Newly released text messages, attached to Walberg’s letter, show that multiple University officials, including trustee and donor Michael Sacks, sharply criticized the mayor’s decision in April 2024. “Just off the phone with Michael Sacks. He said you can’t trust him,” Schill wrote in an April 27, 2024 message to Greg Stripp, his chief of staff at the time. He wrote this was “not surprising,” adding the mayor had discussed his decision with unnamed members of “the Council and who knows who else.”In a separate message to Schill, Sacks wrote Biss and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) are “not full throated supporters.”“I know Biss well,” Sacks wrote. In the letter, Biss wrote that the deal will “inevitably affect” city policing and spaces where community members and the University interact, including public sidewalks.