Blogs

Sharon Strobeck Eckersall
Evanston Township Assessor
847-989-7705

As a life-time Evanstonian, I would like to express my qualifications for office of Evanston Township Assessor.

-Township Assessor 10 years
-Licensed Residential Appraiser/Illinois 14 years
-Real Estate Broker 25 years
-Certified Illinois Assessing Officer - 12 years
-Licensed Wisconsin Real Estate Agent
-BA Degree in Management/with honors/Mundelien College

Jeff Smith wrote a letter to the editor that appeared recently in the Evanston RoundTable. I thought it was worth repeating here. It's about two pages long...click 'Read more' to see the complete article.

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"What Evanston Needs (And Doesn't Need)
Editor:

Recently, a community leader asked me, "What do you think Evanston needs?" This huge question can't be answered in one conversation, but looking back at the last few years, here are some starters.

What Evanston needs are more leaders who regard every citizen's concerns as deserving consideration, regardless of their neighborhood. What Evanston does not need are opinion leaders - elected, community or media - who exploit differences between neighborhoods or constituencies, or seek to pit one against another....

Much discussion of Evanston's downtown has invoked a "wedding cake" concept, with the center tallest, and heights lower further out. Mega-growth advocates urge that an extra-tall building on the Fountain Square block will restore a cake-shaped "typical urban form" to downtown, which now allegedly resembles a "fallen soufflé." This is loaded language, meant to shame us as lousy cooks. I'd feel bad, except for one thing: it's nonsense.

First, since 1920, as one official Illinois publication notes,

Gun control arouses passions. But the Evanston City Council made the smart move in voting to modify its handgun ban. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling likely rendered Evanston's ordinance unconstitutional.

Some have argued that, because the Supreme Court case only dealt with Washington, D.C.'s ordinance, and the District of Columbia is not a state, that the reach of the decision is limited, and that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states. That's a risky position to take.