From the day to the Northwestern, I'm Mika Ellison. This is Everything Evanston, a podcast about the people, business, and going on in Evanston, Illinois. Today, we're doing a recap of the February 13th City Council meeting. Then, we'll take a look at one of this week's leading stories in Evanston.
This week's Council meeting started with Congratulations as Evanston Own It, a local faith-based organization, made a donation to City Council in service of the Rebuilding of Ryan Field. Pastor Montay-Dillard read aloud the letter the organization submitted to the Council. We want to lend our support as decisions are made to ensure equitable outcomes for all those in our city, for our community to have significant consideration. In many ways, our decision to support Rebuilding Ryan Field is a way in which we can stick to our mission of all of you.
I was going to say that the church say amen, but I forget. I forget where it was. You know Pastor, I think that's the first time that this room has never been confused for a sanctuary. I will take that compliment and it will lift me up for a lifetime to come.
The Council also recognized Evanston Public Library, Interim Innovation, and Digital Learning Manager, Alicia Madison, for winning the 2023 I Love My Librarian Award. She is one of only 10 librarians in the country to do so. She gave her acceptance speech in front of the Council. This award makes me feel seen in the world where it times I feel invisible, like my work matters.
And although we have a longer way to go, I'm happy to say that my co-workers are alone for the ride. I love my job, and I love being out in the community, truly making a difference. The library is more than just world walls, and I'm proof of that. And so are my dynamic colleagues, and I get the pleasure of working with every day.
Moving on to public comment. Many Evanston residents spoke to recent points of contention, including the Margarita Inn, a former hotel that now functions as a homeless shelter, and is run by connections for the homeless. The primary concern of a promise to the Margarita Inn continuing back as a shelter is its proximity to downtown and other residences. Participants in public comment included Evanston resident John Cleve, an executive president of Connections for the Homeless, Paul Khalil.
Please let the process play out when it comes to both the zone changes at the end of the apartment, the fast-tracking thing has toward the optics, and wherever it feels as if there are insider tracks that are going on and that it isn't over to the light today. When we talk about this as a rush process, I think that's a bit of a misnomer. Every delay costs money. Every legal height or hearing requires legal support and staff time that costs money.
That's money that could be spent providing services to find somebody permanent housing. That's money that could go to prevent someone from experiencing homelessness in the first place. Residents and participants at public comment also talked about the rebuilding of Ryan Field, an ongoing debate about Harley Clark Mansion. First on the Council's agenda was the approval of an amendment to city code that would change the requirements for operating agreements for shared housing situations in the city.
Fourth word, Alderman, Jonathan Newsma, spoke in favor of the amendment. I think this is really an elegant and creative solution to what is really kind of a thorny problem. How do we regulate and really diverse and complex array of potential housing structures as simply as possible? First word, Alderman, Claire Kelly, expressed the need for further insight into how this proposed amendment might affect constituents.
I don't think that our residents are given a fair chance to really understand this. I don't think this is fair to put this through a special word. The motion to introduce item passed seven to one. Next up on the Council's schedule was a discussion of the Harley Clark Mansion lease, an issue that has been on the Council's radar since 2011.
The city of Evanston owns the mansion and has been searching for an organization to lease it to since 2015. Most recently, artist book house, which was in the process of negotiating a lease agreement with the city and Jensenson Gardens, withdrew their petition. The council's discussion went in several different directions, such as seventh word Alderman Eleanor Vell's suggestion of looking at potential new buyers for the Harley Clark Mansion. I would like us to have a conversation about the whole property and not move forward yet with a bifurcated proposal for a separate lease with Jensenson.
I think it sounds certainly from the interest of a couple of the groups that Jensenson would be part of how they would move forward. But I would like us to take some time to hear more from, for example, Lake House and Gardens and the Conservancy, if they really are going to put together a joint proposal, I'd like to see what that's going to look like. Council members also discussed whether or not to grant Jensen Gardens a lease. The final special order of business was covered in the last council meeting.
It was a vote on an increase in freedom to carry open containers of alcohol in Evanston. The amendment passed eight to zero. The council also encountered a tie vote on a motion to send item SS1 back to committee. We added concern the approval of funding allocations for case management, safety net, and support services.
Programs that focus on financial aid and crisis management, among other things. Interim Community Development Director Sarah Flax informed the council that the funding had fallen short of around $478,000. 9th Ward Alderman Juan Herrgais suggested adding funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, also known as ARPA, which provided relief funds to cities impacted by the pandemic. Mayor Daniel Biss broke the tie vote.
I slip out of the relevance for a brief moment. I am gonna break the tie vote in no. And the item was not sent back to committee and later passed with a vote of eight to zero. Make sure to tune in for the next City Council meeting during the week of February 27, 2023.
Up next, Angelimetho brings us a story about suspensions of Evanston Township High School. Walking through the Evanston Township High School doors, students are told all are welcome here, with a sign to make the message in over 25 different languages. But ETHS senior, Emira Grace, says the environment doesn't feel so welcoming when walking through the school's hallways. I'm Angelimetho, and we're going to learn more about Assistant City Editor, Divya Bardwaj, and reporter Sonia Demova's story on racial disparities with disciplinary action at ETHS.
Personally, I see more students of color being called out and being told where's your pass or like where are you going? High safety officers in our school more often than white people are being called out. I think it's not only that it's more frequent with students of color, but there's a more harsh interaction, even if it's just like the tone in which they talk to the students of color. And there's data to suggest this trend isn't just empirically based.
Ten years of disciplinary records from the Illinois State Board of Education, or ISBE, showed black students consistently face disciplinary actions at higher rates compared to their white peers. If we examine ISBE's data on ETHS records during the 2021-2022 academic year, about 25% of students identified as black or African American, and 45% identified as white. Also during this timeframe, approximately 46% of students who received an in-school suspension were black, compared to the 19% of white students who received these suspensions. Of those receiving an out-of-school suspension, black students comprised almost 68% of students, while white students accounted for 8% of these disciplinary cases.
That's a pretty significant disparity, and the data seems to suggest these suspension rates have remained disproportionate over the past decade. And Grace says, there's an emotional toll when self-advocating to school administration. That's when I really have experienced the most apathy when it comes to interacting with staff. It seems that administration have this sort of like intellectual superiority that they kind of hang over students.
It's very demeaning when I talk to a lot of administration. As a former ETHS teacher and department chair, Shelly Gates said, some adults may have preconceived racial stereotypes and expectations. Combined with systemic racism and the, quote, complexity of teenagers, unquote, Gates said this may contribute to disproportionate trends in suspensions among students of color. A white kid might do something that was probably against the rules, and then they get a pass for it, and then a student of color does the same thing, and is sent to the dean's office.
I think that's something that ETHS is really struggling with. Gates said there's an academic achievement gap between students of color and white students, and that students who struggle academically tend to display increased behavioral issues. A principal researcher at the American Institute for Research, Christina Lee-Calsy, that are finding suggest poor academic outcomes were a consequence of exclusionary action-like suspension. This results in what Dean Lee-Calsy calls a snowball effect.
Attendance is really a very good indicator of attachment to school. When you exclude students from school as opposed to trying to figure out what's going on with them and engaging with them, all you're doing really is beginning the bond that they have with the school environment, beginning the trust that they have in the school and the adults, which is linked to them or outcomes moving forward. Grace says action needs to be taken to address these racial disparities. Administration says a lot of things like we want to make this change, but it doesn't ever happen.
It's been a lot of students reaching out to fix this issue and administration being like, yes, we will, and then we don't see anything. Or the conversation gets dropped and there's other more important things. And I understand as administration you have a lot to do, but I think implicit racism is one of the big things that should be on the to-do list. That's it for this week's City Story.
We'll be back in a couple of weeks to take another look at Evanston City politics. For the Daily Northwestern, I'm Mika Allison. And I'm Anjalee Mitthel. Thanks for listening to another episode of Everything Evanston's Rapid Recap.
This episode is reported and produced by me and Mika Allison. Divya Bardwaj and Sonia Demova contributed their reporting. The audio editor of the Daily Northwestern is Erica Schmidt. The digital managing editors are Joanne Heiner and Olatun Jiosha Williams, and the editor-in-chief is Alex Perry.
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