u/beautifulbeanfootage

Snippet:

Walker-Aguilar said she believed Heartwood had promised to assist in building out the restaurant, including purchasing equipment for the restaurant, which would be paid back as part of the restaurant’s rent.

On Tuesday, Heartwood Center’s Larry Akey told Evanston Now that Heartwood had never agreed to those terms, and shared a statement that Walker-Aguilar “asked if [they] could terminate the lease,” adding that the fact “they were even considering not moving forward with the project was unexpected and shocking to Heartwood.”

But in text messages and emails reviewed by Evanston Now, Floy contacted Walker-Aguilar and Glapion last Tuesday, May 11, and demanded they remove equipment they had stored in the vacant building at 1828-1830 Dempster St., threatening to remove the restaurant equipment and place it into the alleyway, despite Walker-Aguilar and Glapion having a lease agreement and key to the building.

“No one has permission to have anything in the space, so we are moving it all out to the alley,” Floy wrote in a message on May 11, before writing later that day, “This is not working. Let me know when you want to talk about whether we will move forward with your business or not.”

The next day, May 12, Floy wrote in a message that Heartwood was “willing to terminate your lease if you want to move on,” which Walker-Aguilar said she decided to accept as she felt things were heading downhill.

“She strong-armed us into requesting to terminate the lease,” Walker-Aguilar said Tuesday in a phone interview, adding she was asked to send a formal request to terminate the lease, which she did on May 12. That request was included in Heartwood’s statement of the events as well.

“It’s just unfortunate that we were used to help gridlock the Popeyes situation,” Walker-Aguilar added, saying she felt like she was used as the public face of the opposition campaign last fall.