As part of ongoing budget talks, the Evanston City Council last week discussed a series of proposed capital improvements for 2022.
The plan includes approximately 120 projects with an estimated cost of $64.3 million, according to city documents. The projects have been divided into seven categories, including street resurfacing and water, transportation, parks, facilities, miscellaneous, water treatment and library projects.
City Engineer Lara Biggs explained on Oct. 18 that projects included in the plan may take years to complete and could be included in multiple budgets.
“Projects have a life cycle that is actually quite long,” Biggs said. “We take all of these projects and we have to figure out priorities because we obviously have way more project needs than we have available funding.”
The projects included in the 2022 proposed plan vary widely in scope, from animal shelter renovations and parking meter upgrades to lead service line replacements.
According to the proposed program, the largest single funding source for these projects is the 2022 general obligation bonds, amounting to $10.4 million. This is also the only funding source with no limitations on how it is spent.
The proposal also states that American Rescue Plan Act funds have not been included in the 2022 program, as the City Council has not finalized how those funds will be spent.
Biggs also said that the plan for 2022 includes practices to incorporate Evanston’s Climate Action and Resiliency Plan. The city has the goal of becoming carbon neutral in all municipal facilities by 2035.
“We are reading the adopted plans and policies and we are constantly trying to figure out how to conform our projects to the standards that are adopted by the City Council,” Biggs said.
Ald. Devon Reid expressed concern that the largest expenditure in the 2022 capital projects is related to infrastructure for cars.
“We talked about things like parking and other things that are related to cars,” he said. “What we know is that, because of classism and racism, a lack of funding for this infrastructure disproportionately tends to impact lower income Black and brown folks, and those are the communities that tend to have the lowest quality facilities. I think we need to really start turning the page on how we fund our current infrastructure.”
The 2022 capital spending is included with the regular budget, so it will be adopted with the 2022 proposed budget. Biggs said that the City Council may have further discussions on the program as needed.
Emily Little is a freelance reporter.
