If you have ever been part of a Homeowners Association, chances are you won’t want to do it a second time; it’s only as good as its leadership. If leadership incorporates common sense in its decision making process, then it’s good for the members. If common sense is not part of the equation, then it can be miserable for members. In a sense, the Naperville city council is a Home Owners Association, with businesses being the members; comply with council mandates, or life will be miserable.
During the most recent city council meeting, an agenda item (Downtown Design Standards) was the topic of discussion, including colors, paint vs. stain, percentages of accent colors, etc. You know you are living in a town without many problems if almost 20% of time of a city council meeting is devoted to paint, stain, and colors on downtown buildings.
Watch and listen to Naperville councilman Paul Hinterlong as he questions the subtleties of paint and stain:
Watch and listen to councilwoman Theresa Sullivan as she expresses concern about another layer of bureaucracy making it more challenging to operate a business in Naperville:
Leave it to an Air Force fighter pilot in Arizona to ask, “does Naperville leadership have nothing more to worry about than a color scheme on a local business”. Watch and listen to councilman Ian Holzhauer as he ‘nails it’ by relating the story:
When it came time to vote on the issue to add more restrictions on businesses, or keep the current policy, the vote was to keep “it as it is” prompting the best question of the night by councilman Paul Hinterlong:
I guess it depends upon what the definition of ‘is’ is.
The nanny state will never die with people like this. Our founding fathers would be appalled by the pettiness and intrusions into citizens’ lives by current politicians. Being as anal as they are next, they will try to regulate our toilet paper.
Nanny states exist because some people want them, some people only care enough to complain but never dedicate a enough of their time to actually do anything about it, and some are simply apathetic and don’t really care about the whole situation, which results in all of these “some people” adding up to a majority of the people. And in the end politicians will always do what the majority wants.
If you want to get rid of nanny states you need to get rid of politicians (particularly populous politicians) by being motivated enough and care enough to actually do the hard work of being an fully informed voter (not a fan of slogans and simply minded rhetoric), engaging with the people you want leading you by more then simply voting for them and being willing to dedicated more of ones self and resources then a internet post, editorial, comment, etc to the issues of a community.
Criticize and disagree with our current council all you want,but at least they all cared enough to put themselves out there (their time, their money, their beliefs)to try and do what they anticipate and trust will make our community better.