The story · one household
We asked the neighborhood to vote
The second sheet of the sign in our front yard laid out every realistic way we could stop running a charging cable across our own sidewalk — build a driveway, drive to a fast charger, wait for a public L2 program, keep charging and pay the fines Council is weighing, or be kind while we work on a permit — with what each one would actually cost a household. Then it asked whoever walked by to pick one. We stopped counting at 100.
The tally
Two options on the board drew no votes at all: the City's public L2 program — crossed out on the sign, because it does not exist on our street — and “keep charging and start paying fines.”
Voting results
First, a warning for people considering this: if you have feelings and faith in your fellow humans, you may not want to put up signs asking for public input. After a week, the initial tally was 28 in favor of the kindness option, and 3 for driveway, 2 for drive to L3. That felt pretty good.
After Labor Day weekend, the total was 67 in favor of kindness, 18 for driveway, and 15 for drive to L3. (I stopped at 100 votes.) There was also 1 vote (someone later scratched it out) suggesting we buy a new car. (Very helpful, thank you.) Notably, there were no suggestions on the feedback section, so that didn't work. This felt less good.
Someone very nicely also wrote “Sorry someone is making this hard for you” and we got three hearts on the kindness area in addition to tick marks. This felt good.
Most neighbors vote for kindness! I hope our erstwhile harassers will abide by this non-binding neighborhood opinion vote. Big thank you to everyone who participated, even if I don't agree with many of you. Big extra thank you for those who stopped by to chat or otherwise engaged, and we appreciate all the sympathy.
As a bonus, we learned that there are at least five examples of this kind of charging setup in Rosemont. I cannot reveal their locations, because we do not want them to be targeted as well. But this reinforced my belief that this is relatively common and then confused me as to why our house is the only one being reported.
The votes for the driveway option and L3 charging options are genuinely mystifying. Each of them would cost our family thousands of dollars. It is kind of depressing that so many people think their irritation should be worth that kind of disruption to a family's finances.
Here is what we do with money when we don't have to spend it on a driveway
- Our elder daughter (2nd grade) likes the STEM camps over the summer, but they're a little more expensive. They are worth it. She asked me what came before the Big Bang the other day.
- Our smaller daughter (pre-K) was afraid of water, but with lots of swimming lessons and patience, she is close to jumping off the side of the pool all by herself.
- I am pretty sure I can build a treehouse for the girls in this Ash tree.
- I hear college is expensive. I would love for them to be able to go where they want and not have to join the Navy to pay for it like I did. (To be fair, Top Gun played a role there.)
- My wife needs expensive jewelry and luxury gifts or she will leave me. Haha, I am kidding. I think.
I am not sure what I expected from this. I think I was hoping most people would vote for kindness and the people reporting us would feel ashamed about the stress they've caused us and think “hm, this really is the only option for them, so I'll stop threatening them fines (or jail!?)” We did get the votes for that, but not as decisively as I wanted. Mostly, this has convinced me even more that the city should authorize some kind of cross-curb charging, because the affordability of EVs for people without driveways depends entirely on a collective promise of every single person in the neighborhood to be cool with it.
If you agree, email city council!
Why a poll is on a policy site
The finding
Two-thirds is a comfortable margin for a neighborhood opinion poll and a poor foundation for a family's finances. Under today's rules, whether a household without a driveway can afford to drive electric depends on every neighbor — all of them, every week — choosing not to file a report. A permit pathway replaces that unanimous goodwill with a standard: a crossing that meets a spec, an inspection, insurance, and a rule both sides can point to. That is what the proposal asks Council to adopt.
The sign itself
The results were posted back on the fence where the vote board had been, as the fifth sign in the series. The full set — open letter, fine warning, vote board, comment card, the trench-drain exhibit, and these results — is on The Signs We've Posted.