Evanston Reparations: Update on Funding Model
I found the $2m in additional funds, plus I include a bonus video about my LLM tech I use to write and find stories
This is a brief update to yesterday’s story regarding how the Evanston Reparations Fund is funded. Thank you to everyone who reached out to me to provide clarity. Both the Roundtable and EvanstonNow eventually published stories on the lawsuit.
The Reparations fund is funded via three mechanisms:
Municipal Cannabis Retailers' Occupation Tax: Back in 2019, it was initially funded primarily through a 3% tax on the gross sales of cannabis within the city. It brings in around $400,000 per year. Ordinance.
Real Estate Transfer Taxes: Effective January 1, 2023, all real estate transfer taxes on properties above $1.5 million are transferred to the Reparations fund, up to $1 million per year. Ordinance. Before that ordinance, the Council did a one time payment of $2 million dollars at the end of 2022. Resolution.
Donations: The City of Evanston also accepts donations. As of May 1, 2024, the City had received $52,457.22 in donations over the lifetime of the fund.
I was original sharing the 2023 budgets, which show $2 million in cash from the one time transfer from the general fund, $1 million in cash from the transfer taxes and another ~$400,000 from the cannabis taxes. So that’s where the $3.4 million 2023 budget comes from. So yesterday, I was confused about the $2 million. This solves that.
Reparations & Payments
They spent about $2.26 million in 2023 and you can see it on the budget reconciliation report the city puts out.
The budget this year is $1.4 million, which is the $1 million from the real estate transfer tax plus the $400k from the cannabis tax. If you look at their most recent meeting minutes, you can get a sense of how the monies are being used for 2024.
Under the Restorative Housing Program in year 2024, they’ve paid:
Home Improvement Benefit ( Repairs/Renovations) = 6 recipients totaling $112,000
Mortgage Assistance = 1 recipient $25,000
Cash Benefits = 59 Recipients totaling $1,450,500
Then they also anticipate making 80 payments under the Ancestor Reparations Recipients Disbursement, which (I think) should total $2,000,000. It’s not clear if the cash benefits listed above under the Restorative Housing Program are the same as the reparations payments. But if not, it’s not clear now they intend to stay within budget. According to the City, as of March 31, 2024 they had a $315,055 balance in the fund.
Large Language Models & AI for Journalism
I made a 15 minute video you can watch that explains how I’ve begun to use artificial intelligence, in particular large language models and retrieval augmentation systems to process vast quantities of data and documents.
Topics I cover:
Retrieval Augmentation Systems for processing documents
Different LLM models (OpenAI, Google Gemini, Anthropic)
How I data mine numbers and find possible scandals
How LLM models hedge when it comes to being critical of governments (especially Google’s)
If you watch the video, you’ll see towards the end we find a story that I wasn’t even thinking about writing about! Here’s the conversation snipped with the AI where we found a story from a single 387 page Evanston meeting packet.
TOM: OK what's the story on the Howard Ridge TIF? What do you know about the building they want to purchase there
LLM: The City of Evanston wants to purchase the property at 729-39 Howard Street to assemble with an adjacent City-owned property at 727 Howard Street. The assembled properties would be demolished and redeveloped as mixed-use affordable housing.
The property at 729-39 Howard Street is currently occupied by the Clothespin Laundromat. It was appraised at $750,000, but the City is purchasing it for $950,000.
The property is contaminated from a former dry cleaning facility that operated on the City-owned site. The City is working to get a No Further Remediation letter from the Illinois EPA to allow for residential development.
TOM: wow taht's really interesting. why is the city paying $200k morE???
LLM: The document doesn't explicitly state why the City is paying $200,000 more than the appraised value for the property at 729-39 Howard Street. However, it does mention that the appraisal of $750,000 did not include the value of the business improvements. It's possible that the additional $200,000 is being paid to account for the value of the laundromat business and its equipment.
You may wish to contact the City of Evanston's Economic Development Manager, Paul Zalmezak, for clarification on this matter.