Council Members,
It was very disappointing to hear last night that in Executive Session last week, you reduced the list of City Manager candidates from 70 applicants to 4 applicants, without any citizen participation whatsoever. It’s further disappointing to have learned you will meet this Friday in Executive Session to meet with and further reduce the list of candidates again without citizen participation or comment.
Apparently the next step will then for you to begrudgingly give the Evanston community and tax payers a limited opportunity to “meet” the finalists during a Zoom meeting. I don’t recall if it was said that citizens would be able to ask questions or interact with the two or three finalists.
By the time citizens get this meager opportunity to contribute to the process, the finalists will be fully aware that the City Manager will be beholding to the council, not to Evanston Citizens.
It’s also clear that HRGov did its job to cater to Council members too, paying lip service to citizens.
Council has certainly used the COVID-19 pandemic to its full advantage; keeping citizens in our place.
Mike Vasilko