Welcome, not only to a new year, but also a new decade. Five days into a new decade and the Naperville city council has yet to make a bad decision; that’s impressive.
City officials have raised, or lowered the bar, depending upon your perspective, with a new Mission Statement. Out with the old, and in with the new. Who doesn’t want new? New is good right?
Naperville mayor Steve Chirico thinks it’s good. He has to, he is the mayor and he voted in favor of the change. He really had no choice. However, he has taken a huge step forward with his following bold comment:
“The purpose of a mission statement is every decision we make needs to support our mission statement and our policies, and if it doesn’t then we need to question our decisions, because that doesn’t make any sense. We need to use this as a guiding statement, so all our future decisions align with it.”
He has left no wiggle room, when he states, “EVERY decision we make needs to support our mission statement,” and “we need to use this as a guiding statement so ALL future decisions align with it”. Which council member is going to be the “keeper” of the mission statement when decisions are made? The answer is probably no one.
Chances are good that some public forum speakers will remember the mayor’s bold statement and hold the council to it. That begs the question, what happens then.
The answer is easy. The Golden Rule will apply which is ‘he who has the gold makes the rules’ which is the city council. So the city council does have wiggle room, it’s called interpretation of the mission statement.
The people of Naperville can sleep easy in their beds in 2020 in the knowledge that these nine multimillionaires have come up with a mission statement