There isn’t much worse than being a Watchdog with nothing to watch. While world news is a never ending barrage of drama and catastrophe, Naperville remains in its largely safe bubble.
Yes the obnoxious blowhards with red hands keep coming to the meetings. We’ve beat up this tired subject enough.
No controversial developments are on the immediate horizon.
Naperville has seen a spike in crime of late. Even with that spike, Naperville crime rates are still very low.
The League of Women Voters has their ranked choice voting idea. Hopefully council quickly dismisses this absurdity.
What else is there for the Watchdog to bark about? Your ideas are welcomed.
Seizure and closure of Top Golf, and elimination of the criminally attractive nuisance of a parking lot filled with amateur Chicago gunslingers coming out to sell fentanyl to our children.
Bringing suit against the State of Illinois to force them to finish the Washington Street Bridge replacement debacle in a timely manner. This is way too long to replace a simple farm driveway bridge, and the people of Naperville deserve better.
Reconfigure the intersection at Columbia and Ogden. More accidents and First Responder calls to this intersection than any other piece of real estate in Naperville. Because it is not built correctly. Get that in the suit against the State.
Lower taxes across the board for all local taxation schemes. If we have such a massive surplus that we can start thinking about hiring consultants to tell us how racist we are, and creating the time for idle minds to think about flushing our form of representative democracy down the toilet in favor of Ranked Popularity contests, then they are taking too much, and it is not being used in a manner consistent with what taxes are for. Cut them in half immediately and let’s see if we can’t become a little less profligate in our embracing bad ideas.
You do realize the reason the city completed the rebuilding of the Eagle street and Main Street bridges over the river years ago and have delayed rebuilding the Washington Street bridge all these years is because of how much more complex and in-depth a project rebuilding this bridge was know to be.
They aren’t just rebuilding this bridge they are replacing centuries old infrastructure that is an integral part of this bridge. They are removing and replacing poorly constructed and located pilling that support this bridge. They are basically building a completely new bridge from scratch, but with the added complication of having to remove an old bridge which has almost no documentation showing how it was originally constructed. So it is hardly surprising that they are finding problems created by the builders of the existing bridge which have to be fixed before they can continue with construction of the new bridge.
They can either build it fast by cutting corners like with the old bridge or they can take the time to do the job right and build a bridge that meets the future need of the city for decades to come. But they can’t do both.
You do realize that Ogden Avenue is state highway and that the city of Naperville has no authority over how any street intersecting this highways is designed and constructed, right?
Yes, the state and county frequently engage the city in discussions of how state highways and county roads interact with city streets, but ultimately the final decisions are make they the state and the county and are base on what best meets the needs of the state or county and not the city. No work can be done on any of these highways or county roads, without approval of these governing bodies. Not even replacing a storm water pipe can be done without getting permission first.
Finally, this intersection is not built any differently then many other intersections along Ogden, the difference is how it is being used by drivers. The intersection is built properly it just not being used the way it was designed to be uses by drivers. Misuse of streets via egresses and ingresses by drivers have become common place today. But that does not make this misuse a problem that the govern should solve, since it is a problem the drivers can solve by simply use the streets the way they were designed to be used rather then way that is easiest and most convenient for drivers.
WOW, you really are clueless as to how much and how tax dollars are spent in our community. You do know that every government body in Naperville gets it funding almost entirely from property taxes, except the city of Naperville and the Naperville Park District, right?
Don’t get me wrong, I too believe there are some city expenditures (or liabilities taken on) that the city should not do. But cutting spending arbitrarily in half or more only indicates how little attention you actually pay to the Consent Agenda of every city council meeting. It also hints that you have never really taken the time to actually read and analyze a Naperville city budget (spoiler alert: the lions share is spent compensating police officer, firefighter, road crew that remove the snow & yard waste, workers that produce our drinking water, process our waste water, keep the power on, etc).
The largest part of the city’s budget actually comes not from taxes but user fees. The next largest source of revenue is actually sales tax. Contrary to popular opinion the lions share of this tax does not actually go to the city, it goes the the state. So even if the city reduced it share of this tax to zero, these taxes would not drop much and definitely not by half.
Hiring professionals to consult on city programs is not only valuable in evaluating how well these programs are operating, but in how they can be better utilized. Hiring a consult to evaluate the city’s DEI program does not mean the city is racist. No more so then hiring a consulting to evaluate the city’s waste water program means it city is dumping raw sewage into the river, or to evaluate the city’s drinking water program means the city’s water is not safe to drink. Such outlandish conclusions say more about the promoter of these conclusions then they do about the programs in question.
Finally, Rank Choice voting is the most democratic form of voting in existence today. It empowers voters far more then the current voting system, which severely limits voters choice through the almost monopolistic power it gives political parties in determine who can get on the ballot. Democracy mean more voter voice not less which what the current system does and that Rank Choice voting undoes.
The area up by Top Golf has been a problem area since before Top Golf was built. It was a problem back when the Odyssey Fun World was still in operation. It is the nature of this area that creates the problems not the businesses located there.
Penalizing Top Golf for taking the chance and developing this land after Odyssey failed because of conditions they do not control would be foolish. If you did get Top Golf to go away these people would just move over to WhirlyBall, the same way they move from Odyssey to Top Golf. It won’t solve the systemic problems that exist in this area of Naperville, it will only kick the can down the road.
And fentanyl is not just a Naperville problem it is a national problem. Solving this problem requires State and Federal intervention not draconian city action. Yes, there are things that the city can do to remediate this problem, but these won’t solve it. Engaging with National and State organizations that have greater authority and funding is the key to a solution for this problem.