chris_hart's blog

It is with excitement that we inform you of our campaign web site launch – you can access it at www.hartofthe6thward.com.

The Master Plans of the City of Evanston are meant to reflect collaborative planning with citizens, businesses and institutions -  a concept integral to the City’s culture.

The current City Council has approved a budget that projects a small General Fund surplus without a property tax increase.

But getting there required actions that will dominate the agenda of the Council to be elected on April 7^th:

Madam Mayor and Members of the Council
 
Thank you…for the many long hours you’ve spent, along with the city staff, working on budget development and the current budget proposal. As citizens, we can only try to understand what it means to take on these responsibilities in a time of incredibly hard choices. But what we can imagine are the difficulties of facing an unhealthy budget situation on the one hand … and on the other hand, asking a financially injured community to take on additional burdens.     
 

I had the opportunity to attend this past weekend’s 2009-2010 budget workshop conducted by City staff for both the City Council and interested citizens. The work and effort put forth by the staff along with their involvement and willingness to address all comments and questions should certainly be commended.

The “workshop” did not lack data, information and knowledgeable staff. What it did lack was a central question.

Here are a few highlights: