City Council candidate packets come out this week. This is roughly a month earlier than normal due to changes Springfield made to election law this year. It’s safe to say absolutely no one wants an extra month of campaign signs, door knocking, or general politics. Our goofball State Capitol made this change anyway. As with most Springfield decisions, it’s a loser for everyone.
To make matters worse for candidates, this year signature counts are going to be much much higher than is normal. The high turnout mayor race last cycle is used to determine minimum Rumored to be nearly 400 as the minimum to file, this is more than twice what is usually required. Candidates are advised to get at least double the minimum as some signatures will prove invalid. These signature requirements will be very large undertakings for the candidates and will weed out many unconnected ambitious upstarts looking to run on his or her own without help from any “groups”.
Running for City Council already is a whopper of an undertaking. It’s the Watchdog’s understanding that Naperville is the only city of its size in America that has no voting districts. Everyone is running at large. This geography includes 150,000 people in two different counties. This territory is larger than most State Senate districts. It’s larger than two Chicago aldermanic wards put together. Simply put, it’s ridiculous. Running for U.S. Congress wouldn’t be much harder.
To circle back to the title of today’s article, this undertaking to run has become so large and vast that no one is navigating it without significant stakeholder support (i.e. political parties, PACs, etc.). So if you are feeling angst over the partisan vibe on the council dais, that vibe is there by design. No one can get elected to the dais without help from the parties and once the candidates take that help the parties will inevitably be “in their ear”. Every candidate who has won a council seat going back many cycles now has been heavily supported by political parties and/or PACs. Every single one of them. The only incumbents to lose were incumbents who fell out of favor with those parties. This is not healthy for what should be a local nonpartisan election.
You don’t see political parties involved in neighboring suburbs local elections anywhere near to the degree they are involved in Naperville. The Watchdog believes the continued burden being placed on candidates seeking to run is driving – if not requiring – the growing involvement political parties and PACS are having on our local elections. Reversing the decision to go to voting districts years ago was a terrible mistake. The Watchdog suggests Naperville revisit this decision – and soon – before regular voters are even further mooted by larger stakeholders in the eyes of those running for office.
Note: Springfield should further consider reducing the signatures required of disabled candidates. In our local instance, both councilmen White and Holzhauer are so disabled that our community has been forced to pay their tax bills for them for years. If one is so disabled to justify not having to pay their tax bills, how does it follow that those same officials be required to knock on hundreds and hundreds of doors to collect signatures?
As you may recall, district or precinct voting was reversed before it went into effect out of concern that it would divide city into competing district interests instead of the best interest of all of Naperville. It is true that it is harder to appeal to the entire community than a limited number of neighborhoods, but is it a bad thing that elected officials earned the support of the entire community? I think not since the job is to what is best for the city as a whole not a select few.
Lastly, your continued assault on Benny and Ian is as tiresome as it is offensive to all veterans who through their service have earned both their benefits and our respect.
The candidate application process is a good way to weed out poor candidates. As we saw last election at least one didn’t fill out the forms properly and then was mad at others for pointing it out. If you can’t properly fill out something as important as your own paperwork for candidacy then what else would you screw up if elected to council?
Again, we see the true nature of conservative (Republican) support and respect for veterans in this post.
The district reversal movement was driven by conservatives, so it is interesting that this very same group now considers this reversal a bad idea.
I agree that legislation out of Springfield is forcing candidates to have to depend more and more on party affliction in local elections. The most recent changes in PACs make it impossible to be self-funded, meaning candidates now have to rely on funding from donors and PACs (special interests) to get the funds needed to run.
In the past, this was not a big deal because it only cost a few thousand to run a successful city council campaign. But now the cost of running a city council campaign in Naperville has grown to a point it is almost as much as a similar campaign for US Congress.
It is unfortunate that all of this partisan politics is creeping into city elections, since most of what the city does and what the city council has authority to govern has nothing to do with just about all the national political agendas.
I thought his comment on Benny and Ian was hilarious and on point!
Keeping the dreaded partisan politics out of local government is a joke. Our civic debates are nothing but tiny versions of the garbage that we wade through on a national level every day. Ever since the election of Joseph Naper as President of the Village Board in 1857, Naperville city government has done a pretty reasonable job of corralling our interests and providing for the common welfare. But now that we have a warm race war starting- we need to spend hundreds of thousands on diversity coaching. National issue being shoved down our throats because of partisanery. That we now have to have distinctions made about acceptable levels of disability for our veterans, and the discussion there-surrounding? Partisan national stupidity visited upon us. Housing set-asides? National partisan issue. Taking a knee with one group of peaceful protesters and stepping aside while our police are disfigured by their explosives? Lickspittle national grandstanding partisan shenanigans. Even the talking points so slavishly repeated by the same tired collection of voices- rip the conversation out of our hometown and make it all about the national endlessly partisan way. Springfield is dedicated to keeping partisan politics at the core of every word, thought and action in this state, they believe that’s how they can keep their rigor mortis grip on every aspect of our lives. Imagine the horror of a candidate who had not been vetted by the machine that gave us our current collection of assembly line yes-persons with personal agendas they want to spend our money on. We cannot accept chaos on that level.
Watchdog, it’s vitally important to remember that all disabilities cannot be seen. For instance, I recently sat at a local restaurant, two community members each with a service dog. One was blind and had a service dog to help them navigate the world. The other had no visible disability. The store manager questioned whether this dog was “actually” A service dog. The handler responded that it was a Service dog to aid the handler with uncontrolled diabetes. Who would assist the handler if they lost consciousness.
I think we can all agree, that the store manager publicly, forcing someone to disclose their medical condition, and essentially making fun of their medical condition, is reprehensible at best.
Amy that’s sanctimonious blather. Those two voting on our tax levies while never bothering to mention they had exempted themselves is ridiculous.
How dare you! If this incident is true, why is your first act to further build the humiliation for the folks with the dogs? Why do you need to start crowing HIPPA violating details about a conversation that was none of your business? Manager had to ask if the dog was an actual Service Animal. Clearly not wearing the required uniform to make that so much easier. I think we might think of the Manager not as making fun (which he didn’t) about an invisible condition, but perhaps as a person wanting to make sure unapproved animals were not being let into the restaurant at the risk of every other patron on that private location of public accommodation. Perhaps the Manager was trying to make sure that ALL of his guests were enjoying their meals in a safe, legal and comfortable manner. Isn’t your bringing up this alleged incident not further raking these unfortunates with the Service Dogs over the coals of public shame? Why is it so vital for you to make issue about service dogs and their owners who might or might not have a medical condition? And to do so in a lively conversation that has absolutely nothing to do with disabled people or service dogs just feels icky in showing your obsession with talking about disabled people.
Actually the Watchdog brought this up with his cheap, “just feels icky” show of “obsession” over Ian and Benny’s VA authorized disabilities.
Amy you are spot on. The only people complaining about them are local conservatives and it’s because they are Benny and Ian are liberals.