Naperville Continues Destructive Pattern With Electric Rates

You would think that a meeting of short duration by the Naperville city council would bode well for Naperville residents and businesses; less time available for more ordinances, regulations and fees to be inflicted. But this was not the case for the first Naperville city council meeting of 2016.

The meeting lasted only 37 minutes not including starting almost five minutes late. During that time, the city council approved cash disbursements of $24,381,051.96 (let’s hear councilman Hinterlong say that number). That equates to approving $10,982 in expenditures per second. That’s a lot of ‘approving’ in the blink of an eye.

But the Naperville city council was only getting started. They then picked up a two-by-four and figuratively speaking hit residents and businesses in the back of the head with an 8.3% increase in electric rates for this year, which is to be followed with 2.4% increases for each of the following two years.

This is what Naperville’s destructive pattern of electric rate increases look like since 2013:

• 2013    2%
• 2014    6%
• 2015    7 %
• 2016    8.3 %
• 2017    2.4%
• 2018   2.4%

Naperville city officials have no plan in place to address this destructive pattern, other than to squeeze the dollars out of residents. Watch and listen to Naperville city manager Doug Krieger as he outlines the strategy:

It was just a few years ago, that Naperville city councils of past would debate long and hard about electric rate increases, and then apologetically explain the need for increases to residents in the media and during meetings. That’s no longer the case.

Watch and listen as councilman Krummen states he would like to help make a public service announcement:

If councilman John Krummen really wants to make a ‘Public Service Announcement’, he could start with why he supported forced installation of Smart Meters and stated they would save residents money. Smart meters haven’t cumulatively saved residents enough money to buy Krummen a cheap cup of day-old coffee.

This was only a 37 minute meeting and in just a few heart beats the increase was approved by a vote of 8 in favor, and 1 against. The one vote against the increase was council woman Patty Gustin. She was sensitive to the fact that the council recently hit residents with a 617% increase in garbage pick-up fees, and approved a first-time-ever city sales tax of .5%.

No doubt that the ‘no’ vote for increasing electric rates over 8% will look good as a speaking-point in Gustin’s re-election campaign in three years, considering she is the only council person that will be able to say that. Those anticipated running for re-election next year (Brodhead, Coyne, Gallaher, and Krummen will have some explaining to do when voters question their ‘yes’ vote for squeezing more money out of a family’s budget to subsidize horrendous decisions made by Naperville city officials regarding Naperville’s electric utility. Is it any wonder why internet shopping is seen by residents as an opportunity to save some money to apply to their electric bills. Council woman Becky Anderson (supporter of internet taxing) may want to consider this the next time she votes on anything involving the extraction more money from Naperville residents.

And if anybody really thinks the Naperville city council will keep their word with the residents and stick to 2.4% increases for the following two years, find out who they are and you can sell them anything you want.

Watch and listen to councilman Krummen as he explains ‘executive closed door sessions’:

Those council members wishing to get re-elected may want to consider less time invested in closed sessions, and more time in open sessions.