Again the Naperville city council exercised the Golden Rule (he who has the gold, makes the rules) when they voted to make life more difficult for residents rather than themselves. This time it had to do with raising the electric and water rates quickly rather than taking a little extra time to explore the opportunity to help residents in need of a little help.
Watch and listen as Naperville councilman Ian Holzhauer presented the idea to Naperville city manager Doug Krieger to delay the increase for a short period of time in order to help residents with options:
To the credit of the Naperville city council, seven of the nine council members (minus Mayor Chirico and councilman Paul Leong) appeared to be in favor of exploring options to help residents before the vote, but Krieger’s comment eliminated that possibility. In essence, why make it more difficult for the City, if it can be made more difficult for residents.
This has been a very difficult, nearly two-year period of time for folks, trying to navigate through the pandemic. Rather than helping residents for a softer landing, Krieger and city officials chose to hammer residents with more difficult news.
The audacity of Krieger to say “it does create some difficulties in addition to updating the rate tables, we pride ourselves on our communications to the public…)”. How about, placing your needs on hold for a bit of time, and taking pride in helping residents.
Put the hammer down city manager Doug Krieger, and extend a helping hand. Apparently asking for a little bit of time, is asking too much.
