Sometimes we never know what we have until we have it, and that holds true with Naperville’s six new city council members. After just three city council meetings we have learned a little bit about each that may begin to define their long-term idenity.
Mayor Steve Chirico gets meetings started on time, keeps the meetings moving, and takes charge in an assertive yet friendly manner, occasionally adding a bit of humor or wit to lighten the moment.
After the second meeting we learned that two council members, Hinterlong and Gallaher, are more than willing to vote on something they know little or nothing about (e-Cigs). We also learned the councilwomen Anderson and Gustin, are eager to the point of being in a rush to regulate without more thought or information, and councilwoman Boyd-Obarski has the ability to use faulty logic to make a decision based on an illogical conclusion.
Councilman Kevin Coyne continues to be an enigma, because every time he speaks, he makes good sense.
Incumbent council members Judith Brodhead, along with Paul Hinterlong continue to be who we thought they were.
Councilman Krummen gave a glimpse of himself when he took a hard stand against anything looking like, sounding like, or rhyming with e-Cigs. Then at the last council meeting Krummen confirmed his hard-line, hard-nose, 99% inflexibility position on the issue of sign guidelines. Watch and listen as Krummen states his position:
So he is a “firm believer in strict sign guidelines 99% of the time”, and “will vote against any sign variance”, followed by Chirico’s wit, “that’s very unfortunate for the next 99 petitioners”.
Considering that Krummen wants to be a person of his word, he will save a lot of time by not driving around looking at the next 99 petitioner’s requests for sign variances.
I had a friend who graduated pharmacy school with me (career two out of four for me) and he continued on to medical school. Upon graduation from medical school he and I went to dinner, and he said “I am not going to be one of those doctors that writes prescriptions all the time”. A number of years later, we went to dinner again, and I asked him if he was able to maintain his position on writing prescriptions. He said, “no, because he learned that if many his patients didn’t walk out of his office with a prescription in hand, they didn’t think they were getting their money’s worth”.
I guess you can call that learning on the job, or real-world situations, or the need to use common sense, that one-size doesn’t fit all, 99% of the time.
LIKE
LOVE the last line!
I attended this meeting as well. What I found particularly interesting was the case with the petitioner that wanted to change his driveway. There is code enforcement in the city or at least I think there is. After showing photos of several driveways in his neighborhood similar to what the resident wanted to do, I thought Councilman Hinterlong asked a great question of the code enforcement officials involved in the discussion. In short, Mr. Hinterlong asked, if there are existing driveways already in place similar to what the petitioner is looking to do, why is this gentleman here presenting his case to the council? The code enforcement official responded” because those residents did not get permits”. OK. Fair enough. But here is my thought as a resident; Code Enforcement should enforce and have those residents put their driveways to what the city requires them to be. The rules are for everyone. A old fashioned notion but personally I think the petitioner, who did his due diligence, perhaps unlike some of his neighbors, is seeking the permit, going about it the right way. He might have a pretty argument going forward but I am not an attorney. The council said no to his request.
Just to correct my comment, one of the code enforcement officials that I was referring to is actually Bill Novack, who is Director of TED for the city. I apologize for that mistake. The young woman who was sitting along side of Mr. Novack, who made the comment that the other residents on the street had not acquired permits to do their driveways, I do not know if she is in code enforcement or not so I am unable to identify her name and position with certainty. I am unable to locate her on the city government website.
I apologize for any confusion I caused. Thank you.