Imagine if we knew now, what we will know in the year 2033. That is only 22 years from now. Maybe global warming would not be an issue now. Maybe we would know in which alternative fuel to invest. We would know which year the Cubs will win the World Series. We would know whether or not Smart Meters were smart or if it was one gigantic fraud perpetrated by the 2011 Naperville city council on citizens.
Chances are that the citizens of Naperville in 2033 might have no idea what transpired in 2011 with regard to Smart Meters. Most likely, they will have no idea who was on the city council and the name George Pradel might be the answer to a Naperville trivia game question. Who now can remember the names of the city council members and mayor’s name 22 years ago in 1989? All right, council member Doug Krause might remember since he was on the council in 1989, but you might be hard pressed to find a second person who could name the others.
Council members and mayors come and go, however the effects of their decisions linger. Without research, we do not remember who made the decisions or how they were made; we just know if the decisions were beneficial or classic examples of somebody’s poor judgment.
In the year 2033, if it turns out that the Smart Meter project worked, no one will really care who was responsible for making the project a reality. Sort of like the light switch; somebody invented it and all we care about is that the light goes on or off. If Smart Meters turn out to be a colossal experiment in bad judgment, then those responsible for implementing the fiasco will most likely be long gone from the political scene and not held accountable for leading us in the wrong direction.
So where might be our nine council members in the year 2033 if a concerned citizen in the future wanted get some straight answers on the not-so Smart Meters? Let us look at our crystal ball powered by a smart meter.
Mayor George Pradel will be retired and enjoying life in a ‘smart meter free’ Naperville subdivision. It will be considered a ‘high rent’ area since most Naperville citizens would want to live there for health reasons….less RF.
Council member Bob Fieseler will be long gone from the council after being soundly defeated in a landslide vote to a write-in candidate from the Naperville Smart Meter Awareness Group. Unable to run for any other state office because he received no votes in the council election, he decides to cash-in his ‘Smart Meter’ company stock and move to Switzerland where he is no longer the punch line of local jokes. Having had his identity stolen, because of a breach of security with Smart Meter information, he strives to rebuild his reputation, only to find out that his reputation was not that good in the first place.
Council member Grant Wehrli will have had a successful political career after entering a 12-step recovery program to kick the habit of supporting smart meters. The voters based on his courage to admit publicly that he was wrong about smart meters will forgive him. Once that monkey is off his back he wins the election for mayor of Naperville and serves for two weeks before realizing that because of the Smart Meter project, the city of Naperville is so deep in debt, that when the city finance director looks up, she is still looking down. He resigns as mayor and wins the election for governor of Illinois. He continues to reside in Naperville, but now living on Wehrli Road (a smart meter free road) and sets up his office at Wehrli Stadium at North Central College. His main goal is to change the name of North Central College to Wehrli University and he re-names the dorms Wehrli 1, Wehrli 2, and Wehrli 4. There is no Wehrli Dorm Three since it suffered water damage during a Smart Meter fire in the summer of 2030.
Council member Kenn Miller in an effort to distance himself from the Smart Meter debacle decides to change his name by adding one more ‘n’ to his first name and an additional ‘l’ to his last name thereby becoming Kennn Milller so when his name is goggled it won’t be associated with Smart Meters. His last official vote on the council is in favor of rezoning the southwest corner of Naper and 75th. Upon leaving the Naperville city council and cashing in his smart meter portfolio, he opens a used-car lot on the southwest corner of Naper and 75th street (coincidence…not) and becomes the best used-car salesman in the Midwest.
Council member Doug Krause celebrates his 41st year on the Naperville city council. He is elected mayor of Naperville and serves one term. He finds out that following an icon (Mayor Pradel) is a miserable experience and decides not to run for re-election. He returns to his position as council member and continues to be the best-dressed council member in Naperville.
Council member Steve Chirico losses his re-election bid, even though he runs unopposed. He becomes the first public official ever to lose an election when unopposed. He decides to choose another career that he is totally unqualified for and become a ‘Sensitivity’ counselor. He then creates a start-up business called ‘Gavels ‘R Us’ and gets a patent for an unbreakable fifteen pound gavel; no matter how hard someone pounds it, it doesn’t break.
Council member Brodhead decides to submit her resignation; however, it is not accepted because she does so about a month after she loses her re-election bid. She takes a position as a lobbyist for the National Salt Association.
Council member Hinterlong resigns from the Naperville city council because of the lack of respect he perceives from everyone he encounters. The tipping event comes when he shows up for a council meeting and his chair is gone.
His job search results in two opportunities; 1) fixing smart meters, or 2) going door-to-door and apologizing to everyone, he encounters for voting for smart meters. He burns out quickly and decides to open a liquor store in Naperville if he can get a liquor license from the city council. Public forum speaker time has been reduced from the 3-minute time limit, down to 10 seconds and he never gets beyond giving his name and address.
Council member Joe McElroy decides to not run for re-election; not because he cannot win, on the contrary he decides to leave because he can win. While waiting days to get his Smart Meter fixed by repair person Hinterlong, he has an epiphany, and decides he wants to get into an honest line of work. He opens a ‘philosophy shop’ in downtown Naperville. He dispenses bits of wisdom and common sense. On weekends he able to charge more. He gets the ‘charge-more-on-weekends’ idea from the Smart Meter project where rates are the highest on weekends, holidays and daylight hours.
No one really knows the where about of former Naperville city manager Doug Krieger. He quietly left town in the middle of the night when the Smart Meter grid collapsed and engulfed the city in total darkness. He thought it would be an ideal time to leave. Word has it that he moved to a small town in Montana and became a flashlight salesman.
In the year 2033, the citizens of Naperville have learned to navigate throughout town without the use of reliable electric. Naperville’s new claim to fame is that it is the largest producer of candles in the world. Additionally Naperville houses the Margaret Price National Smart Meter Museum; exhibitions show obsolete and useless not-so Smart Meters from the past that at the time seemed like a good idea. The museum is named in honor of Margaret Price…. Naperville’s mayor in 1989.
