It is that magical time of year. A time when memories are made and dreams come true. As we head toward 2024, we consider the top 10 gifts Naperville’s City Council should deliver to residents in the coming year:
- The Gift of Easy Travel – A Completed Bridge. How about a completed Washington Street bridge! What a nightmare the construction of this bridge has been for downtown businesses and residents.
- The Gift of Courage – 5th Avenue Development. Let’s get a plan for the 5th Avenue development. A handful of loud residents successfully bullied council into burying this enormous economic development opportunity. Council should stop hiding from this project, accept that the regular local naysayers will object to any project proposed, and move this development forward.
- The Gift of Common Sense – Gun Store Litigation. Why is our City still litigating its local gun store ordinance when a very similar State law has passed that made our local ordinance largely moot? Council should rid the City of this pointless litigation in the coming year.
- The Gift of Wealth – Lower Taxes. Can we have one year in which the City does not massively expand the City payroll and its overall budget?
- The Gift of Kindness – Migrant Plan. Will City officials provide a workable and humane plan for the inevitable day when scores of migrants find their way to Naperville?
- The Gift of Reconciliation – No Partisan Games. We hope council members figure out in 2024 that their office is a nonpartisan one. Council should focus on working together as a team and stop pandering to partisan political activists and partisan influencers from the dais.
- The Gift of Safety – Support Police. Naperville’s large neighbor to the east continues to experience significant public safety challenges. Let us hope Council continues to provide its police, not just needed financial resources, but public support for the work that they do.
- The Gift of Healthy Living – Liquor and Marijuana. We just opened a brewery downtown. Cannabis dispensaries have opened at gateway points into our City on Ogden Avenue and 75th How about we go one year without expanding the presence of alcohol and marijuana in our City?
- The Gift of Joy – Da Bears. The Bears still have not found a home. Let’s trade a few Sundays of bad traffic for the immense value of bringing Da Bears to Naperville!
- The Gift of Silence – Less Speeches. Short meetings are not just ok, they are ideal. Residents are tired. People have lawyers on the clock. Staff has work to do. Let council members remember less is more. We do not need to hear nine opinions on every item.
All ten of these gifts would make for quite a heavy gift bag, but what a Christmas miracle it would be if residents found them all under the tree this year! Will council play the role of Santa or… the Grinch in 2024? We’ll know soon…
The best gift would be for hasselhorst to learn brevity.
The best gift would be if people believed strongly enough in what they post to not post them anonymously.
Naperville citizens would all benefit if McBroom and Bruzan-Taylor would adhere to #6 and stop being Lap dogs for local extremists political action committees.
The city has know for year that the Washington street bridge would be a major traffic headache and that constructions delays are normal on such large projects.
The 5th Avenue project has been on hold to long. As I have said repeatedly at council meetings (as well as direct to the mayor and city council member) the solution is to not push to develop the entire area in one large project but in phases. As one large project there are simply to many stakeholders to reach any kind of compromise.