I know that this is a somewhat old thread, but those still interested in discussing this topic further might be interested in coming to a public residents meeting organized by James Boyajian (as a private citizen).

The meeting is on June 15, 2009 at 7PM. It will be held at City Hall (Room B&C).

More info:
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=298275

Jeff Clark,

I see your point. A guy like the Napergate Man could probably win his district without even campaigning or spending a penny. I don't think some of the current city council would like to see him elected to office.

Did you hear Councilman Boyjihan decided to run after spending the last 2 months preaching that he believes in term limits and fresh blood. Suddenly he is preaching the need for continuity. Hypocrisy to the Nth Degree if I had ever seen hypocrisy.

We are likely to keep 4 council members and most probably the 2 incumbents that are running. That is 6. He would make 7.

Suddenly we have only 2 seats for fresh blood because he altered his stance on term limits. It sounds like he is a hypocrit because 4 years was too long since he may have had some plans to retire but 2 years is perfect for him since it fits in his personal plans.

Suddenly he wants to pretend he is a principled man when he is nothing but a hypocrit.

I don't see how his continuity can help. Did he not lead us to the 11 million operating budget deficit and the police and fire 60 million pension deficit? Yes, he did along with his colleagues!

Maybe Councilman Bob can give us the new police pension deficit since I HEARD it was out. My 60 million is an estimate but I believe a very close estimate. That is up nearly 7 million from last year despite an ultimatum from the STATE that the budget deficit must be elminated by 2033.

Our current city council members sure took a step in the "right" direction. Of course I am being sarcastic and they took a monstrous step in the WRONG DIRECTION. And they want to be voted back into office.! No, we can not vote them back!

If the residents come out and vote I don't see the incumbents having much of a chance except maybe Doug Krause. He will align himself with the majority be it the Establishment Party or Napergate Party. His real goal is to either follow in the footsteps of Darlene or Mayor Geroge Pradel. He is just letting time pass by waiting for his once in a life time opportunity.

I hope Mayor George Pradel lives to be 125 years and continues serving us. He is a good Mayor who could work with both the Establishment and Napergate Parties while not being a hypocrit. My kind of Mayor!!!! Mayor Pradel will always keep the town united. That does not mean I agree with the majority of his positions on council issues. I just respect his brutal honesty! He is not pretentious. He has a conscience that does not turn with the slightest breeze in the wind. A GOOD MAN and a BETTER MAYOR!

Almost 20 years ago, the idea of districts or wards for the Naperville City Council was considered. A non-binding advisory type referendum to change to wards passed by a fairly comfortable margin. However, the city council had no intention of allowing that to happen, so when they were forced by the advisory referendum to put it before the people again for a binding vote, they used such incredibly biased and convoluted language that it failed. I recall that Doug Krause was around then (he may be the only remaining one from that time), and to be fair I recall he supported the move and disagreed with the intellectually dishonest language of the referendum.

Anyway, expect the same if this idea ever gets advanced close to adoption again, with entrenched city councilmen doing whatever they can to retain the seat (as do all politicians) which they already found they could win via a city-wide election, but might fear they would lose if forced to run in a smaller district (where outsiders without financial support might have a fairer chance of being considered).

Richard Nixon is calling and he wants "the establishment" to report back to 1974.

I believe school districts have always been exempt from home rule.
They have always been under state rule and have had the 5% cap on annual tax increases despite home rule.

If you recall, whenever schools need money above the 5%, they have to have a referendum and ask for it. We the taxpayers decide if they should get it or not get it. I believe we have been fair to the schools and given it to them when they deserved it and turned them down when they did not deserve the money. We controlled the purse strings...not the School Board.

Bloggers have to understand it costs a lot more to school students than for public safey employees and services. Some of us never have any encounters with cops or fire fighters in 5 or 10 years. Our kids in school have encounters with teachers and school officials daily for hours upon hours. That is why the taxes for schools are naturally higher....and should be and need to be higher. That is like comparing apples and oranges.

But the schools in Naperville have been able to keep there tax increases to about 3-4% on an annual basis. They have done a great job. God Bless them! For the record, I am not a teacher. Also for the record it is well known that the school system has some abuse in the pension system. But that is not the territory or specialty of the Napergatians. We will leave it for others to handle such as Mr. Thomas Higgins. The schools are his specialty.

The city has been the complete opposite. They have been like drunken sailers increasing taxes 20% a year annually until this last year when the taxpayers woke up and said enough is enough.

The purpose of home rule was to try to develop other sources of revenue and taxation in order to decrease residential real estate taxes. The City of Naperville abused home rule and increased all other sources of taxation and quadropled the increases allowed under state rule for residential real estate taxes.

In many towns before home rule is passed these days, residents demand the city council voluntarily honor the 5% cap on real estates tax increases. Once the city council promises such and passes a resolution indicating such, the residents pass home rule. Or at least in over half the cases. Many towns(90 plus) have rejected to pass home rule because of fear the city council will abuse their powers as has happened unfortunately in Naperville.

Some towns who passed home rule to give their city council a chance, rescinded it after it was abused. Examples of towns who rescined home rule is the second largest city in Illinois that being Rockford. Our neighbor Lisle recinded it when the city council attempted to build a Taj Mahal Municipal Center the taxpayers could not afford. Villa Park and Lombard rescinded due to perceived or real abuse before it even occurred. They were taking no chances.

I would like to see taxpayers get a referendum on the ballot. I have been researching the issue but do not know how to get a referendum on the ballot. Can any blogger help! Can Councilman Bob help! He seems to have most of the answers these days. His help is always greatly appreciated. Maybe Host Ted has the answer?

Once we abolish home rule we can finally control our council members and force them to live within our collective means in the same way we live within our individual means in our homes.

City Council members will only be able to pay police officers, fire officers and city managers, 100k or 200k, if it does not result in greater than a 5% increase to the taxpayers per year. If there outrageous salaries result in greater than 5% increases, the only option they have is cutting them.

State rule is fair and gives towns up to 5% increases. Employees elsewhere don't get 5% increases and Cost of Living has not been going up more than 5% per year. It is hard to understand where and how the City of Naperville squandered all our past 20% increases...but they were squandered and wasted.

That is all spilled milk and water under the bridge. We just need to prevent any future abuse of our tax dollars. Let us all work together and get a referendum on the ballot in April. I am sure if we get it on, it will pass by a land slide. Residents in every subdivision had enough of the abuse that came with home rule. It is simply a way to enrich and entitle the ESTABLISHMENT. With home rule, the Establishment may build OMNIA. But it is at their expense and their risk. They are not allowed to act as the FDIC without home rule. With Home Rule, they can play FDIC for the OMNIA project which is doomed to fail just like other projects in Joliet and Aurora that are currently being subsidized by the taxpayers to the tune of millions per year.

Let us be smart and learn from the mistakes of our neighbors. Let us abloish home rule this election. Again, if anyone knows who to get a referendum on the ballot for April, please inform and educate.
We need to get the ball rolling soon. Otherwise we will see 20% increases the next 3 years and 10% increases during election years. That is partially why the increase is "only 9.68%" this year. It is a public relations ploy for you to keep the establishment in power. Notice the best our city council members can do is twice the cap even in an election year. The city council would have never trimmed any excess fat if it was not an election year. So don't be fooled and DEMAND HOME RULE BE ABOLISHED ONCE AND FOR ALL! IT IS THE ONLY SOLUTION!

What about school districts? Home Rule/Non Home Rule doesn't change the taxation of the school districts, so while you may control the municipal tax, you are still going to get increases in school district taxes.

I also don't want state mandates running the city, have you seen the news about the state's budgetary problems?

By Keep Home Rule - Educate Yourselves on November 14, 2008 12:30 PM
University research studies found no evidence that home rule taxing powers are being misused.

____________________________________________________________________

That is an inaccurate and borderline false statement. What they found is that the majority of cities have not abused HOME RULE. As a matter of fact 89 of 105 cities with Home Rule were able to stay under the cap and statutory limitations of state rule which is 5% property tax increases. The other 16 towns went over and averaged a little over 7%.

Naperville is the exception to this report and has abused home rule by increasing property taxes by over 20% in recent years, believed to be greater than any other town in the State of Illinois. This is despite also increasing sales tax, utility taxes and imposing impact fees which were suppose to bring property tax increases to less than the statutory limit of 5% instead of more.

Thus what happened is they increased taxes 4 times the statutory limit in prior years despite also increasing taxes and fees everywhere else imaginable.

This year because of the massive pressure put on the city by the Napergatians and others on this blog site and elsewhere, the city ONLY increased property taxes by 9.68%. Of course they have to lay off nearly 50 employees and reduce services or we would probably have gone to a 25% property tax increase.

If this study investigated individual cities, there is little doubt in my mind that Naperville would come in dead last in all categories of tax increases and government waste.

While the 16-18 towns(depending on the year) that broke the cap had an average increase of slightly over 7%, Naperville had consistent tax increases of 20%. Take Naperville out of the average and those towns would be closer to 6% tax increases.

Anyway you slice it the data in this report indicates Naperville has some very serious problems.

Since unlike the majority, they have abused home rule, home rule should be stripped from our City Officials only here in Naperville.

This survey indicates only residents in one town are currently complaining about abuse of home rule.....I bet you that town is NAPERVILLE!

University research studies found no evidence that home rule taxing powers are being misused. Rather, the research has shown that home rule status is used predominately to shift the local tax burden from residents to non-residents.

The statement of "After how badly Home Rule was abused by the City of Naperville" is unfounded.

Check out these links from The Center for Governmental Studies, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois:

http://www.cgsniu.org/portfolio/policy_profiles/pdf/policy_v2n3.pdf
http://www.cgsniu.org/portfolio/policy_profiles/pdf/policy_v1n1.pdf

Abolish Home Rule. It accomplished the opposite of what it was pegged to do.

It increased taxation to the residents instead of decreasing taxation.

"By Keep Home Rule - Educate Yourselves!" appears to be the one who needs to study the facts and review the resulting taxation.

Rather than the burden be shifted to others, it has been shifted to the residential home owner. That is obvious. Home Rule has brought us 20% annual increases in taxation combined with up to 71 million dollars in red ink. How does that make any sense? It does not!

Let us get Home Rule on a referendum and have it successfully abolished this April once and for all.

Who would not want to see their taxes limited to 5% increases instead of 20% increases?

Yes, the city would be forced to stop doing stupid things like financing police OT for private events. They city could not play FDIC for the Omnia Project. The city could not build a 19.9 million library parking deck that is absolutely not needed with all the vacancies popping up in downtown.

Can you imagine that our very small downtown that consists of a few square blocks needs 5 high rise garages? Almost bordering on insanity. What kind of acreage will be left for retail and office development after these 5 high rise parking decks will be completed?

Let people walk 2 blocks from the beach parking lot in the rare event our 3 parking decks fill up. Never seen that happen BTW. Walking is healthy! Everyone needs to walk. The handicapped and challenged have many nearby specially reserved parking spots in case they are unable to walk and need closer access. Maybe a few more could be added for them to be certain their needs will always be accomodated.

We need to strip the city council of the right to abuse our taxpayer money. That is what they are doing day and night. Separating us from our hard earned dollars.

Let us go back to State Rule....give them a right to increase our taxes 5% annually and that is it....if that is not enough they should all step aside and allow us to vote for residents who can!
Enough waste of taxpayer money using the exemptions provided for in Home Rule.

After how badly Home Rule was abused by the City of Naperville, I would like to see the State of Illinois abolish Home Rule state wide, all together once and for all!

Thank you!

By Keep Home Rule - Educate Yourselves! on November 13, 2008 12:21 PM
Non-home rule communities cannot mandate the assessment of fire district fees, municipal services fees, park construction fees, and other development fees that shift the burden from existing residents and place it on the new development that is creating a demand for additional public services.

==================================================================

I think you made the point of the Napergatians better than they could themselves. So here home rule allows us to impose all these fees which we are imposing and shift taxes away from the existing residents.

That makes sense until you understand that despite doing this, we have 20% annual real estate city wide residential tax increases while State Rule towns who can not do this, seem comfortable living with 5% increases.

You have to understand, Mr. Education, growth was less than 1% in Naperville the last year, and yet we have all these runaway unexplained expenses resulting in a 71 million deficit when you combine the budget and pension funds.

Now if our council had used Home Rule to limit our tax increases to 3% instead of 5%, we could see your point and have nothing but praise for them. But they did the complete opposite and found a way to increase our residential real estate taxes 20% instead of the state rule imposed limit of 5%.

I find it hard to believe someone could be as ignorant as you while claiming that others need to "educate yourselves."

Anyway I really came on to wish Ted success in his new career and to let him no we will miss him. Thanks for all the respect you showed to my fellow Napergatians on your blog site. You were wonderful! You showed courage to change a newspaper from reactionary to progessive in the last 2 years while you were at teh helm. You got the Naperville Sun out of the stone age finally! Let us keep it on the right tracks by finding the right successor.

A court ruling in 2002 that found non-home rule municipalities cannot make developers pay impact fees other than the very limited state authorized fees. The use of impact fees is a strategy that requires new development to pay its fair share. Non-home rule communities cannot mandate the assessment of fire district fees, municipal services fees, park construction fees, and other development fees that shift the burden from existing residents and place it on the new development that is creating a demand for additional public services.

In Illinois, a non-home rule municipality can only exercise the powers specifically granted to it by state law. Home rule communities have much broader abilities and can basically take any action except those limited by state law. Simply put, home rule gives a municipality the ability to govern itself. Non-home rule municipalities are subject to the control of the State.

The state authorizes a number of taxes, including several property taxes, that can be approved by non-homerule communities without a referendum. Home rule does increase the number of taxes that can be levied without referenda, but it also provides a greater variety of funding options that do not rely solely on existing residents to carry the burden.

University research studies found no evidence that home rule taxing powers are being misused. Rather, the research has shown that home rule status is used predominately to shift the local tax burden from residents to non-residents.

Please do your research!

I agree with Another Anonymous in regards to his opinion on both Wards and term limits. I don't think splitting up into Wards make sense as I am sure there is a cost attributed to that change and right now that is not needed. The change that is free and makes the most sense to me is term limits. Limit them to 8 years, that is a long time for anyone to be on any board or council...this change would also help bring in new people and fresh ideas to the council.

I agree with Another Anonymous that the most important item is to abolish HOME RULE! Abolishing Home Rule really tightens the screws on the city council and forces them to use critical thinking instead of non-stop blind rubber stamping.

As far as you, Host Ted, you will be a great loss to both Naperville, the Naperville Sun and obviously the Napergatians. I don't think the Establishment folks will be shedding any tears for you after you finally put them under the microscope with your great choice of so many threads.

I got to hand it to you. You know how to choose threads that peak and arouse the interest of your viewers. One can measure your success by comparing your site to Opinion Editor's Tim West.
I just looked at his. You give him a picture and a top place where his site can be noticed. Despite this, he is lucky to average a half a blogger per thread. You would think after 35 years an Editor would have developed some popularity with his readers...a connection.......a repoir....a love or hate affair. Nothing! It seems like he is like a log from a dead tree. No pulse!

Even though I have never attempted to blog on his site, I do not doubt the Napergatians who said they were censured on his blog site. I have never seen a critical letter published of himself in the print edition in the 35 years he has been associated with the Sun.

He reminds of a King who thinks he is above criticism....a knight who thinks he owns a fiefdom!

I can understand why the Sun can't pay you more, Host Ted. When you allow people like Tim West to stay on after his usefulness expired, you put a lot of stress on the budget of the Naperville Sun.

Tim West does little to nothing. How hard is it to report on your cat, your bird or your latest doctor's visit? That takes no effort.

He was not willing to walk a half a mile to city hall and sort thru documents to unravel why we have such problems in Naperville. Why we have a 10-11 million budget deficit? Why are pension system is collapsing under the stress of a 57-60 million deficit? How our cultural tax money is being wasted on Police OT? Why are firemen take their big fire engines shopping for groceries(see another thread for the details I wrote)? Yes, he did nothing but sit behind his desk is my guess.

When you sit behind your desk all day and do nothing you do become unhealthy. If you would have sent him on assignments Ted, you could have kept him healthy. Sending him to Dupage to observe wasted police OT would have given him some needed exercise and got you a great stroy.

I think that is where you failed us, Host Ted. You worked like a horse but you were never as demanding of your employees as you were of yourself. I know when this blog site was first established, you worked 18 hours a day. I know! I was up blogging with you when you were commenting often in the old days.

But you did not push Mr. West. You did not demand excellence of him! You never converted him to an investigative or inquiring reporter. You basically allowed him to be lazy and converted him to excess fat.

I see a little hypocrisy in how you demand that excess fat be eliminated from the City, but you don't bother to eliminate your excess fat. I can do all of Mr. West's work in one hour a day. He does little to nothing. I can write a story about my cat in 20 minutes. You pay him for that nonsense, Host Ted!

Allowing excess fat inside the doors of the Naperville Sun, keeps everyone's wages low. Eliminating excess fat and having no waste allows you to go to your boss, ask for a raise and receive it.

I am truly sorry to see you go. I am sorry the Naperville Sun could not pay you more. But you have to take responsibility for letting Tim West hang on for 35 years like a piece of dead wood. I guess in this world you reap what you sow!

Sorry, about the harsh constructive criticism, but it was on my chest and I had to finally let it out since so many others opened the can of worms on Opinion Editor Tim West.

Despite what I said, I wish you look in your new career at North Cental College. I doubt you will have a big staff to delegate to. I suspect you will be a one man work horse and you will work as hard as the fastest race horse in your relentless effort to excel. You are a Type A personality that demands perfection of himself. You need to demand it of others also, Host Ted, when you are the Big Boss!

As others said, you built the best blog site in Chicagoland. Undisputed! Now, don't hand it over to Mr. West for demolition. You stilll have a say, Host Ted, and you need to discuss this issue with your superiors. Don't let Mr. West flush your legacy down the toilet with one flush....he is capable of that!

Good luck! I trust you will make all the right decisions before you leave and have a smooth and orderly trasnsiton. Get us someone like yourself to continue this wonderful blog site that you established.
Please don't fail us, Host Ted, on your way out! We will defintely miss you!

Anonymous wrote:

"Besides popularity doesn't necessarily correlate to performance or effectiveness."

Perhaps not---but it IS the foundation of representative democracy.

Host Ted,
First I would like to wish you well in all your future endeavors. I have not blogged for a while so I did not get a chance to say good bye and thank you for giving us the opportunity to express ourselves. I would also like to thank you for not blackmailing and censoring the Napergatians as is reportedly done on Tim West's Blog Site. We can see you are much more popular than a 35 year old Opinion Editor who has always been focused on "me, myself and I," for the greater part of his very long and boring career.

AS TO MY FEELING ABOUT THE SUBJECT IN THIS THREAD:

1. I am against wards as they end up in political wars and divide the town. Each section of the town begins fighting for a larger share of taxpayer dollars to benefit that section. However, if the city council keeps pumping money in the downtown at the expense of other parts of town, I will become for WARDS and suffer the politics that go with it.

2. I am for 8 year term limits for any office in Naperville. When someone is in for too long, he is voted in almost automatically due to name recognition and maybe popularity. Mayor Pradel has lots of name recognition and popularity. We all love him and adore him, I am sure including Napergatians. Even the Napergate Man is reported to have the utmost respect, love and admiration for the current Mayor. But this is the problem. He has been around for 4 terms and the city has an 11 million dollar budget deficit and maybe a 55-65 million pension fund defict. The fire part of the pension fund deficit has been reported to be $26.9 million in RED INK! We are awaiting word from Councilman Bob regarding the police part of the pension fund deficit but he has already warned us it will be WORSE! Fasten your seat belts, my fellow bloggers!

3. Finally, I am strongly for abolishing HOME RULE! This is by far of utmost importance. No matter who you have in the council, whether it is ward or at large, whether it is ladies or men, whether it is Napergatians or Establishment Folks, they all would have to limit any tax increase to 5% and make the budget balance. They would have to work hard. They could not allow fat to develop over 12 years and suddenly wake up to being 11 million in red ink. It boggles my mind that our city council allowed 20% increases in the past and are asking for a 9.68% increase this year which is twice what STATE RULE allows....this is despite a need to lay off almost 50 employees....or at least in the upper 40s to be exact. If the print edition ever allowed the whole truth to be known to the taxpayers as is known to bloggers on Ted's Threads, I feel no one on the city council would be able to retain their seat in the next upocoming election, except for CM Dick Furstenau who has been hollering as loud if not louder than the Napergatians about waste at city hall.

I urge anyone with the knowledge and power, to move forward with a petition to abolish HOME RULE. Let us save our city and keep our taxes affordable. The establishment wants to run the middle class out of town with high taxation so the upper class from out of town can come buy our houses, demolish them and build McMansions. That is the hidden agenda of the Establishment. It is our duty to support the Napergatians and oust them all from office in the next election. Many of us residents besides the Napergatians love our town and do not want to be uprooted because of high taxation and unaffordability. We have a right to fight to stay! This is our town and not the town of the council members who in my opinion still take marching orders from the Brestal Law Firm by putting up phony battles for public relation and consumption purposes. I hope the taxpayers see thru all the shenanigans at City Hall. I for one do!

I am sure Host Ted does too! He has really driven the bus with all his threads attempting to expose the impropieties of our city. Now he is leaving us with the bus and we must find a way to continue driving it in the right direction....that being City Hall!

Oustanding ideas!

Wards are an obvious move for a city our size. it allows for true representation of the "people" at all sections/corners of the city.

Term limits should be in place for every elected official in the land. The bottom line is that the financing and election rules all favor the incumbants. In short, the barrier to entry on a filled-seat in politics is tough to remove.

We should elect school board members by area in which they live too. We need more representation of all of Naperville instead of certain areas.

Our American system of government was designed by our founding fathers to be of the people, for the people, and by the people.

Good government is small government. Take care of the essentials and get the heck out of peoples lives. Instead of taking care of essentials we have more and more professional bureaucrats who spend their entire working career as elected officials. And there they sit voting on their own pay and benefits and pension plans. Talk about a conflict of interest.

This kind of abuse was never the intent of our founding fathers. What was intended was for the average man to be elected to represent the average man. When they were done taking care of the needs of government they went back to doing their regular work. Most elected positions were part time positions any way. Sit one or two terms in any office and we can all start to watch how elected officials slowly drift further and further away from the pulse of their community and constituents.

Not only do I fully support term limits I even support the concept of a total lifetime limit. Forget popularity. How will we ever know if someone else isn't even more popular if they never get a chance to run? Besides popularity doesn't necessarily correlate to performance or effectiveness. Our government would be much better and more effective if there was less of an ability to consolidate and hoard power the way it is at present in the house and senate, for example. I'm a firm believer in debate, political compromise, and negotiating on issues. This does not happen as well or as effectively when all elected officials are not on a relatively equal footing.

I am philosophically opposed to term limits, as I think the voters should have the final say on whether or not a candidate should be returned to office. If an office-holder is both effective, and popular with the voters, why should there be rule that turns him/her out of office never to return? That said, incumbency confers advantages on a candidate that force challengers to fight an uphill battle. So I think a good compromise is soft term limits that require office-holders to step down after two or three terms, but allow them to run for the same office after sitting out a specified period of time that is at least equal to one term.

Term limits, banning home rule, and ward alderman are all great ideas that are long overdue.

The biggest question is this... if our elected officials refuse to pick up the ball and run with these questions by simply placing each of them on the next ballot for citizens to vote up or down that leaves us with only one other option... and that is doing the city council's job for them by starting to circulate at least three different petitions that will force these questions to appear on the ballot. From those reading Potluck... who is willing to get started and help with such an initiative?

Once again, when given the opportunity to do the right thing, the smart thing our city council chose to do nothing. Thanks guys! We will remember why we voted for each of you next election!