It doesn’t take much for Naperville city officials to work themselves into a lather over anything resembling an uprising of loud, though small number of pronoun jockeys and gender wizards. In this case, it was something as simple as the mayor nominating people to fill vacancies to the library board and Special Events and Community Arts commission (SECA). These are non-paying volunteer positions.
As has always been the case, Mayor Steve Chirico “wants nominees who are going to make positive contributions to our city”. After reviewing numerous candidate profiles, followed by interviews of a select few, he chose former city council member Kevin Coyne for the library board and Shannon Adcock for SECA, both outstanding choices. For lack of a better description, a small mob of disgruntled naysayers proceeded to chastise each nominee during a recent council meeting. Their only knock on Coyne was his association with Adcock. Supposedly that alone made Coyne totally unqualified to serve on any board or commission anywhere at any time from now until hell freezes over or the Cubs win another World Series.
Chirico’s support of Adcock withered, not because of what his ears and eyes witnessed while speaking/meeting with Adcock, but because of what he read on social media. That being the case, no one will ever will be selected for anything, if social media is the final decision maker. If it’s on social media, it must be true and accurate, right? Result, Chirico wants city manager Doug Krieger to work with him on structuring a code of conduct drawn from best practices of other communities, in other words, more bureaucracy.
You knew he was a snake when you let him in! You have been supporting this liberal since he ran for mayor. Why are you so shocked about what he did?
As I said to you in my comment on your post last weekend on this same subject, using terms like “pronoun jockeys” and “gender wizards” is nothing more then a lame attempt at avoid the issue by trying to marginalize it. And while this works with like minded people seeking only affirmation of the positions they already hold, it only hurts your reputation with those people that are critical thinkers concerned about the character of the people leading our community.
Also, since none of us were present during any private conversations between Chirico and Adcock, we can not possibly know, if the issues and concerns of the people that addressed city council, were discussed, let alone if Chirico would have agreed with her position on these issues.
It is in fact rational to assume that these issues were not discussed and when raise by these speakers, Chirico looked into these matters and based on what he found change his position on Adcock appointment. What is irrational is to assume he had discussed these issues with Adcock, agreed with her, but when faced with public outcry “chickened out” and changed his public position.
Again, as I stated in my post last week and many posts on social media, I invited Adcock to have a transparent public discussion of the issues concerning these citizens and she simply, repeatedly ignored theses requests (she did invite me to a private conversations but for a person that campaign on transparency this request could only be considered disingenuous). It is perfectly reasonable for any rational person to conclude this means she wants to avoid any public discussion of these issues.
I do agree with what candidate Adcock said during her campaign, that issues concerning our community need to be discussed by our community leaders in an open, public and transparent forum so that all citizens can make informed decisions about the challenges our community faces. It is sad that a person that campaigned on this very issue should actually engage in behavior intended to stifle such conversations and keep the private and closed to the public.