Some topics seem to ignite members of the Naperville city council into action in unusual ways. For example during last Tuesday’s Naperville city council meeting one of the agenda items was to consider “regulating fowl in residential districts and direct staff to amend Section 10-4-6’ of the Fowl and Livestock code. Simply stated, in this case, can residents have chickens and if so how many. It must be important because the council spent nearly one hour discussing the topic. Additionally it must be very important because only two residents (anti-chicken keepers) complained about one resident (pro-chicken keeper). All three are neighbors and apparently, the topic was presented to the local homeowners association and to the credit of that homeowners association, they deemed the topic not worthy of creating a rule or guideline. In other words, the homeowners association decided to not infringe or encroach in neighbor disagreements by imposing restrictions. The homeowners association agreed that the neighbors could work it out.
The first thought was how we could replace the Naperville city council with this group of citizens from this homeowners association. Imagine a group of people first considering if topics are worthy of intervention, and then deciding that restrictions, codes, ordinances, rules, infringement, and governing bodies are not necessary for the resolution of disagreement. If you can imagine that type of group, then you are definitely not thinking about the Naperville city council, since much of their action consists of squeezing citizens with restrictions and then forcing them into compliance.
What really is interesting is that the Naperville city council will consider the needs of one or two residents, while ignoring or insulting the wishes and desires of thousands of residents. This not only happened here with one chicken keeper, it also happened with one Smart Meter petition objector over the wishes and needs of over four-thousand petition signers. While the homeowners association decided to let the citizens work it out, the city of Naperville did the opposite; they did not allow the citizens to ‘work it out’ by denying the citizens the opportunity to vote on a non-binding referendum regarding Smart Meters. Not only were the citizens of Naperville not allowed the opportunity to vote, there was little if any compassion from most of the council including council member Fieseler to the citizens requesting that a vote be allowed.
Listen and watch as council member Bob Fieseler tries to convey concern and compassion for the plight of one citizen and council member Doug Krause’s spot-on reply to Fieseler’s comment.
The beauty of attending city council meetings rather than simply watching them on line is that you can see a panoramic view of the Naperville city council and their non-verbal communication. In this case, council member Fieseler responded non-verbally to Krause’s spot-on comment with irritation, as if he had taken a gulp of concentrated lemon juice or seen the Smart Meter referendum on the ballot. On occasion council member Fieseler appears to be insincere, however remember that beneath all that insincerity is more insincerity.
At times during Naperville city council meetings there are moments of absolute brilliance when council members such as Judy Brodhead are quoted with profound words of wisdom. Listen as watch as council member Judy Brodhead makes two of her many reflective, philosophical and insightful observations.
It was actually refreshing to hear Brodhead compare chickens to dogs, rather than Smart meters to salt. Now if someone can get that entire homeowners association board to run for city council, we might be on our way to getting the Smart Meter fiasco overturned. Just make sure that each candidate has ten times as many petition signatures as necessary because the city council has a petition objector lurking somewhere in the inky shadows of city hall.
Chicken Coops and Bird Brains
Three councilmen who will go un-mentioned can get exercised about how chickens roam, reside and shelter on some guys property because a few neighbors complained about the clucking.
Nobody bothered to ask if the off-fall of their waste could be used to generate reusable energy and, as such, be a significant contributor to Naperville’s cutting edge green, Agenda 21 reputation. Instead of a chicken in every pot we could have a children’s contest to design a logo showing a chicken roosting on top of each houses’ smart meter.
The chicken could act like a cannery in a coal mine. If the chicken died from EMR you could just leave it for a day and have roast chicken for dinner.
Birds have always been disparaged because of their pea sized brains. Some bi-pedals, maybe even some on this board, seem to display a similar handicap when they stick their head in the sand and hope a problem will just go away. This sky is falling mentality against a non-binding referendum that over 4,000 residents requested is a case in point.
The PR disaster brought upon our fair city by this councils actions re: smart meters is beyond comprehension. The childish antics and bravado demonstrated by some council members can only be described by the crude saying for chicken defecation.
You can still turn this sow’s ear onto a silk purse by letting the tax paying, voting citizens of Naperville have a legitimate say in weather THEY want smart meters. Stop the grade school bulling and give us a real op-out by letting us keep the analog meters and charging a reasonable cost to read them; six times a year as is currently done.
Hopefully, this council will rejoin the human race and stop acting like,” bird brains”!
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It is comforting to have someone like Councilman Krause represent the taxpayers on the Smart Meter issue. Unfortunately, he is a one man army against so many loose canons. To see Feiseler’s reaction to the woman about the chickens after hearing him buffalo residents about Smart Meters just makes me shake my head. He is ridiculous.
Watching the Smart Meter scenario unfold between residents and the non-Krause council members is like watching a runaway train head for the station. You can scream and yell, but it’s not helping. They’re going full-speed ahead. When they crash, they better make sure their insurance is paid up though, because they will be held accountable for their recklessness.
Great article. Your right. I tend to be criatcil of these people, but they are the ones stepping up for the opportunity to make change. Looks like I should attend these meeting because I would love to explain to the one citizen who was complaining about the fire truck. First firefighters buy their own food, so they have to visit the store. Second the truck has to stay running. If they were to stop the truck and they received a call, then the truck didn’t start, what next. With the truck running, they know they can get to a call. As for the motorcycle cop. Good for him. I am glad he is giving tickets. My kids are walking around downtown. i have enough to worry about. The last thing I want to worry about is a speeder or someone jabbing on the phone, running into one of my kids. Great article. Looks like I will be attending these meetings and for the most part these guys do a good job and yes i do have some issues with some of the stuff they pass, but as you said, you can not please everyone. Just do the best you can. As long as the people come first.