Last Tuesday night’s Naperville city council meeting lasted a grueling six-hours, twenty minutes, and twenty-three seconds. It ended at 1:20am, much too late for the council to make ‘last call for alcohol’ in downtown Naperville, which may explain why members of the council were insensitive towards speakers and at times, downright rude.
One would think that after having one council meeting during the last two months, they would be well rested and eager to do the ‘people’s work’, however this was not the case. The meeting went from bad to worse when the topic of liquor abundantly flowing throughout the downtown area resulting in weekly chaos, bedlam, fighting, and all-around mayhem surfaced. Decisions by the Naperville city council have lead to the situation, and now they are being asked to fix what they created.
About half-way through the meeting, council member Judith Brodhead gave her famous ‘evil eye’ and ‘EXCUSE Me!’ to a member of the audience who dared make a one or two-word comment. Watch and listen as Brodhead uses her ‘bully’ voice as if she was speaking to a student:
This was immediately followed-up by councilman Bob Fieseler as if it was a tag-team body-slam to the same audience member.
Fieseler’s “what is wrong with you”, is the exact same question residents have about councilman Fieseler. Why so angry all the time Bob? You would think that Bob getting city benefits for working maybe part-time would make him a happy guy, but not so.
Sometime close to midnight, well after most senior citizens are fully dozing, the council finally got to the topic of whether or not to establish a board or commission for senior citizens. A good number of senior residents were in attendance waiting to be heard by the council after enduring nearly five hours of sitting quietly and listening to the council bloviate. Here comes councilwoman Brodhead being presumptuous again, as she often is, when she started to respond to a speaker (Bev Frier) before the speaker even had a chance to speak. As Brodhead begins to pontificate, Bev says, “Well you haven’t heard me yet”. Watch and listen as Brodhead, in her benevolent manner, finally decides to listen to Bev. Also note, Fieseler’s bad timing and ill-advised comment at the end of the clip:
About a half-hour later, the council is ready to take action with more inaction, and make a decision to wait, yet they still have one senior speaker (Mike Barber) who hasn’t been heard, and you can hear Mayor George Pradel say, “Do we want to hear the last speaker?”, then a long pause, and finally they decide to give Mr. Barber his three minutes to speak.
Are you kidding me. Mr. Barber has been sitting there for over five hours waiting to be heard for three minutes, and the mayor, who is a senior citizen himself and a former ‘Officer Friendly’ asks that question. That doesn’t seem very friendly.
The winner for the night for being the most insensitive and and flat-out rudest councilman is Bob Fieseler again. Watch and listen as Ramon Nayer respectfully addresses the council and stays within his allotted 3-minute time period:
Fieseler’s “We don’t represent you” which is code for “I don’t care about you” is the reason Fieseler’s fan base has dwindled to the number of digits on your hands minus your thumbs. Ramon handled Fieseler respectfully, assertively, and with ease, as Fieseler backed off.
Finally, watch and listen as councilman Fieseler gets ‘called out’ by speaker Win Wehrli for his rude comments toward Ramon Nayer.
Congratulations to Mr. Win Wehrli for doing right thing in front of the dais. Now if only we could say that about the Wehrli sitting at the dais.
“The struggle for Freedom of speech has marched hand in hand in the advance of civilization with the struggle for other great human liberties. History teaches that human Liberty cannot be secured unless there is Freedom to express grievances.” Chief Justice Floyed E. Thompson.
Mr. Fieseler, it’s time for you to resign.
It’s the continued arrogance of power created in no small part by the lack of mandatory term limits which allows the gradually and complete separation of the people’s representatives from their electorate. The game and its rules are stacked to protect the incumbents and the peoples voice, concerns, inputs and criticisms when expressed are summarily slapped down and the person(s) attacked. This attitude of smug condescension by many on council is the reason people need to stand up to these people and applaud, cheer or boo despicable councilmen action when appropriate. After all they exercise the same privilege often that they castigate with righteous indignation the citizen participants from doing the same.
And… once again, the failure of the Mayor to run the meeting. He hasn’t run a good meeting in his life. From the inept Liquor Commission to the arrogant City Council, members run roughshod on each other and the public as he snoozes in his chair.