What do John Kerry (former Presidential candidate ) and Naperville councilman Grant Wehrli have in common? They both voted ‘yes’ on an issue, and then later, wanted to change that vote to ‘no’. In Kerry’s situation, he had more time to consider his vote, and then changed his vote to ‘no’.
Wehrli on the other hand wanted to change his ‘yes’ vote, about eight minutes later, to a ‘no’ vote, but it was too late.
The issue was whether or not to approve an additional liquor license in Naperville. Watch and listen as councilman Wehrli explains his support of adding another liquor license.
Now watch and listen as the Naperville city council votes on the issue.
After the vote, Naperville councilman Paul Hinterlong, talks about traffic and police presence in the downtown area where the additional license will be utilized.
Now watch and listen to Naperville councilman Grant Wehrli, less than eight minutes after voting ‘yes’ to the liquor license, regretting his ‘yes’ vote and wanting (too late) to change it to ‘no’
Kudos for Wehrli seeing the folly in his original ‘yes’ vote to add yet another liquor establishment to the downtown Naperville area, however why is it that councilman Hinterlong had to ‘turn the light on’, so that Wehrli could see what’s happening to the downtown Naperville area. Shouldn’t Wehrli be wise enough, and smart enough to know what Hinterlong knows.
How many liquor-serving joints does downtown Naperville really need? I guess the answer to that question is how many police officers and squad cars can the city of Naperville stuff into the downtown area, in order to be ahead of the liquor-curve, resulting in brawls, injuries, fights, and arrests.
As Paul Harvey would say, “and now for the rest of the story”. Less than 100 hours after approving another liquor license for Naperville, six people were arrested and one employee was injured after a brawl broke out at about 1am on Sunday. Naperville police were summoned to a popular downtown bar to quell a fight on the third floor of the liquor-licensed establishment. Though numerous folks were involved in the dust-up when mayhem broke loose, it appears the liquor license hanging on the wall was not damaged.
Why is it when criminals commit crimes government always wants to punish the business owners and legally behaving citizens instead of prosecuting the criminals? How many policemen do we have now? How many lawyers? The big G friendly city manager is building his dynasty using this as an excuse for his poor management skills.
The issue isn’t the number of liquor licenses or the number of police (they’re tripping over themselves now) but rather tough, timely and proper prosecution so that Naperville gets the reputation that this nonsense will not be tolerated.
Thugs, bums, gangs and crooks go where they can get away with it. Besides the SECA funds used to bribe the special interest to reelect these cronies is always to be considered first!