Who doesn’t want free money. Apparently, not enough people according to two-year-term Naperville councilman John Krummen, he wants more people to come rushing through the doors at city hall like black Friday TV give-away at Walmart.
Watch and listen to Krummen during the June 7 council meeting regarding the Renewable Energy Grant that he was excited to endorse:
Krummen an engineer by day (not a train), and a money-giver at night, who claims to be detail oriented and fiscally responsible wants $450,000 dispersed and only “$118” has been claimed. He probably meant $118,000, but what’s a few zeros at end of a number when it’s free. Some city officials including Krummen have no problem magically gathering dollars and handing them out like miniature Tootsie Rolls at a parade. Simply throw it around, it’s free, who cares where it came from, it’s free.
What councilman Krummen apparently doesn’t realize is that this ‘free money’ came from somewhere, and that ‘somewhere’ was from taxpayer dollars.
One can only imagine if councilman Krummen was responsible for dispersing this ‘free’ money, it might look something like this:
That’s part of the problem with many government officials at all levels. They, including Krummen, believe that because it’s there it should be used. It makes no difference where it came from, or how it’s used, just take it and spend it. If it runs out, no problem, they’ll get more…from the taxpayers.
Councilman Krummen would fit in quite well with the State legislature. His two-year council term expires next year and he will be up for re-election. Of the nine council members elected during the last election, Krummen came in eighth, with only Kevin Gallaher having fewer votes.
His campaign song may sound something like this, it worked for Trump, but Trump wasn’t giving away other peoples money:
Mr. Krummen’s blase attitude towards OUR money stems from 5 years ago when the FREE federal grant money was spent on equipping all homes and businesses with the plastic fire traps called smart meters.
For a refresher it was a 22 million fiasco where we the city paid 11 million and the Feds (still us) paid the other 11. As it turned out they spent 25+ million, fell woefully short of their goals and objectives, didn’t save city electrical users a dime, didn’t produce one addition watt of power but rather resulted in significant increases in costs and thus rate increases.
It goes father back then that with the city buying 30+ % Of the Peabody owned Prairie Coal Fired plant which cost double its planned construction cost, has produce 1/2 to 3/4 of estimated output and has cost us far more in rates then otherwise would have been the case.
Krummen was actively involved in the meter fiasco not sure of the IMEA debacle but is and always was one of the crowd who believe our city government should take any and all great money. Match it or double and triple it to get it in the first place using OUR money. Then dole it out to political hacks who implement these crazy projects and programs costing us many, many millions over time and return nothing but added cost and expense.
It’s unfair to blame John entirely but he was and is part of our cities leaders and current problem. As to the electric company owned by our illustrious city. The best thing our city could do is bundle it up as a package and sell it to somebody who knows how to run it without bankrupting the citizens who have to use it. Take the proceeds and pay off some of our bond debt which keeps getting bigger and lower our taxes.
Time to begin looking for good conservative individuals to run for Naperville City Council.