Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Reparations Disbursements topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Evanston reparations committee reports $5.24 million disbursed; cites lower-than-expected cannabis tax revenue
Summary
At a March 6 listening session the City of Evanston Reparations Committee said it has disbursed $5,242,974.81 to 212 recipients and has $1.2 million committed to advance further payments; committee members said cannabis sales tax revenue has fallen short of a 2019 projection that assumed three dispensaries.
The City of Evanston Reparations Committee said at a March 6 listening session that it has disbursed $5,242,974.81 to 212 recipients and has $1,200,000 committed to advance additional disbursements.
Reparations Committee member Robin Lou Simmons said the committee’s total paid to date includes “just about all of the elders that were selected,” and that the committee is continuing to work through payments for direct descendants. “This hasn't changed, since our last bank's announcement, but we have disbursed $5,242,974.81 to a total of 212 recipients,” Simmons said.
The committee attributed delays and a slower-than-expected cadence of future rounds to lower-than-expected cannabis tax revenue. Simmons said the February 2019 revenue projection was based on an expectation of three cannabis dispensaries in Evanston; at the time the city operated with one dispensary and, as of the March 6 meeting, had two. “The cannabis sales tax revenue is far less than we projected in 02/2019,” Simmons said, adding that local dispensary sales appear lower than national reporting on the industry.
Simmons also said the committee has questions about why receipts are lower than the 2019 projection and that she hoped to return at the committee’s next meeting with more detail. “I have some more questions that I'm looking to get answered. I'm hoping at our next meeting I could come back with more of an explanation,” Simmons said.
Committee members stressed that the city remains committed to completing disbursements. Carlos Sutton, a reparations committee member who spoke at the meeting, urged the public to remain engaged and said the committee’s priority remains payment to ancestors first, then direct descendants. The committee also said it has used other measures, including front-loading some real-estate-transfer-tax receipts in prior years, to accelerate payments.
The committee said it will provide updates via the City of Evanston reparations webpage; staff advised that applicants and community members sign up for email updates for notices about vendor lists, upcoming programming and calls for speakers.
The committee's next regular meeting is scheduled for April 3 at 9 a.m.; the committee said meetings will move to 909 Davis Street, second floor, beginning in April.
