By Bob Seidenberg
Candidates Gilo Kwesi Logan and Jeff Smith filed petitions on the last day of the filing period Monday, bringing the field to six candidates running in a special election to fill the remaining two years of Mayor Daniel Biss’s term.
Logan, the son of the city’s first African-American police chief, a consultant on police-community issues, and Smith, an attorney and the longtime voice of the Central Street Neighbors Association on land use and other issues, filed Monday, qualifying to run in the Consolidated Prumary on Feb. 23, 2027.
The two join Jeff Boarini, retired Director of Creative Services for the McDonald’s Corporation and Biss’s opponent in the 2024 election, City Clerk Stephanie Mendoza, and former Evanston alderpeople Jane Grover and Ann Rainey, who narrowly lost in a bid for mayor in 1983.
In announcing, Smith, who ran unsuccessfully in the 2o17 primary for mayor, maintained kin a statement that “much of his platform could be ported verbatim to 2027.”
”I warned of gentrification of Evanston, now cuphemistically called “displacement,” over 20 years ago,” he said. “The City and the schools continue to disappoint the public through skirting the law and a top-down, winner-take-all style of governance that does not resemble consensus-building so much as bullying.
“Heavy-handed governance, parochialism, and a reliance on ideology rather than thoughtful analysis has
divided Evanston more than any time in recent decades,” he maintained.
Former Mayor Daniel Biss’s stepped down from office Oct. 18, to focus efforts on his race for the 9th U.S. Congressional seat where as the winner of the Democratic primary, he is a strong favorite to win election Nov. 3.
Meanwhile, the Evanston City Council at its meeting Monday voted to appoint 4th Ward Council member Jonathan Nieuwsma to the position of acting mayor through May 10, 2027, when a newly-elected Mayor will be sworn in.