Evanston voters appear to want to keep the momentum going on a number of issues in the city, including Ryan Field, reparations, Envision Evanston and others, by retaining the incumbent mayor, unofficial Cook County Clerk’s office election results show.
Mayor Daniel Biss declared victory over challenger Jeff Boarini after unofficial results showed he had captured about 60% of the vote to about 40% for Boarini in the April 1 Cook County election.
“I want to thank Jeff for running, for giving the community a choice, for making points and bringing forward issues that I think we’ll all be better off for having discussed together,” Biss said to his supporters at an election-night campaign gathering.
With 100% of Evanston’s precincts tabulated, unofficial results from the Cook County Clerk’s office show incumbent Evanston Council Members Clare Kelly (1st ward), Krissie Harris (2nd ward) and Bobby Burns (5th ward) leading in their races. Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th ward) and Juan Geracaris (9th ward) ran unopposed.
City Councilmember Devon Reid was the only incumbent to be losing, unofficial results show, to former Evanston Land Use Commission Chair Matt Rodgers in the 8th ward.
City Councilmember Tom Suffredin was showing a 55% to 46% lead over his challenger Candance Chow for the hotly contested 6th ward race, unofficial results showed.
Newcomers Shawn Iles and Parielle Davis were also in the lead for open seats in the 3rd and 7th wards, respectively.
In his next term, Biss will face big issues in Evanston, including charting the future of the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center, continuing to oversee Ryan Field and dealing with a K-8 school district, Evanston-Skokie District 65, in dire financial straits.
The next City Council’s first big items will include the consideration of Envision Evanston, the city’s comprehensive 20-year plan and an updated zoning code that would allow higher density. It received heavy pushback from Evanston residents in the months leading up to the election.
Previously, Biss campaigned hard for the Envision Evanston plan, but the city had to dramatically slow the pace of the project due to dissenting voices.
“Envision Evanston 2045 was a tough issue in this campaign,” Biss said. “To those who are concerned about some of the changes we’ve been discussing, I hear you. I respect you. I appreciate that your voice is just as critical as every other voice, and that’s why we slowed this down. That’s why we created opportunities for more discussion and more engagement.”
“I need to say that every voice counts equally and so to those of you, or those maybe not in this room, who would say, ‘Hey, nobody is asking for this,’ I say simply, ‘you are wrong.'”
“You don’t know my friend, Katie, who, when you ask her how she feels about Evanston, she says, ‘The thing I love best is the new bagel shop in my neighborhood, and I just want more people so there can be more customers for more small businesses like that,'” Biss said.
“And you don’t know the couple whose door I knocked on a couple months ago in the Fourth Ward who are way too busy with their multiple jobs and their small child to even really be paying attention to municipal politics at all.
“But when I ask them what’s on their mind, they said, you know, we live in this two-unit building, and it was so hard for us to find something like this in this town… Could you do something so we could have more of those in this town?”
Biss, a former state representative and state senator, has maintained that he will not seek higher office during his next term as Evanston mayor.
