You are guilty of two serious omissions of fact in your June 8 editorial criticizing Evanston “NIMBYs” who oppose a 16-screen theater and retail mall in our downtown:
– The proposed mall calls for $20-30 million or more in city (read: taxpayer) funding. The final numbers aren’t in yet, but at this level of funding, the project could increase Evanston’s total debt load by 50 percent. That’s good reason for the “orgy of apprehension” you describe.
– None of the city’s projections to date indicates that this mall will reduce our property tax bills. The bonds to fund the mall won’t even be paid off until the year 2017.
And as for labeling us as “NIMBYs”: Has it occurred to you that perhaps the very reason Evanstonians are willing to pay the high property taxes here is that our backyard is not littered with junk retail?
