We’ve done pivotal work on housing, from approving shelter for the unhoused to providing rental assistance to developing new affordable units. We’ve rejected the tired idea that justice and public safety are at odds with one another, creating our CARE team to provide non-police emergency response, reining in unnecessary pretextual traffic stops, and launching a Living Room for individuals in crisis – all while seeing violent crime drop and police department morale rise. We’re building the first zero-emission City facility and helping residents and small businesses pivot toward a carbon-free future.

And we’ve accomplished all that without increasing property taxes, leaning on our reputation as innovators to pull in federal and state funding, and reaching a historic agreement with Northwestern that brings unprecedented financial support to our community.

We’ve maintained a clear sense of Evanston’s values, providing more and better opportunities for feedback and public engagement – including through a participatory budgeting process that generated a near-record level of public input. That’s enabled us to turn down the temperature in this era of combative and hostile public discourse.

What lies ahead is no less transformational. We’re working hard on Envision Evanston 2045, a plan to finally end our practice of prohibiting housing that middle-class families can afford and making it hard to build energy-efficient units, while perpetually asking ourselves why it’s so expensive to live here and meet our climate goals. We plan to pass a Healthy Building Ordinance which is the single most important step the City must take on climate change, and to lower child poverty through the continuation of our guaranteed income program.