It seems as though Naperville city councilwoman Judy Brodhead has been sitting on the Naperville city council for years and years if not longer. Her expiration date is long overdue like a gallon of milk sitting in the fridge since time began, and there it continues to sit, along with Brodhead serving no worthwhile purpose on the council.
Years ago the residents of Naperville voted in favor of term limits, yet here she sits still on the city council. Find a picture of the city council in 2009 and you’ll see her there. Brodhead is like gum on your shoe on a hot August day; she simply won’t go away.
If she is a champion of anything, it’s flagrant hypocrisy. She was recently offended by a comment another council member made. If she is offended by anything, it should be her own shameless hypocrisy, but how quickly she forgets what she has said and done in the past, only to reverse her words and actions later, and willing to discard her previous position for self interest.
In 2011 Naperville residents overwhelmingly voted in favor of changing at-large representation to district representation. It was a landslide vote 66% to 34%. To say the council, including Brodhead did not like the result of the vote is a massive understatement. They decided to do a do-over vote. They obfuscated the wording of the do-over referendum so that a ‘yes’ vote meant the opposite of the first referendum, thereby confusing the voters enough so the result of the vote was reversed. Brodhead made no effort to honor the original vote and will-of-the- people, yet now with the referendum for approving recreational use of marijuana she preaches the importance of honoring the results of the referendum.
Watch and listen to her hypocritical mantra which she professes over and over and over at recent council meetings:
So now she is saying don’t “discount the vote”, yet that’s exactly what she did with district representation.
How quickly Brodhead forgets the issue of forcing residents and businesses to accept the installation of Smart Meters on their homes and businesses, to the point residents were arrested unless they acquiesced. Again, she has forgotten the huge issue district representation. Additionally, the hot topic of Fifth Avenue Development is unresolved. Forgetting or selective memory, which is it.
Brodhead talks about the ‘clear result’ of the 53% to 47% in favor of recreational marijuana and how it needs to be respected, yet the 64% to 36% result of district representation is NOT a clear result? How hypocritical.
Brodhead is so hypocritical that she ‘assumes’ and then immediately states she should ‘not assume’.
Watch and listen as Brodhead again tells us to ‘respect the vote’ when she has time and again, not respected the results of a vote.
It’s been said that at the college level ‘those who can’t do it, teach it’. Looks like Brodhead is the classic example.
Smart meters and 5th Avenue have never been ballot referendums. So nothing Brodhead has said or done on these two issue is an example of her being hypocritical about ballot referendums, no matter how hard you work at trying to include these in the discussion.
As to the ballot referendum on term limits she has done nothing to prevent the will of the people as reflected by the outcome of this vote from occurring. Definitely no more so then Coyne or Hinterlong.
On the establishment of districts making half of city council elected by districts and the other half at large. This issue was put back on the ballot because of concerns expressed by citizen that felt they had not been completely informed on this issue before voting. There was some question as to whether or not voters knew the full extent of this change.
If the first vote truly reflected want the voters wanted (the will of the people) then the vote should have been no different the second time around. But as you know there was a different out come the second time around. Blaming this change on the referendum being phrased in the negative the second time ignores the massive mailing campaign explaining this fact to them before the vote. The fact is there was a lot more information and discussion the second time round then happened with the first referendum.
I personally supported and voted for the district representation but clearly I was not in the majority. But those campaigns against this change saying it would bring corrupt Chicago style politics and government to Naperville were simply more persuasive.
If you and others want the adult use referendum to be redone you can get together a petition to have it placed on the November ballot and get the second bite you want. And you can write it in the negative if you believe that makes a difference.
At the risk of getting into a back and forth verbal ping pong game, I did not write that Smart Meters and Fifth Avenue Development were referendums. Brodhead said the issue of recreational marijuana generated more speakers than any other issue in her memory. How quickly Brodhead and you forget the energy generated with smart meters, district representation, and on-going 5th Avenue.
I also did not write that she worked to prevent the will of the people with term limits. However she sat idly by when term limits became effective due to delays.
Finally you mentioned “the issue (of districts) was put back on the ballot because of concerns expressed by citizens that they felt they had not been completely informed on the issue before voting’. Jim, that can be said by any group of people about any issue.
Jim, with all due respect regarding your comment, in words from Willy Wonka, “You lose! Good day Sir!”
I never said anything about number of speakers. My comments were directed at “the will of the people” by the voting process.
And I would dispute that any other issue generated as many public speakers or more then the adult use opt in / opt out issue. All of the meetings (and there were several) on this issue had standing room only with more then one meeting having over 100 speakers (one have over 500 speakers and went until almost 3am).
I do not recall any of the meetings on these other issues going until 3am or having over 500 speakers sign up and any one meeting.
On term limits there were legal issues involved that the city attorney work through (You know this as well as I). And all of the members of city council “sat idly by” during this process, which created the delay.
Finally I never claimed the reasons for the city council putting the districting referendum back on the ballot were unique to this issue or in any other way. In fact I mentioned the Opt Out group could use this same reasoning for starting a petition to get the city clerk to put this referendum back on the November ballot if they wanted.