There They Go Again

Those rascally rascals on the Naperville city council along with the city manager (Doug Krieger) are at it again. And why not. The last time they tried the stunt, it worked. The stunt was to have a do-over vote to undo the vote of 28,236 voters who wanted fair and reasonable representation on the city council and a better opportunity to oust incompetent city officials. It worked when 9,772 voters nullified the vote of 28,236 Naperville residents.

This time word has it that city officials might want to have a do-over vote for term limitations. The stunt is to float the idea that the 32,089 voters (72% landslide) who voted for term limits had no idea what they were voting for, and that voters would really prefer that Naperville city council members have the opportunity to stay in office for life. Sounds plausible doesn’t it. I mean it worked with ‘at-large’ representation versus district representation. Remember, it’s very dangerous for the residents of Naperville to get between Naperville city council members and their seats at the dais. The more often a city council member can get elected, means the more campaign signs he or she will have for the following elections.

The other stunt that’s floating around, is that this last city council election should have been for four-year terms rather than two-year terms, now that district representation has been nullified by the do-over vote. Naperville council members would much rather prefer to have just four council members running for re-election in 2015, than to have eight running for re-election.

And here’s the reason why. Imagine in the next election there are four council members running for re-election and another seven candidates (as we just witnessed); that’s 11 candidates in total. It’s much easier for the four incumbents to be elected (top four vote getters), than if eight are running with seven non-incumbents which would require the incumbents to finish in the top 8 positions. It’s comparable to horse racing. Statistically it’s easier to pick the winning horse rather than the top two finishers. Which is easier than the top four finishers, which is easier than to pick the top 8 finishers in any order. This gives non-incumbents an outstanding opportunity to finish within the top eight positions resulting in two, three or more incumbents to be unseated.

To make it more worrisome for city council members is that as things stand now, the top four finishers will get elected for four-year terms, while the next four finishers (5 through 8) will be elected to two-year terms. So unless city officials can grease the way for one of the two stunts above to happen, city council members will be competing (a nice way to say fighting) with each other for the top four finishers in the election. Chances are that if there is one thing Naperville city officials distrust more than Naperville residents, it would be each other. This was proven when Naperville city council members preferred at-large representation rather than districts because they felt with district representation council members would do more wheeling and dealing with some districts (council members) getting more than other districts (council members).

As for now, those political stunts are simply floating in the air, to see if any will fly (just as the recent redo do-over vote). So keep an eye on those ‘stunt’ balloons. The only way they can fly is if residents are not watching and listening. Naperville city officials use that as the cornerstone of their strategy. The Naperville city council wants 100% transparency to the point that no one can see what’s happening.