The Evanston City Council will reevaluate its decision to partner with Northwestern and add blue light emergency call boxes to off-campus neighborhoods after numerous residents voiced concerns about the boxes at Monday night's meeting.
The council originally approved the joint effort, which calls for installing nine emergency phones in neighborhoods and at El stops for student and public use, at its last meeting three weeks ago. The city will reconsider installing emergency boxes in neighborhoods, while the proposed blue-lights at El stops will continue as planned.
Calls made from the off-campus boxes would go to the Evanston Police Department, while on-campus boxes are connected to University Police. NU planned to fund the boxes' installation, which would cost about $82,000, while Evanston would be responsible for the boxes' maintenance. The initiative was a joint effort between students, administrators and the City Council.
Evanston resident and real estate agent Carolyn Smith told the council and attendees at the meeting that when she was showing a client a house on Orrington Avenue, he saw the call box near Foster-Walker Complex and questioned the area's safety. Smith, who lives near campus, said she was surprised she hadn't heard about the plan until after the council voted on it.
"I was really surprised when I heard about the blue lights that nobody asked us what we thought of it," Smith said. "We get asked about a lot of things and this seems like one of those things we would have been asked about."
Several who spoke in opposition of the blue lights said that, as permanent residents, they should have the right to determine what safety measures are needed in their neighborhood, not NU.
"We walk the same streets as Northwestern students do," NU-City Committee and Northwestern Neighbors member David Schoenfeld said. "We walked them before they came. We will walk them after they leave."
Schoenfeld and other residents also questioned how often blue light phones were used.
But blue light opponents are missing the point, said Ald. Edmund Moran (6th), who stressed that NU students are just as much residents as anyone else and blue lights can be a crime deterrent.
"The question is not how many times they're used," Moran said. "The question is how many times they're not used because there wasn't a crime committed in that area."
Kate Pascale, external relations chairwoman for Associated Student Government, said the call boxes are an important tool for keeping students safe.
"Please be assured that these will be of great value to our student body," Pascale said. "Not all students have cell phones and those that do might not have access to them on any specific night. From our perspective, these phones do not need to be used daily or nightly in order to be a benefit to Evanston residents and, of course, our students."
Ald. Cheryl Wollin (1st) said she supported installing the call boxes but regretted that citizens were not more informed during the process.
According to community and council members, the city's 911 Emergency Telephone System Board discussed extending the blue light program from El stops to neighborhoods. However, the meeting was not listed on the city's Web site.
The ordinance and the location of each proposed blue light was listed in the information packet for the last City Council meeting.
"I do think it was kind of unfortunate the way this whole issue came to the council," Wollin said. "Yet, I need to say that I strongly feel that blue lights are a deterrent to crime. Many of the victims have their cell phones taken as well as their wallets. I'm more than happy to have input from neighbors, but let's not pretend (blue lights) are a stigma or that they reflect that we have a problem because, friends, we do have a problem."
The accessibility of city meetings was a recurrent issue Monday night.
On March 27, aldermen met behind closed doors with an unnamed developer to discuss the now-controversial high rise in the downtown Fountain Square block.
But according to a letter from Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan's office, read by resident Robert Atkins during citizen comment, the private meeting was illegal under the Illinois Open Meetings Act.
Atkins has since filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the tapes and transcripts of the meeting. Council members were scheduled to discuss the matter in an executive session after the public council meeting.
Reach Annie Martin at a-martin@northwestern.edu.
Reach Danny Yadron at d-yadron@northwestern.edu.
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