Why is it, when a councilman is about to step down, he exhibits moments of brilliance. It happened again when Bob Fieseler, may have uttered the most intelligent string of words that he has ever spoken during a Naperville council meeting. We’ll get into that a bit later.
I first ‘met’ Bob Fieseler shortly before Watchdog started. It was during a red light camera hearing. I wanted to see how the process worked, and whether or not it was truly fair. The City of Naperville was a fine tuned bureaucratic machine with all sorts of technology to prove their case against citizens. One by one citizens were called to the front so their case could be heard, and one by one each would lose their appeal. Sometimes the camera shots were magnified to see whether or not the offender’s vehicle had crossed the white line by the slimmest of margin. Sometimes city officials looked at the video over and over to make the determination. It was like watching NFL officials reviewing a replay to make their decision. Inevitably the citizen would lose, pay the fine and then leave.
I was actually pleasantly surprised that a city official (Fieseler) would attend the proceedings. Fieseler made a good first impression. Later as I began to attend and watch city council meetings, Fieseler again made good impressions. One time during public forum, a resident was sharing her tale of woe, when Fieseler said, ‘wait a moment, I think I can help’. He left the meeting, returned a few minutes later and said ‘problem solved’. I don’t know how he solved it, and for all I know he simply stepped outside to see if his car lights were on.
Shortly after that, things began to head south for Fieseler and the Naperville city council when they resorted to heavy handed tactics to forcefully install Smart Meters on residents homes. Residents were arrested, and their Constitutional rights were trampled. The City was sued, and taxpayers will pay dearly for stupidity on the part of Naperville city officials.
Now getting back to the last council meeting, when Fieseler spoke in favor of less regulation. An attorney who wants less regulation. How can that be? It happened during the discussion of regulating alternative nicotine products, specifically e-cigs.
Watch and listen as Bob Fieseler and City prosecutor Mike DeSanto talk about the merits/problems of regulation:
Fieseler is absolutely right on this one. Why must the City of Naperville want to regulate everything. Council member Judith Brodhead, said she didn’t know everything about e-cigs, but she was ready to regulate them. That’s a bit troublesome, and sadly, she may get re-elected.
Wouldn’t it be nice to keep Fieseler, and let Brodhead depart.
Why not fix problems that actually matter…like the burst water pipe on washington street that sends me flying in the air or that pesky left hand turn on southbound washington and hobson. A man can dream.
Let’s make laws now and hope/wait for the FDA to catch up. What kind of logic is that? They can’t seem to properly enforce the drinking laws they have on the books now. They are just looking for more ways to selectively harass and or prosecute people and make some money on tickets or fines. He is saying they would use common sense dealing with these things. Common sense would dictate that you don’t institute laws BEFORE you know how you would enforce them. Will people be arrested and have to go to court to prove they had 0mg of nicotine in their e-cigarette? You can’t tell by looking at them what they contain. So what circumstantial evidence is he talking about, beside that someone possesses an e-cigarette. Are they going to send samples out to a lab for testing? The proverbial cart way before the horse, again.
What he doesn’t know about e-cigarettes could fill a book. I for one used e-cigarettes to stop smoking. I started using e-cigarettes containing 36mg of nicotine, and currently use 0mg or 3mg because I enjoy the flavor and sensation. There is no “red herring” there. And I know dozens of people who have stopped smoking thanks to e-cigarettes. They also use low or no nicotine at this point. They need to stop looking for ways to make everyone, for one reason or another, a criminal.
Fieseler seems like a pretty good guy to us….