There are a number of things we can all agree upon, including children-focused charities are a really good cause. We most likely can all agree that Mayor George Pradel has had a good 20-year run as Mayor of Naperville and he deserves whatever good comes his way. And most of us can likely agree that golf is fun; well maybe not that one. I am one of the few that consider golf as a good walk spoiled.
The ‘Naperville Mayor’s Golf Outing has been a yearly event for 34 years. That’s even longer than councilman Doug Krause has been on the council, but not by much, and when the event started, councilman Grant Wehrli was running around the school yard telling other kids what to do, where to do it, and how to do it.
This year, one of the event’s helpers (Allison Segebarth), who is non-paid and without part-time benefits (the same can’t be said about council members) asked the Naperville city council (minus Pradel and Brodhead who weren’t there) to allow the charitable event to use the city logo on shirts handed out as a ‘thank you’ for those attending and supporting Naperville based children’s charities.
Watch and listen to councilmen Doug Krause and Grant Wehrli who didn’t waste any time ‘sucker-punching a hole’ in the request. Krause seeing it as ‘dangerous’, and Wehrli is fearful that it will open ‘Pandora’s Box’.
Chances are that even ‘Pandora’ would have supported such a worthy cause, just as Naperville councilmen Fieseler, McElroy, and Wentz were, when they were the only three to vote in favor of the reasonable request.
Watch and listen as councilmen McElroy and Wentz show compassion and appreciation in their tone of voice towards the speaker.
I think councilman Joe McElroy was on to something when he said at the beginning of the above video, “maybe there is another way of reconfiguring the logo”. The following video might be the answer:
Both Krause and Wehrli could have been a bit less cold-hearted and hard-nosed towards the speaker, and more tactful in their ‘pound-down’. The definition of ‘tactful’ is ‘telling someone to go to hell, and make them happy they are going’.
In addition to Krause and Wehrli, those voting against the request included councilmen Chirico and Hinterlong.
My guess is that the City of Lisle or Wheaton would be honored to allow the event to use their city’s logo to support the ‘Naperville Mayor’s’ children’s charity golf event as a parting ‘Thank you’ to Mayor Pradel for his 20 years of service to the community.
Let’s keep it simple and use Joe’s brilliant idea, just tweak the logo, and everybody will be happy.
