Candidate Mary Gibson is wasting no time pandering to the extreme. For months, Naperville council meetings would be delayed for hours by Ceasefire supporters (most of whom didn’t even live in Naperville). Naperville’s council last night reasonably took measures to stop such open forum abuse from ever happening again. Gibson, on the other hand, prefers our council chambers be used for dramatic theatrics.
What effect would a Naperville Ceasefire resolution have had on the war in Gaza no one knows. What we do know is this:
Our local seniors had to stay at City Hall into the wee hours of the night to be heard because of these repeated political stunts.
Our Naperville moms and dads would have to find and pay babysitters to also stay up into the wee hours of the night because these largely non-Naperville residents wanted to bloviate about international policy for hours on end.
Our Naperville small businesses had their lawyer and professional fees turbo charged as they would have to pay by the hour to have their advisors sit through hours and hours of overt filibustering.
No group, no matter the issue, should be allowed to put itself before the people and effectively shutdown the orderly business of the City. Even Chicago, which passed a Ceasefire ordinance, would never allow a resident group to do what Naperville tolerated from the Ceasefire crowd for months.
Naperville’s speaker ordinance now mirrors that of most other cities and still allows anyone to come speak…just some speakers have to speak after the City’s business. This is abundantly fair.
In one post, Mary Gibson showed she is wholly unfit to serve on council. She is either A. setting common sense aside to pander to the extreme or B. she genuinely lacks the candle power to see the absurdity and unfairness of her position.
Either way voters should take a hard pass on Mary Gibson. We have enough extremism in our national politics. We don’t need it here.
“Extreme” and “wholly unfit to serve” because she’s advocating for people to be able to address elected officials transparently in an open forum? Seriously?
Your views against open access to public officials and valuing some concerns over others is the extreme position. The work of the city has not been “shut down.” It may go on longer on a Tuesday night because that the work of Council is also to listen. But it’s not shut down.
No one said speakers couldn’t speak. The issue is when. The issue is who should have to wait and whether we should allow the business of the city to further some in a soap box. If a mass of people come at once why shouldn’t those with city business on the agenda be allowed to go first? Sounds fair….
I am honored to say that I know and support Mary Gibson, and your attempt to paint her as extreme is both silly and unjust. You mention her and Park District action against McBroom but you fail to mention the why such action was warranted. CCWD who really is pandering to extremes? Is Mary Gibson who was overall total vote getter in her last election viewed by Naperville as extreme? Extremists usually do not get that kind of support. A case in point was the defeat suffered by local extreme conservative Kevin Coyle in his last election campaign. The people of Naperville know authentic leadership when they see and election of Gibson and the rejection of Coyne prove it. Mary Gibson is an articulate, thoughtful and intelligent leader who will easily overcome your efforts to define her.(This post was edited to correct an earlier incorrect statement regarding CCWD and Safe Suburbs PAC)
They should do this at school board meetings. Make the “parents rights” advocates wait until the school business is complete. Then they can bloviate all they want.
Regarding Mary Gibson, this is hardly a reason for voters to take a hard pass. We know the watchdog doesn’t want Gibson from the start and
expect to see more attacks against Gibson from the watchdog as the campaign progresses.
If you recall the WD was flattering of Gibson when she announced … the critique here seems fair. If 500 Gaza supporters showed up we should seriously let each one speak before having the meetings. Sounds pretty silly ….
City Council yesterday agreed to change public forum to limit public forum to 30 minutes. If many more speakers are signed up, then public comment will resume before new business. Staff was instructed to draft an ordinance to codify this approach and present ordinance for adoption at next council meeting.
I believe this to be an excellent compromise between public input and the ability for council to address meeting agenda. As councilwoman Longenbaugh’s research showed that over 70% of public forum sessions since 2019 were within the 30 minute time allotment.
When the WD supported Gibson it was under different “management” than it is now.
For the current person operating this website to use posts by the previous person operating this site to justify their post is misleading at best.
The classic extreme playbook: Pass yourself off as the protector of all that is “social justice.” Then come in and end free speech, drive up taxes, and grow government. That’s the playbook she’s using.
Um, seems like you’re confused. She is FOR public comment. Not against free speech. And never mentioned taxes. How do you honestly draw that conclusion from a public post advocating for access to elected officials via public forum? You are applying a right wing talking point with zero credibility.
Coyne was up there for years. I never saw him doing anything extreme. Square Republican type maybe but not extreme….
Again, here’s how it goes: In the name of “Social Justice” you claim that the issue is “free speech,” but THEN, and the “tell” is that they lead with the claims of “Social Justice,” THEN they get elected and they curb free speech, increase taxes and grow government. This is NOT a new page in the playbook. Here’s the thing about Cultural communism, socialism, marxism, woke, whatever you want to call it, when it comes knocking at your door, it doesn’t say, “Hi, I’m here to take your rights away.” It says, “I am here to liberate you from oppression.”
Mary Gibson is an effective public servant, educated and intelligent communicator and suburban mom. She is not a cultural communist whatever the heck that is, nor a marxist or a socialist. Enough of the fear, uncertainty and doubt already. I suggest you meet her and see if you fears and doubts remain, I suspect they will not. If open your mind and heart, those irrational fears will fade away.
I would suggest you check out Safe Suburbs PAC website, the PAC co-founded by Kevin Coyne. As you probably know Naperville has been named one of the safest city in the country but you would not know this from the tone of this website. I will leave up to you to judge if it and by association if Kevin Coyne are extreme but clearly they are mistaken about safety in Naperville and Dupage county.
Mark I have seen you now multiple times suggest my group is extreme. You’ve never been to one of our meetings. There is nothing ever said in any of our materials that suggests Naperville is not safe. To the contrary we praise our stats and local public safety officials religiously.
You seem to post on WD posts religiously. Why not post on our social media if you see something misstated? You’ve never posted on our social media that I can recall.
Please stop disparaging our group without first learning something about it. Happy to discuss if you’d like too.
Because you block anyone who calls out safe suburbs and their partisan politics. How many have you blocked from the safe suburbs Facebook and Twitter page?
False. There isn’t hardly anyone blocked from those pages. The only people blocked are people who constantly troll or attack others. People that make real comments are allowed on whether we agree with them or not.,
False. People are blocked as well as their posts being removed from this site.
The fact is blocking even a single person or removing a single post is censorship.
There is no denying that your website is more about political bias than public safety. Anyone who spends any time reading just a couple of your posts can clearly see this political bias. If it were about public safety, it would be focused on proactive steps residents can take to help law enforcement.
Instead, your site focuses on attacking liberal elected officials and their policies. Using them and their policies as scapegoats.
Spot on Mark. You are correct in pointing out the extremism and partisanship of Kevin’s PAC. Just go to Twitter and look at their posts.
Yes please go to our Twitter handle and see how “extreme” it is. You can find it at @safesuburbsusa. Safe to say anyone who finds it extreme is an extremist themself. Worth noting that we’ve had a D speaker at all recent events and recent board additions have been Ds. But hey, as usual don’t let the truth stop ya….
Mark, They are mistaken about crime in Naperville and they are extreme. Too radical for me. Local city council members also pander to this extreme group who hides behind public safety.
Kevin – As you may recall.we have discussed this very issue in the past but I would be happy to re-engage and accept your invitation to comment on Safe Suburbs FB page.
Clearly, this is a topic of concern to many in Naperville. Reminder, the purpose of the Public Forum agenda item is to provide residents with an opportunity to address city council on issues that concern them.
There is no requirement that the issue be one the city government has direct authority to change. But the operative word here is “residents”, not people who live outside of Naperville and are not subject to city authority. Non-residents addressing the council is a concern that has existed for decades. Some feel they should not be allowed, while others feel they can provide a valuable perspective on an issue.
Perhaps the solution to this is to provide non-residents with a Public Forum window at the end of the open session with a 30-minute limit.
There has always been a “beating a dead horse” concern about this Public Forum period. The current Gaza issue is not the first time an issue has been raised at successive council meetings. Perhaps the best solution here is to use the city council’s own rules on bringing an agenda item back before council. The council has a rule that when an item is addressed at a meeting it can not be brought before the council (added to the agenda) for reconsideration until after a “cooling” period has past (think its 1 or 2 months). Applying this rule to the Public Forum, any speaker wishing to address the city council in Public Forum could not bring up an issue that was discussed in two previous successive Public Forums until after two city council sessions.
These recommendations are reasonable and would break the “dead horse” cycle that occurs from time to time in these Public Forums while not preventing free speech. Again I will point out free speech does not mean reasonable limits can not be applied.