North Central College, and specifically President Troy Hammond is no friend to Naperville residents, businesses, and precisely Naperville’s Police Department.

This became crystal clear when North Central College (NCC) granted permission to the Naperville Police Department (NPD) to use a residence building as a staging area for about a dozen standby special response tactical officers if needed during a protest in downtown Naperville, then during the protest, the college withdrew permission and requested the NPD officers to leave campus.

Hammond was quoted as saying, “police presence of this kind causes trauma” to the psyche of faculty, staff, and students, and for that he was “sorry”. Hammond was OK with contributing “trauma” to Naperville residents by withdrawing support for the city by having college officials request the NPD leave college property.

Numerous times NCC has requested help from the city for various reasons, and the city has provided that help, but when it came time for the city to ask the college for help, NCC slammed the door in the face of the NPD, thereby doing the same to Naperville residents and businesses.

In time NCC will be back asking the city for help. We can hope city officials will remember how inconsiderate the college was in a time of need for residents.

If and when NCC needs the help of the NPD, you can be sure college officials will be calling the NPD. Maybe NCC should try to quell the disturbance first before making that call. Let’s see if NCC President Hammond, if he is still employed by the college, can deal with the uprising on his own.

Now that protestors and thugs have gained a foot-hold in getting politicians to fold like a bad-tent, they’ve been embolden to push the envelope and ask/demand for more. What better solution than to defund local police departments.

What could possibly go wrong. Who wouldn’t be in favor of that. Think of the possibilities. Consider it an experiment, similar to using explosives and alcohol simultaneously on the 4th of July, or asking your drinking or bowling buddy to pack your parachute prior to sky-diving, or putting your home on-the-line at the roulette wheel in Vegas.

I think it would be an amazing idea with a few caveats. I would exclude de-funding the police department in my home town of Naperville. I would also exclude the towns my children and grand-children live in, and don’t defund police departments in all cities that have MLB teams, and maybe NFL and NBA teams (OK, let the soccer cities go). Also I would want to keep police departments in all cities and towns that I may travel to. (never end a sentence with a preposition).

Also defund all the police departments in the great State of Iowa, AKA ‘God’s country’. “Is this Heaven, no it’s Iowa”. Iowa is the only state where it only rains at nighttime, you can leave your car keys in your ignition at all times, never need to lock the doors to your home, where all the men are strong, all the women are beautiful, and all the kids are well above average. Well, on second thought, keep funding those police departments because that’s probably why Iowa is Iowa; great security and police presence.

Numerous cities and municipalities are considering defunding their police departments. Residents may not be too excited about the idea, but local politicians, city councils, looters and thugs are getting on-board with the idea. I say they should give it a try and see what happens with the caveat that they not be allowed to escape to cities with police departments. Let’s see how that works.

The Naperville city council is finding it easier and more enjoyable, to announce new resolutions, than to ‘enforce’ them. It wasn’t that long ago when one Naperville resident complained to the city council about a honey bee in her bird bath. Council members did a lot of huffing and puffing and pontificating, and shortly thereafter passed an ordinance against bee keepers and the bees they keep. Council members celebrated in their battle victory over beekeepers, only to lose the war, when beekeeping proliferated as more residents learned about honey bees and the benefit honey bees provide to our environment.

Fast-forward to now when the city council adopted a resolution denouncing racism, in response to recent events including a resident making a comment which was considered as offensive and derogatory during the April 17 city council meeting. This followed other events including an offensive comment by a high school student on social media, an insensitive comment by a gas station attendant towards a group of Latino girls, and an ill-advised comment towards a group of African Americans by a patron at Buffalo Wild Wings.

If one woman with a bee in her bird bath can cause the Naperville city council to swarm into action, imagine what four individuals making insensitive comments, can cause the council to do, and they did it.  They approved a resolution stating:

“The city of Naperville denounces all acts of racism, intolerance and unlawful discrimination and will not tolerate them of any kind, and expresses its disapproval and condemnation of any racist , intolerant and unlawful discriminatory acts, including the recent attacks on Asian Americans in Naperville.” It went on to state that residents should be respectful to each other in order to “advance equity and inclusion to achieve a truly diverse, inclusive, and tolerant environment for all residents.”

Wow, you have to admit that’s a lofty goal with impressive wording. The resolution provides a firm decision to do something. But to do what?

It was less than one week later, over Memorial Day weekend, when racist remarks were spray painted on Naperville Park District property just east of Rt. 59 on Leverenz Road near Cantore Park. Park district executive director Ray McGury, denounced the vandalism and stated he has “no tolerance” for this.  Other groups chimed in by saying they “will not tolerate acts of hate or racism”.

Huffing and puffing and muscle-flexing is great, but to what end?

If you have the expectation that city council meetings consist of mostly boring city council members listening to mostly boring topics, you would be absolutely correct. Yes occasionally a council member will throw another council member under the bus, or someone will make foolish remarks which are recorded on video for eternity, or someone will doze off at the dais, or look goofy on the Zoom platform, but for the most part meetings are boring.

However there are those of us who are attracted to boring, including myself, though a good-old-fashioned bar-room brawl behind the dais would liven up the festivities for the evening. Unfortunately COVID-19 eliminates that possibility.

So for now, all we can do is watch Naperville city council meetings via the Zoom platform. If you are interested in how to go about watching council meetings, or making a comment, and what the rules are, the following information from the city website will tell you all you need to know.

Here is what I will be looking for during this Tuesday night’s meeting:

• Has Kevin Coyne finally had a haircut?
• Has Judy Brodhead moved one single book from her book shelves?
• How many pictures behind her has Patty Gustin replaced with pictures of herself?
• Has Paul Hinterlong changed the angle of his camera to reduce the size of his nostrils?
• Has Pat Kelly finally replaced his clone with himself?
• Has John Krummen finally utilized the empty shelving behind himself?
• Has Theresa Sullivan turned the world globe behind herself to something other than China?
• Is Benny White still sitting in the basement of a funeral home?
• Can Mayor Steve Chirico still withhold his inner rage towards council members with their silly comments?
• And what’s the deal with all the stuff behind city manager Doug Krieger; is he moving in or moving out?
• And finally what’s up with Naperville city attorney Mike DiSanto; why is he always getting up and down, and looking over his shoulder?

Looks like you can expect another fun time with the city council this coming Tuesday night.

The City of Chicago council meetings are very different than Naperville city council meetings, other than the Zoom platform they both use. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that a recent Chicago council meeting turned into a ‘profane, finger-pointing circus’. An unidentified male voice was heard saying, “No one here knows what the f*** they’re voting on.” That was followed by Alderwoman Susan Sadlowski Garza saying, ‘This is a total s**t show’. ” Comments not normally heard during Naperville city council meetings.

Naperville city council meetings are often boring at best, or very boring at worst. Topics are dull and presentations qualify as sedatives. It’s easy for the mind to wonder, and now with Naperville using the ‘Holllywood Squares’ style Zoom platform during COVID-19 it’s easy to focus on anything other than what is being said by council members. I found myself looking at the backgrounds of where they were sitting, and getting caught up in extreme ‘close-ups’ of the council members. Some of Watchdog’s observations and deep thoughts included:

Maybe in order for the Naperville city council meetings to become more interesting for viewers, the mayor would consider keeping council member microphones on, so we can get the full flavor of what council members are really thinking.