Naperville City Officials Squeezing (You)r Nozzle

It seems like whenever Naperville city officials get themselves into trouble with awful decision-making, they reach out to the residents and businesses in Naperville to bail them out of the dilemma. The problem is they don’t learn from their mistakes, and in fact, compound them by making it worse. City officials find it much easier and more expedient to simply extract more money from anybody within city limits.

The most recent issue, is one of water rates and utilization. The Naperville city council made huge mistakes and miscalculations regarding the Naperville-owned electric utility, and found themselves $25 milllion dollars in the red. So the council decided to borrow millions from the water utility to pay the electric utility. Brilliant on their part; rob Peter to pay Paul.  Until they realized, that the water department (Paul) is heading towards the financial cliff.

Now it appears the council’s game plan is a one-step process. Squeeze it out of Naperville residents and  businesses, by jacking up the water rates, just as city officials are doing with the electric rates,  Jim Holzapfel, Naperville’s water utility director, said in essence, that if income from water use narrows to a dribble, and “we start to look like we’re going to go negative, we can take some actions”,  to stop it from becoming another huge financial deficit. Hence, the one-step solution; extract money from everybody within city limits.

A number of years ago, during an extended drought, city officials implored residents to limit their use of water, and warned residents, that if they didn’t do it, water rates would have to be raised. Residents abided, either out of civic responsibility, or fear of rate increase. At the end of that summer, Naperville city officials announced that because of ‘less than normal’ water usage, in order to offset lost income by the water utility, city officials would have to raise water rates.

There are still a number of residents around that remember that stunt, so it might be more difficult to pull that one off again, but looking at the bag of tricks the council uses, it’s pretty much a one-trick (raise rates) bag. Past experience shows that they are not very creative in solving issues.

So the next time you’re squeezing your water hose nozzle, remember who will be squeezing you.

 

 

 

 

Show 3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Gerard H Schilling

    Oh, those ever predictable unintended consequences our illustrious leaders continue to conjure up to screw the tax payers again.

  2. Sandy

    The Electric Company needs to be sold, before it goes into default. The Council, Poole, and Curran made a huge mistake endorsing the 30 year contract with IMEA. Note that ComEd did not participate in this boondoggle, They further moved the Utility closer to default by participating in the DOE “smart meter” fiasco, The City now has to pay for expensive software, firewalls, data storage, wireless equipment, consultants, E-portals and expensive overhead. In my opinion, ComEd has millions of customers to spread their costs, CON only has 57,000. A business can’t succeed when it does everything they can to discourage use of their product. The higher the rates go, the less people use. The less people use, the more they increase the rates. In my opinion, Curran. Krieger, and the Council do not have the resources, expertise, purchasing power nor shareholder interest to properly run the enterprise. Krieger once bragged that our rates are low, because the Electric Company doesn’t have to earn a profit. Well, they are running a huge loss that is now affecting our water rates, rates for both utilities are escalating, and the taxpayers are being squeezed.

    The global warming has been a giant crony capitalist scam. The only “green” is cash for the snake oil salesmen selling CON products, software and services that wouldn’t sell in the free market. Now we have meters that are a gateway for hackers, an expense to maintain them and the whole mesh network, data to collect store and protect, increasing expensive IT employees and software that must be continually updated at immense costs.

    There is plenty of affordable energy for all. The law of supply and demand requires that to lower prices, supply must be increased. This is all about charging a whole lot more for a whole lot less, avoiding the inevitable investment in real infrastructure that will provide the energy this country needs to compete on e global market.

    Yeah, and CON Can now compete with private business and run a recycling venture…

  3. Sandy

    Dynamic Pricing is nothing more than charging homeowners and business,
    2-6 times more for electricity during the hours of 12 Noon until 9 PM at night. It makes using our homes, for which we are paying nosebleed property taxes, almost unaffordable for many young families and retirees. Only the wealthy will be able to go about their daily activities in comfort.

    The nearly $1M spent on the e-portal system, not only makes the system more accessible to hacking, expensive to protect and update. It’s a waste of money, considering CON has stated that the average homeowner will save $1.00 per month if they opt for the dynamic pricing model.

    Really, what nit-wit in Naperville needs an electricity “speedometer” to tell them they are using power? We all know that if we are running our air conditioner we are using more than power if turned off, or set to 80 degrees. Most people don’t balance their checkbooks let alone keep their eyes glued to some energy monitor. For those die-heart frugal conservationists, they can buy a Google Nest. Those few can vacuum their carpets at midnight, while they are washing and ironing their clothes.

    What a relief if was when he cell phone companies acknowledged that “dynamic pricing ” was disliked by customers and finally introduced “anytime” minutes. It made our lives simple, more productive and happy.

    The fools in CONs leadership would have done much better to build, in cooperation with business , a micro-grid station that will supplement our own power and be a back up when the grid fails. This is now the latest thinking of some of the best scientists. Too bad, CON, is looking in the rear view mirror of the mass of idiots, rather than those who have been warning all along that dependence on one expensive and massive grid has been a national security risk.

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