Now that the Naperville city council election is over, with 11% of the council being new (one member), will the city council continue its quest to becoming a ‘Welcoming’ city, not a sanctuary city yet, but a step closer. Government likes taking incremental steps, little baby steps, until it takes all of us where we don’t necessarily want to go, and then we wonder how we got there.
Naperville councilwoman Becky Anderson has been beating the drum for ‘Welcoming city’ status. I always thought we were and are a welcoming city, but Anderson wants to make it more official, as if to say, ‘We really are a welcoming city, really we are, we really and truly are welcoming’. The more she pushes it and the city council falls into line, the more we have to wonder if we really are welcoming.
The recent election show we are welcoming, well sort of welcoming. Voters welcomed some diversity in the election. Voters could have welcomed more diversity, but that was not to be the case. If Anderson’s quest is to welcome diversity, that’s one thing, however if her real quest is to take steps towards becoming a sanctuary city, well then that’s something else.
The El Paso, Texas city council also wants to be a ‘Welcoming’ city, in fact so much so, that during a recent city council meeting one of the agenda items was to approve an ordinance not to do city business with any company involved in building Trumps’s wall, in essence, putting pressure on local companies not to contract in building the wall between El Paso and Mexico. Any company doing so, would be ‘black-listed’ from doing business with the El Paso city government. Magically just before the meeting, the agenda item was pulled and disappeared. Obviously somebody said, ‘oops we better not vote to approve it’. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the El Paso city council won’t black-list those companies, it just means that it won’t be overt.
Last month two San Francisco city council supervisors introduced legislation that would bar the city from doing business with any and all contractors who worked on the U.S / Mexican border wall.
The Naperville city council could do the same thing, by choosing not to approve any contracts with anybody with even the slightest connection to building Trump’s wall. Similar to the ‘Six degrees of (separation) Kevin Bacon’ concept, that any two people (businesses) on Earth are six or fewer acquaintances (businesses) apart.
Yes, I know this is a stretch, but if El Paso can do it, so can Naperville; they both want to be ‘Welcoming’ cities.
First it is important to remember city staff, not city council or the mayor, run day to day operations of the city. So they review all contract bids and make recommendations to council on who to award a contract to. So what the Watchdog is suggesting would have to happen at the city not council level, which could already be happening to some degree.
Second the whole welcoming/sanctuary city issue could soon be moot, if the state government passes and enact SB31-The Trust Act, which requires federal immigration authorities to provide local law enforcement with a warrant before involving them in any immigration action, as well as establish public building were ICE agents are not allowed (i.e. public schools).
Never put a frog in boiling water, they’ll just hop out of the pot. Put them in a pot of cool water, and slowly turn up the heat. Next thing they know, they’re frog soup.
What should be remembered is the state is bankrupt and if the Trust Act is passed and sanctuary states and cities defunded by Federal Agencies they will be further (we will be) behind the eight ball. Only morons and crooked politicians (to buy votes) do these kinds of illegal and stupid things.
First Trump has only threatened to withhold fund. Second several states attorneys have said that if the Trump withholds funding for this reason they will file suit in federal court.
The allocation of these funds are controlled by congress not the executive branch. Congress says what the requirements are to receive these funds when they are appropriated and the executive branch is bound by these requirements. Remember citizens in these communities are still paying taxes (income, fuel, transportation, communications, etc.) and their elected congressional Representatives are going to catch holy heck if they do nothing to stop Trump from taking these funds from the people that elected them.
Putting aside the possibility of losing federal funding to sanctuary cities, do welcoming cities receive federal funding, based on number of immigrants it “welcomes?” If yes, how much? Is this the motivation behind becoming a welcoming city, other than “it might be a nice thing to do?” I just don’t really understand the rationale of formalizing this. Good communities are already good communities.
Are ILLEGALS voting in Naperville . It would not surprise me since there is such a push to make it a Welcoming City or in other terms a sanctuary city .