If Naperville councilman Paul Hinterlong would like you to invite him over for a poker game, don’t do it, because it might be a trap. The next thing you know, the Naperville SWAT team will be busting down your door, and hauling you to the Gray Bar Hotel for running a gambling house. In fact, if you happen to see councilman Hinterlong and Naperville police chief Bob Marshall conferring in the inky shadows of city hall, you might want to walk in the opposite direction. It appears both are more than willing to joyfully spring a trap on you, based on a scheme they were hatching during Tuesday night’s city council meeting. It seems Hinterlong and Marshall are not fans of Uber (ride share).
Apparently Mayor George Pradel isn’t a fan either. He doesn’t know what a ‘Uber car’ looks like, but he knows he doesn’t like it.
Watch and listen as Hinterlong and police chief Marshall banter about “setting Uber up” for the take-down.
In fairness to Hinterlong, ‘setting people or businesses up to take a fall’ can be entertaining, and Marshall’s most recent position in Naperville was assistant city manager, so how is he supposed to know that Uber isn’t breaking any Naperville ordinance; it’s not like police chief Marshall is a police officer.
Fortunately for the City of Naperville, the residents, and Uber, councilman Steve Chirico stepped in, along with Naperville city attorney Jill Pelka-Wilger, and councilman Bob Fieseler to keep Hinterlong in his seat, and keep Marshall’s gun in his holster, when each said in his or her own way, ‘hey slow down cowboys’ and let’s use our heads.
As councilman Bob Fieseler concluded with much wisdom, “I would say we would want to be pretty sober before we venture into this”. If we would have had four years worth of this type of wisdom and common sense from Bob, we would have all wanted him to stay for another term, but that darn not-so Smart Meter fiasco got in the way.
Naperville councilman Paul Hinterlong wasn’t done with his shovel when he dug a hole with the “set ’em up” comment. He concluded by saying, “I would like to see us go after these guys (Uber ride share) and let them know they are not welcome in our town”. Re-watch and listen to the following 10-second video clip:
Wow, 89 days before the election and Hinterlong is trying to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. Has he forgotten that we live with a free market system and people should be allowed to use technology to start a business. The Naperville city council was successful in preventing an entrepreneurial designated driving service business from entering Naperville, but as councilman Fieseler said, “Uber is very well staffed and lawyered-up to pursue this” free-market enterprise.
If councilman Hinterlong wants to make a bet with you on Oregon over Ohio State, don’t do it….it could be a set-up.
Is this what happened to Dick Furstenau, Jen Stahl and Kim Bendis? Someone in the City didn’t like them so they were set up by the police department leadership? This hothead appears to be unclear about the taxi fee ordinances. Yet he’s on the record, opining with the Police Manager, on how to “go after these guys and let them know they are not welcome in our town.” Scary stuff. How does one Council member direct police action? How often does this go on?
Why isn’t Naperville working with the extremely popular Uber to make our city a model for the rest of the world embracing modern technology for safe, convenient and affordable transportation?
We need new younger minded, fresh thinkers on our Council. These legacy old timers need to retire.
The deaf, dumb, and blind leading the blind – “yeah, yeah, that right, let’s set up an Uber sting”, “But wait, I don’t know what an Uber car looks like.”
Seems like they are Uber confused. And non-police Police Chief Marshal is earning every penny of his triple dipping pay/pension as far as they’re concerned by going along with every hair-brained scheme they come up with. Let’s arrest and fine people who AREN”T breaking the law, because we don’t agree with or understand what they are doing.
Maybe if it was called “Uber Smart Rides” and had a super-duper-Uber-wifi meter displayed on the exterior of the car city council would get behind it.
What a bunch of Luddites!
I think the Police Chief should stick to trying to regulate things he understands… like drones.