Evanston, behold the opinion of Pete Giangreco, a wealthy white man for whom “beloved” Evanston is a good place to live.
Evanston, do you remember the public funds spent on discrimination lawsuits against the last City Manager?
To me, Erika Storlie is the City official who fired Kevin Brown, former head of the City’s award-winning Youth and Young Adult Division. The “charges” against Kevin were a joke. To many of us, the real reason for his firing was very clear: He was a Black man willing to call out racism when he saw it, in and out of City government.
And after deciding to fire Kevin Brown, Erika Storlie sat stone-faced in Council meeting after Council meeting, as the public questioned the absurd charges and his unpardonable termination and begged her to keep Kevin’s desperately needed skillset on the City payroll.
And she refused. She refused to hear young people telling us how Kevin had changed their lives. She refused to hear hundreds of residents eloquently describe how incredibly lucky Evanston was to have a man like Kevin in City government for the vital work he and his team were doing with marginalized young people. She refused to change her mind, and Evanston lost.
My first question to any candidate for Evanston City Manager will always be about racial equity. I’ve already seen what Erika Storlie does about racial equity, which means a lot more than what she says.
Alyce Barry