Measure twice and cut once is a rule of thumb for carpenters. No sense wasting good wood and time. Naperville city officials including the city council and city manager Doug Krieger would be wise to heed that advice. If they did, they wouldn’t be wasting more money and time. The real ‘rub’ is that it isn’t their money that’s being wasted. It’s more tax dollars from the residents of Naperville that’s being squandered by city officials.
The most recent example of fiduciary incompetence, was ‘announced’ Friday January 31 when the city of Naperville filed a lawsuit against Calico Energy Inc., Naperville’s contracted vendor to provide the ePortal website as part of the Naperville Smart Grid Initiative. Calico was contracted to provide the ePortal website for residents to view their electric usage and select from various rates including high, higher, and highest.
The lawsuit claims that Calico Energy Inc. was negligent in providing its contracted services and is therefore in breach of its contract with the city. Based on that you could say that Naperville city officials were negligent in providing a sound decision in doing business with Calico and therefore is in “breach of its contract to provide good leadership ” for the residents of Naperville.
Apparently city officials didn’t measure twice (proper research) when they cut a check for $779,550 to a company that’s on the ‘brink of bankruptcy’. That waste of money amounts to over $5 per resident or about $20 to a household of four. That may not seem like much money, but since I’m willing to pick up a quarter on the ground when I see it, you can be sure I’ll pick up a $5 dollar bill.
Naperville City Attorney Margo Ely said that filing the lawsuit “is the only responsible action to take on behalf of our ratepayers”. Actually that’s incorrect. The only responsible action to take on behalf of the ratepayers was for city officials to make the right decision in the first place; research twice and cut once.
We have a plumber on the city council (Paul Hinterlong) and he seems to be doing a good job. Maybe we need to elect a couple of skilled carpenters to the council.
Back on Nov 2011 I posted on your site an expose on, Who is Kidding Whom, with respect to smart meters. The only thing missed was the serious fire hazard these devices posed.
Since that time we have had a number of suspicious residential fires which recently resulted in two deaths. Our world class fire department can’t determine cause but we do know it wasn’t spontaneous human combustion.
Last week UL announced they can now test all makes and models of smart meters to insure, just like every other electrical device in or on your house, they will meet national electrical and fire safety codes. Our state, country and city codes require this type of certification so why are SMs excluded? We should demand the city and the NPU-E get our meters certified ASAP or get them off our houses!