I also rely on local notebooks. I don't want to save private information in the cloud but store it with the other notes in the same app. I don't need synchronisation of these notes over all of my devices.
For me, local notebooks are a substitute for true encryption never offered by Evernote. True encryption means I store the private key not Google.
If Evernote won't bring back local notebooks (or better implement end-to-end encryption), I think I have to look for another tool.