The Daily Northwestern Tuesday, February 21, 2016
DAILYNORTHWESTERN.COM 8 SPORTS/Men’s Tennis
3 CAMPUS/Activism
Losses to ranked opponents spoil record
Petition calls for increased supervision of Greek life, more sexual health resources
Find us online @thedailynu 4 OPINION/Cooper
Course packets should be eliminated
DPOE supports Reid in election
City worries of tax freeze
By NORA SHELLY
daily senior staffer @noracshelly
Group endorses in clerk race, but not in mayoral contest By BILLY KOBIN
daily senior staffer @billy_kobin
The Democratic Party of Evanston voted Sunday to endorse Devon Reid for city clerk and to support a referendum to increase property taxes to fund a deficit in Evanston/ Skokie School District 65’s budget. More than 80 percent of the members in attendance voted in favor of the upcoming District 65 property tax referendum that will be placed on the April municipal ballot and would help the district combat a projected $114.4 million deficit by fiscal year 2025. Reid received 88 votes, which amounted to 75 percent of votes cast, while current City Clerk Rodney Greene received 15 votes. Fourteen members voted not to endorse in the race. Reid said he is “extremely excited ” to receive the endorsement from DPOE and that he thinks voters want to have a more efficient and transparent city clerk’s office. He said he thinks DPOE » See DPOE, page 6
Katie Pach/Daily Senior Staffer
Keynote speaker Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez speaks at Lutkin Hall on Monday. Rodriguez provided words of healing as she addressed issues of navigating predominantly white institutions as a Latinx student.
Event centers on Latinx voices Students gather for discussion entitled ‘Dear Woke Brown Girl’ By YVONNE KIM
daily senior staffer @yvonneekimm
More than 130 people gathered Monday night for student performances and a keynote talk focused on discussing the experiences of Latinx students in white-majority institutions. In an event titled “Dear Woke Brown Girl,” keynote speaker Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez — founder of online platform Latina Rebels — addressed topics of race and identity in her personal life with a primarily Latinx audience. The talk was hosted by Campus Inclusion
and Community, Interfaith Advocates and Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority, Inc. Weinberg senior Yoseline Huerta, a member of Lambda Theta Alpha and Interfaith Advocates, planned the event and described it as a way of creating “a space that’s geared toward brown women specifically.” “At the university, it’s kind of exhausting to navigate a predominantly white institution,” Huerta said. “You become tired and exhausted and there’s a need to recharge. And sometimes there’s a need to recharge in community, and to listen to people like Prisca who have created these spaces online to make sure … you feel
you’re not the only person who feels the way you do.” The first half of the event provided a space for four students — both NU undergraduates and students from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary — to share music, spoken word poetry and personal narratives regarding Latinx and immigrant identities. Rodriguez, an immigrant from Nicaragua, then shared her personal story about the struggles she encountered as a minority graduate student navigating Vanderbilt University. It was her first time in an environment that was not primarily Latinx, she said. “A lot of my work around
healing is naming the hard stuff, giving a thing to the names that hurt you, to the institutions that hurt us,” she said. “Attending white-serving institutions is awful.” Rodriguez said she began Latina Rebels — an online Tumblr and Facebook community
dedicated to solidarity between brown women — in 2013 as a result of the pent-up anger she felt at Vanderbilt. She is currently taking time off from school to recover from the challenges she faced, and said she is using writing as a means of healing. She dedicated her talk to » See KEYNOTE, page 6
Students increase engagement in mayoral race
Despite history of separation from local races, students rally around 2017 candidates By JONAH DYLAN
the daily northwestern @thejonahdylan
Adam Gross walked into an Evanston mayoral debate on Feb. 7 with no idea whom he would vote for. After the debate, not only had he made up his mind, but also he wanted to do more. The Communication junior, along with Weinberg junior Raghav Narula, started NU Students for Brian Miller for Mayor, a Facebook page campaigning for the 9th Ward alderman in the upcoming election. They are part of a group of students who have taken a special interest in this year’s municipal elections in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in November. Ross Krasner, Associated Student Government vice president for community relations, said he
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has seen an increased interest in local politics from students since the presidential election. “Many students were obviously disappointed with the outcome,” the Medill junior said. “They realized that involvement now is more important than ever, and local elections are certainly a very effective way of engaging in the political process and making a decision.” City clerk candidate Devon Reid said a small group of students is working for his campaign and stressed the effect students can have on local elections. “When Northwestern students are in town, they make up about 25 percent of the population,” he said. “Young folks and millennials make up 36 or 37 percent of the city, and young people, students being involved in the process is critical to making sure our democracy reflects
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our values.” In the past, students have not played a very active role in local elections. Gross said he has observed that students tend not to engage in local politics, despite their potential influence. Northwestern has more than 8,000 undergraduate students on its Evanston campus. But now, due in part to a renewed focus on local politics at the start of Trump’s administration, students are starting to engage with Evanston’s mayoral candidates. Both Miller and Steve Hagerty, another mayoral candidate, have groups of NU students helping to get them elected. “There’s an increasing hunger among the student population to want to do something that could possibly affect society in general,” » See STUDENTS, page 6
Allie Goulding/The Daily Northwestern
Jeff Smith (Weinberg ’77) is one of five candidates in the Evanston mayoral race. The primary election is set for Feb. 28.
A proposed statewide property tax freeze could impact police and fire pension funds, city manager Wally Bobkiewicz said. The property tax freeze has been floated by Gov. Bruce Rauner in response to a “grand bargain” set of bills designed to end the state budget impasse. In a budget address last week, Rauner said he would not support an increase in taxes on groceries and medicine included in the package of bills. Rauner also said he would not support a proposed income tax increase without a complementary property tax freeze. A property tax freeze would make the income tax increase a little easier on residents, Rauner said. “We need a permanent property tax freeze in Illinois, just like the one the House passed last month,” he said. “Over time, as our economy grows and revenues expand, any increase in the income tax could be stepped down — dedicating future surpluses to taxpayers, not more government spending.” At an Administration and Public Works Committee meeting in October, aldermen were told by an actuarial firm hired by the city that both funds are both funded at under 50 percent. An actuarial firm hired by the city suggested adjusting the mortality tables for the pension plans. Currently, the funded ratio for the fire plan is 43.6 percent and 46.6 percent for the police plan. Bobkiewicz said the city is currently putting in more money into the funds than is required annually to try to overcome issues in fully funding the pensions. “The prioritization of the council has in the past been to put more money aside for pensions to try to make up some of the deficits there over the years,” Bobkiewicz said. “Under a worse case scenario … one of the options may be to stop doing that in order to continue to fund current operations at the same level.” Bobkiewicz said it was unclear whether the proposed increase in income taxes would benefit the city. Currently, Evanston keeps roughly 9 percent of the revenue raised in income tax, down from 10 percent in previous years according to Bobkiewicz. If an increase in the income tax would allow the state to leave more of the revenue to municipalities, it could offset the potential negative impacts of a » See BUDGET, page 6
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