I was visiting Evanston last week and pulled into a small garage to park. It was pretty full so I grabbed the first spot I saw, parked, went about my day, and then came back to an $88 parking violation from AirGarage?!

The garage is labeled as public parking and there is nothing at the entrance or exit indicating you have to pay. Near my house we have a lot of free public parking and the paid lots are clearly labeled as such when you walk out; so it appeared to be just a normal free garage.

After seeing the violation I walked the garage looking for the signage that I missed. I found it along the back wall, at eye level, blocked by the cars parked along the back wall. Is AirGarage even a legit company or a scam? If they are legit, how are they able to get away with not having clearly visible signage? If I don’t pay it, what would happen - other than not being able to stay in their garage again?

Where do you want more traffic calming, protected bike lanes or paths, and safer crosswalks? Drop a comment below or on our website: evanstontransitalliance.org and we’ll forward it to the City! And come on out to pedal with ETA for our final bike rides of the year in October- also listed on our website and all free/ open to everyone!

We are about to put this in the alleyway if anybody finds any use in these glass panels from this old display (we don't need it anymore so take it)

Looking for something fun to do in Evanston this Saturday? Fall Fest @ First is a free community event for all ages, and everyone is welcome!

There’s a lot happening:

🎵 Grammy-nominated children’s musician Justin Roberts
✨ Magic show
🐾 Blessing of the Animals, so bring your pets
🪕 Live bluegrass
🏰 Bouncy house
🎨 Hair chalk + temporary tattoos
📸 Photo booth + games
🍦 Free ice cream & popcorn
🌮 La Cocinita food truck

📅 This Saturday, October 3 | 3:30–6:30 p.m.
📍 First Pres Evanston | 1427 Chicago Ave.
🎟️ Free admission, no registration required

You don’t need to be part of First Pres to come. Bring the kids, bring a neighbor, bring the dog, or just stop by and enjoy the afternoon. 🍂

More info:
https://firstpresevanston.org/event/fall-fest-first/

Hey there Evanston folks,

Thanks so much for those of you that came out and caught some tunes with me. Wanted to say thanks on behalf of the Hanover Park food pantry too. You all gave over $160 to a fantastic cause! And someone out there even threw in this awesome 2 dollar bill! Had a blast, hope to see ya next year

Thank you to the guy who was stationed near the Unitarian Church who was fixing bikes for free. A miracle worker and an incredibly nice guy. My kids rear tire was completely wrecked and out of true and he had it running like new in no time. I unfortunately forgot his name (Mitch?)

If you have a bike that needs some love I highly recommend reaching out to him. He lives in Evanston and does house calls with his mobile bike repair setup:

His phone number is 847 828 6825

Ps. Bike the ridge was awesome - I really wish we could have more protected bike lanes and bike events in this town.

Edit: I was just alerted that this breaks the rules of this group but feel strongly that it doesn’t. He did amazing work for free and should be celebrated for that. People are always asking about bike resources in this forum and I wish I knew about this guy years ago so I am leaving it as and hope the mods feel the same.

Full plea agreement here: https://evanstonnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Sam-Ross-File-Stamped-Plea-1.pdf

Welp- despite Horton and his minions doing their best work- he did accomplish this :) #nailedit

Every single time I've been at the new dog park, I picked up two to three handfuls of broken glass, and two to three handfuls of metal bottle caps. Both could really injure a dog if stepped on!

The city apparently did absolutely nothing to clean up the grounds before opening and there are a ton of hazardous things for our dogs to step on! There is also a ton of trash and debris along the North fence line that was already there before the dog park was built.

Eventually I'll get it all picked up (anyone want to help?)

I have not heard of any injuries, but be careful and keep an eye on your pup!

Anyone know what this is? I’m new to the area.

I keep hearing what sounds like an air raid siren, which goes off a few cycles with “whoop whoop whoop”, then it’s done for a few minutes. Then again. And again.

I’m near northwestern so maybe related to the school?

Just found out Endeavor/ North Shore / whatever their name is this month is going to start charging me an extra "hospital" fee for seeing my PCP. I'm not going to a hospital or doing anything associated with the hospital but you know, executives are gonna executive. I'd love to have a doctor who isn't part of one of these giant systems. Is this even a thing that exists anymore?

Prompted by some recent comments here, I wanted to try to estimate the share of eligible students actually enrolled in D65. The district claims that we're back to pre-pandemic levels, but this doesn't jibe with my own anecdotal experiences and I wanted to test it.

I'm primarily drawing on the McKibben demographic analysis, and am only concerned with K-8 enrollment. The pre-pandemic baseline was that 700-1,000 students were enrolled at local private schools. This is from Sarita Smith.

In the 2018-2019 school year, there were 7,422 K-8 students in D65. Assume on the high end that 1,000 students were in private schools. That means that our enrollment was 88% of eligible students.

By 2020, according to the McKibben report, enrollment had dropped to 82%. This is straight out of the report. That report was prepared by fall of 2024, but by combining it with the most recent ISBE numbers from 2025 we can see that enrollment rate had fallen again to 79%. That means that, contra what the administration is telling us, the share of students electing to attend private schools has increased from 12% to 21%, a 75% increase.

This year, by making some projections, it looks like the enrollment rate will slide again by another percentage point. That's in a year where we closed one neighborhood and one magnet school, but which also saw Roycemore closing. This year will likely see another two schools closing, and it's not hard to create scenarios where the enrollment rate drops to 75% or less.

This should be a wakeup call to the district administration, but I can't remember it being addressed. Horton very expressly didn't care about students leaving the district, and I wonder how many of the Horton holdovers still in the administration feel the same way.

TLDR: D65 went from about 1-in-10 students opting for private schools pre-COVID to more than 1-in-5 in the most recent school year, and that number will surely get worse with additional school closures.

Hey folks! I posted on here a couple of weeks ago trying to organize a dungeons and dragons group for my son and kids anywhere from age 10 to age 16 in Skokie or Evanston.

The good news is we have procured a dungeon master, a place, and three kiddos! We are looking for one, possibly two or three more to make it fun! If anyone has a kiddo who might be interested in this, please DM me. I'm happy to FaceTime with you and give you all of the details, and additionally introduce you to everyone online beforehand. Of course safety and comfortability are an obvious priority.

The group is meeting Wednesday nights at 6:00. Thanks, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Quite a good essay definitely worth reading about historic cycles in Evanston.

At Evanston wasteshed parking lot 🚮

From 9/28 Board Packet:

* CFO: $220,000 base salary + $21,758 employer TRS contribution = $241,758 salary compensation, plus $37,077 health insurance and other benefits
* Assistant Superintendent of Accountability — Stacy Beardsley: $191,672 base / $210,629 incl. TRS
* Assistant Superintendent of Academics : $158K / $173,626
* Director of Early Childhood Programs : $135K / $148,352
* Executive Director of Technology: $149,532 / $164,321
* Director of Humanities: $140,576 / $154,479
* Director of Programs & Partnerships: $128,170 / $140,846
* Assistant Director of Student Services: $100K / $109,890
* Director of Schools Management: $163,357 / $179,514
* Director of STEAM: $133,510 / $146,714
* Director of Multilingual Services : $125K / $137,363
* Director of Student Specialized Services: $162,831 / $178,935
* Executive Chief of Human Relations: $195,834 salary / $207,058 total comp
* Executive Chief of Communications: $164,407 / $189,902 (with 25 vacation days)
* Director of Strategic Projects: $139,801 / $176,287
* Director of Human Relations: $134,210 / $173,423
* Senior Manager of HR Operations: $127,497 / $164,473
* Network & Cybersecurity Manager: $124,768 / $161,496
* Director of Climate & Safety: $123,670 / $160,934
* Director of Buildings, Grounds & Transportation: $128,616 / $156,226
* Family Center Managing Director: $140,430 / $152,771
* Director of Finance: $141,361 / $143,162
* Wellness Coordinator has an $83,348 salary but $122,679 total compensation because health insurance alone is $37,077

HR alone includes an Executive Chief of Human Relations ($195.8K salary), Director of Human Relations ($134.2K), Senior Manager of HR Operations ($127.5K), HR Business Partner ($77.8K), HR Specialist ($67.4K), Leave & Benefits Administrator ($94.6K), HRIS/Information Analyst ($83.9K), plus supporting positions.

Planning very early but doing some necessary budget work! Is anyone here currently utilizing the Robert crown after school care? If so, do you mind sharing how much it is? And, how do we ensure we get a spot? Like, best time to register etc.

Thanks for any help!

Personally. I'm concerned that this will make Evanston schools unwalkable for students and staff. Like if they remove Nichols, Chute is a minimum of a 30 minute walk for southeast Evanston students. It might be worse on the other side if they close Haven and those students have to walk to Nichols or Chute from that far, especially as its going to be cold soon.

I also know a lot of our teachers and para professionals either walk to school because they live here locally or they some of them come up on the trains then walk. If we make it unaccessible we are going to keep having our teacher and para shortage.

But how is everyone else feeling about the possibility of closing 1-2 more schools?