Imagine the game is over, the points have been tallied, and the losing team has been trounced by a two-to-one or three-to-one ratio. Then about a year and a half later, the losing team begins to rumble that they might want to replay that game. We all know that’s ludicrous, unless of course, it’s the city of Naperville and the game that was played was the November 2010 referendum on the creation of districts.
If it sounds impossible, it is not. The Naperville city council knows it made a huge mistake by allowing this referendum on the ballot. Not only this referendum, but also the referendum calling for term limits, which was also approved by the voters in a landslide.
Almost 75% of the voters voted for term limits. That’s a 3 to 1 ratio. That’s a landslide, not even close. In addition, the vote to approve district representation won by a 2 to 1 ratio; 28,236 votes in favor of district representation and only 14,593 against it. Game over. In every other realm of life it would be, but not necessarily in Naperville politics.
What makes this possibility especially egregious, is the fact that even though the vote occurred in November of 2010, the city of Naperville has been able to legally delay the implementation of districts until 2015; that five years after the fact.
Even more egregious is the fact that the city can choose which referendums to support, regardless of crystal-clear citizen mandates. Example: over 4,000 citizens clearly supported, via petition, a non-binding referendum regarding the elimination of Smart Meter installations. Magically one person objects to the referendum, and the city supports that one person over the wishes of thousands. The city was not about to make another huge mistake by allowing citizens to vote on the issue of Smart Meters. If the city had done this regarding districts and term limits, neither of those referendums would have ever seen the light of day on a ballot.
Now we are beginning to see and hear rumbling about putting this non-issue back on the ballot next fall. The belief is that voters (all 28,236) had no understanding or idea what they were voting for. If that’s the case then we also need to have a do-over vote for the four council members (Wehrli, Chirico, Fieseler, and McElroy,) none of whom had more than 11,000 votes. If you believe we need to re-do the vote for districts, then we need to re-do the vote for council members. It makes just as much sense, which is no sense at all.
The other argument to re-do the vote in favor of districts is the concept that districts are too difficult to implement. So now the whining and crying begins that it’s just too much work, too confusing to set-up the framework of districts. Imagine if the Founding Fathers of our country felt the same way, we would still be under the rule of the British Empire. They created a country, a nation, and we cannot figure out how to put into operation a structure for districts.
Maybe what we really need to re-do, is finding resourceful, innovative, and energetic people to create a districting structure that works for the citizens of Naperville.
“The ballot is the very foundation of democracy so it is essential that we protect the ballot. That is why there are rules that must be followed, otherwise the ballot will become a mockery. “. This is a quote from Chirico regarding (justifying) the denial of 4,200 non-binding petition on “smart meters.” Yet he and his cronies are reported to be considering putting the districting issue on the ballot again in November.
Somehow, members of Council don’t have enough respect for the ballot when it comes to protecting their own jobs and political ambitions.
In my opinion, the political inbreeding in Naperville is leaving taxpayers in a never ending meat grinder. From pension double dipping, to approximately 120,000,000.00 in unfunded pension deficit, to the SECA slush fund that allows council members to “grant” taxpayer monies in Naperville’s own version of ear marks, to the 95th Street Bridge, from mandatory “smart meters,” to extortion-like fees for the “work around” so called option, to the appointing of an “NSGI” ambassador to head up the Public Utilities Advisory Board, to public monies spent on politician’s dreams for “green” investments, it never ends.
Naperville needs to clean house.
Of course the council doesn’t want disctricts, it dillutes their power and makes it to easy for citizens to vote them out.
The last election Mr. Feisler spent over $40K to be elected… If we don’t want Mr. Feisler we would have to spend the same.
Chirico spent $30K…
Maybe we need the council to use home rule to put limits on campaign spending.
“Maybe what we really need to re-do, is finding resourceful, innovative, and energetic people to create a districting structure that works for the citizens of Naperville.”
I don’t see it as a maybe, its a must. Lets start putting up some names and slate of 4 people for march and get them elected. They may not be the majority, but it would only take one from the other side and getting4 people elected would send a strong message…
Of course, what’s politics without money, sounds like we need to raise $120K, 4 candidates X $30K each… Maybe it should be $35K per person to split the difference between chirico and fiesler… We should ask them… who is going to the next Naperville Democrats meeting?
According to Naperville’s web page we have a council-manager type of local government.
“The council-manager plan is the system of local government that combines the strong political leadership of elected officials in the form of a council or other governing body, with the strong managerial experience of an appointed local government manager. The plan establishes a representative system where all power is concentrated in the elected council as a whole and where the council hires a professionally trained manager to oversee the delivery of public services.”
Bastardized Declaration of Independence
When in the Course of Naperville events, it becomes necessary for our citizens to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with city council, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
The causes are gross incompetence, financial irresponsibility, denying citizen’s rights of assembly, redressing grievances, private property &, security, conflicts of interest, cronyism, taxation without representation, redistribution of wealth through crony capitalism and creating SECA type funds and block grants which are nothing more than slush funds/ear marks to bribe and buy votes.
WE should change our form of city government and through the whole bunch out of office!