to look at whether Northwestern University has been dumping garbage at the station. By the time next summer rolls around, the neighborhood could be in for a much messier fight.

Evanston favors vacant lot over school

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:00:00 -0500

Communities are having a problem with vacant properties in this recession. They’re struggling to generate tax revenues, properties are deteriorating with neglect, and neighboring property values are plummeting. Most towns are scrambling to find new tenants for these buildings: businesses, homeowners, anyone.

But that’s not always the case in north suburban Evanston. When it comes to empty industrial land, the city’s actually turning down offers. It’s hoping that manufacturers will return someday.

DAVIS: Let’s walk around, okay?

Moshe Davis has found his dream. It’s a dark, damp, abandoned building in southwest Evanston.

DAVIS: As you walk over here, walk on the right.

You have to side-step puddles of standing water in the building's corridors.

Davis is chair of the Joan Dachs Bais Yaakov elementary school on Chicago’s North Side. It’s an Orthodox Jewish private school. A few years ago the school’s board bought this old building. It used to be an audio electronics company.

DAVIS: This is where the deliveries would have come and that kind of stuff. And in my mind I see over here a basketball court or two, and that kind of thing, a gym, maybe, or something like that.

Davis thinks this property is perfect for Joan Dachs’s boys school. The school’s facilities in Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood are cramped. When the board bought the property in Evanston, Davis knew they were taking a gamble. The property is designated for industrial use, but the board believed Evanston would change that.

First, the building had sat on the market for years. Second, Davis says industry has been fleeing Evanston, moving to other suburbs. And, who wouldn’t want a bustling, healthy school to revitalize an empty shell?

DAVIS: We see it as a blight on the community, the vacancy of this building.

And in the remote possibility that Evanston would not change the property’s zoning, so what?

DAVIS: We'll do a cost analysis, we sell the property, no problem. And quite frankly, we would have sold the property.

Yeah. That was 2006, when you could sell property. But Davis never imagined what would come next. Evanston refused to change the zoning, and the real estate market fell apart. Davis can’t sell the property now, even though he's tried.

DAVIS: As businessmen I don’t think any of us have encountered this kind of resistance. It’s the kind of thing that’s ... not just not rational. We can’t figure it out.

Five years after buying it, Joan Dachs has sunk millions of dollars into purchase and maintenance. Davis has spent tens of thousands on property taxes. And, Joan Dachs students still attend class in their crowded Chicago facility.

The school has filed a lawsuit against Evanston.

SIEGEL: On principle, it just seemed to me that Evanston should continue to have areas available for tax-yielding, light industrial uses.

This is Jack Siegel. Siegel used to be Evanston’s attorney, and he handled the city’s side of this case when it started.

I talked to him because Evanston officials wouldn’t comment to me about this case, since it’s still in court. Siegel says Evanston officials always considered tax ramifications of land use applications. He says Evanston has to.

SIEGEL: Without doing a scientific investigation, I would think that Evanston probably has a greater percentage of its land devoted to exempt purposes than any other municipality in the Chicago area.

Siegel puts that percentage at 45 percent. In other words, nearly half of Evanston’s land is used by religious, non-profit or educational institutions that don’t have to pay property taxes.

That’s not an issue for other suburbs.

SIEGEL: In the 60s and the 70s, Arlington Heights and Schaumburg, like so many other communities in particular the Northwest and Southwest suburbs, were expanding, because there was so much unincorporated land. Evanston has been landlocked forever.

Evanston has a workaround: It’s called “payment in lieu of taxes.” It’s a sum of money that tax-exempt landholders agree to give the city voluntarily. Not taxes, exactly, but maybe close to what taxes would be if the land were owned by a business or a resident.

Moshe Davis says the school is ready to negotiate something like that. But Evanston isn’t interested. That’s because if the city allows the land to be used for a tax-exempt purposes ... it’ll stay that way forever — even if the school one day decides to leave Evanston.

Attorney Jack Siegel says keeping the land vacant is better than putting a school on it. He says Evanston shouldn’t give up on the idea that industry will come back. And he isn’t the only one who thinks that.

Evanston resident Michelle Hays lives 1.5 miles away from the property. But she testified at a planning commission meeting in 2008 because she feels the issue directly affects her.

HAYS: Just because it’s vacant doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the potential to become a viable commercial property at some point.

Hays says she understands that the property couldn’t be sold to an industrial tenant. But we’ve been in a recession. Hays says when the economy recovers, maybe an industrial tenant will come along. And for Hays it’s not just about losing part of Evanston’s tax base. She says there are other benefits of keeping Evanston’s few remaining industrial districts set aside for those purposes.

HAYS: Right around the corner is one of the poorest census areas in Evanston, and those people need jobs. And very often, commercial entities are the ones that provide jobs for the very, very low-income, unskilled people in Evanston.

Hays says she doesn’t have anything against the Joan Dachs school coming to Evanston. The problem, she says, is how the school board went about it: buying first and then assuming the city would change the zoning for the school’s needs. Hays says Evanston is the sort of place where residents expect to have input on those kinds of matters — right from the beginning.

Music Button: Band of Frequencies, "The Pass", from the CD Under The Sun OST, (Ubiquity)