The Tuesday night Naperville city council meeting proved again how inept they are as a governing body. Mayor Pradel displayed his wisdom by not attending the meeting. Chances are when he does attend a meeting, he looks to his left, and then he looks to his right and he must wonder how did these people get elected to office. Other than Councilman Doug Krause who is a strong voice for the citizens of Naperville, and councilman Joe McElroy who demonstrates a real sense of sincerity, the rest of them are a very sorry bunch. I would imagine any political science class in the county would benefit immensely from having a course focusing on the incompetent useless, bungling, heavy-handedness of the Naperville city council.
Tonight’s meeting drew a large group of law abiding, engaged, concerned and knowledgeable citizens. This is the very type of people that the city council does not want to see or hear. This was quite evident by the fact that the Naperville city council had armed police officers at each entry/exit door with police patrol cars stationed outside in no parking zones. The reason for the large turnout of informed and involved citizens was the following agenda item:
“Pass the ordinance amending Title 8 (Public Utilities), Chapter 1 (electricity), Article A (General Provisions and Article C (Electric Services Rates) of the Naperville Municipal Code establishing a Non-wireless Meter Alternative (NWMA) option under the Naperville Smart Grid Initiative (NSGI). (First reading 9/21/11, N2)”
Simply stated, this is nothing more than a ‘smart meter’ ‘work-around’ so the Naperville city council can punish citizens by inflicting an exorbitant financial penalty on those who do not want wireless not-so-smart meters.
The Naperville city council violated one of its own ordinances regarding public urination. Basically, the Naperville city council urinated on the citizens of Naperville and then told the citizens it was raining. The vote was a given; seven in favor of ‘sticking it’ to the citizens, one in favor of the citizens (Krause), and one wisely elsewhere for the evening. From the day the Naperville city council did a money grab from the Department of Energy, the passage of the ordinance was inevitable. Warning: never get between a Naperville city council member and any type of dollar-entitlement”
Only two things could have prevented the passage of this ordinance; 1) having a city council election this week, and 2) The Department of Common Sense offering a larger ‘money grab’ to the council. Even if Jesus Christ had spoken to the Naperville city council tonight, it would not have made a difference.
Seventeen speakers ‘tried’ to address the council tonight in opposition to the (not-so) smart meter ordinance. Typically, speakers are allowed 3 minutes to speak, however tonight the council tried to limit it to 90 seconds. That did not go over very well. The council realizing it would not look good on Youtube decided to allow 3 minutes. That was big of them. All of the speakers did a good job making their points, however you could feel 7 members of the council along with city manager Doug Krieger praying for it to come to an end. Watch and listen to two speakers (Jennifer Stahl and Dave Bendis) drive home their points.
Council member Steve Chirico must have drawn the short straw because he had to cover for an absent Mayor Pradel. It’s interesting how a council member sits in for the mayor and then gets fixated on the gavel. In fact, Chirico was so fixated on the gavel that on two separate instances he had young women “kicked out” of the meeting by armed police. You could actually see Chirico beaming with pleasure with his newfound power through the gavel. The last time we saw ‘gavel mania’ was when council member Wehrli covered for the mayor and did the gavel-pounding thing. Threatening citizens with expulsion must truly be a council member’s dream.
It’s a shame that citizens do not have the same opportunity to gavel council members out of the meeting. There would have been plenty of opportunities for that to happen Tuesday night. By the time the meeting was over there would have been only two council members at the dais; Krause and McElroy.
Let’s look at how each of the other six council members along with city manager Doug Krieger would have been escorted out of the building.
Krieger would have been gaveled out by using the word ‘absolutely’ too often, as when he is absolutely positive he is right about everything.
Wehrli would be escorted out by one of Naperville’s finest for being arrogant and dismissive of citizens.
Hinterlong would be removed by three officers; one for not knowing that generally the cost-of-living in New England is more than in Naperville, one for supporting a $190,000 expense for audio / visual upgrade for city council chambers so he doesn’t have to be inconvenienced by leaning forward towards the microphone, and one for wanting the city council shenanigans to be seen and heard better by others throughout the world on the internet. You would think the council would want as few people as possible to see and hear what they do. This is the goal of their transparency.
Brodhead would be kicked out immediately after reading another proclamation, since that seems to be her only reason for appearing at meetings. Her council seat would be better served if it were empty during meetings; we are tired about hearing how salt and smart meters are comparable.
Fieseler would be swiftly escorted out of the chambers for too much tap-dancing without a violin.
Chirico would have to be physically removed by two officers; one for losing control of the meeting tonight and broadcasting his lack of leadership skills, and the other for patronizing citizens by telling them ‘it was good to hear from them’ after kicking a couple of law-abiding well-intentioned citizens out of the meeting. Have you noticed how he is heavy-handed against the female gender, yet shortens in stature when dealing with those of his own gender?
Miller would be briskly taken away for expressing too many non-truths. You can always tell when council member Miller is speaking non-truths…his lips are moving. We may be wrong on this one; however, we know how unlikely that is.
The bottom line is that the Naperville city council won the vote on this one over the citizens of Naperville. However, when the real vote comes at election time, the citizens of Naperville will prevail, and those council members will be sitting with us on our side of the dais. Just ask ex-councilman Furstenau. I wonder if they will be given 90 seconds to talk.
Nailed it! Exactly what everyone was thinking. Why can’t the papers write like this? The truth. Others in Naperville need to know.
I was amazed at the utter arrogance of the council members.