How many times have we heard it. Residents address the Naperville city council with their concerns, and the council responds by doing absolutely nothing. They may appear to show interest, or ask a question to a staff member, but when all is said and done, the resident still has the problem.
It happened again at Tuesday’s council meeting when two residents addressed the council during Public Forum regarding sewer over-flow, flooding basements in their neighborhood. Watch and listen as Naperville resident Dale Bryson makes a compelling presentation to the Naperville city council, and he does it in a respectful manner. Not only does he clearly layout the issue, he also presents win-win solutions to the council.
This was immediately followed by Naperville city manager Doug Krieger’s feeble attempt to respond to resident Bryson. Watch and listen as Krieger fumbles and stumbles.
This problem has been going on and on, with no resolution from the city council, city staff, or city manager Krieger. Here is the problem, it’s the residents’ problem; it’s not the city council’s problem, and definitely not Krieger’s problem. It’s not until it becomes the problem of city officials that anything will be done for the residents of this neighborhood. If magically, the sewage water overflow in the residents basements could be transferred to the basements of city officials, the problem could be solved by this weekend.
The fact that residents in this neighborhood get nervous each time it rains, is of little concern to city officials. When the meeting ended, probably a third of the city council went to their favorite ‘watering-hole’, while another third probably went to the closest casino, and the remaining third went home to their dry basements.
Two hours after the council meeting ended, it began to rain, and it rained for eight straight hours. Chances are that Naperville city officials slept well that night.
Lets put this guy in for replacing the current city manager as he is the only one who made any sense on this topic. The ah, ah, ah guy seems to have a difficult time stringing together a coherent sentence on any subject much less this one.
Hold elected officials accountable. Absolutely. Be diligent like Mr. Bryson has been. That’s being a responsible citizen.
Chopping up responses and putting them on a website in an attempt to smear officials is not being responsible. If you posted the city’s entire response, you would have heard that priorities have been shifted to the Cress Creek area, $2.4M of funds not budgeted in FY 2013 have been allocated for remediation this year and the city has hired outside consultants to evaluate their plan and look for improvements.
But that doesn’t fit your narrative.
The entire exchange is available online at the city’s video host. The exchange lasts from the 14:18 mark until the 22:00 mark.
http://naperville.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=728
This post doesn’t fit your narrative either. Let’s see how long you leave it online.