FB, I am absolutely not defending DF. I am making a point about the City's management of his case. He committed many other crimes over his years that were condoned by Mayor McCheese and his band of merry boobs.

Please don't defend DF. It's disgusting. Anyone else backhands a cop, and he/she gets charged. He's very lucky to get away with what he did. This has nothing to do with the budget, regardless.

Now were getting somewhere. Arguing about whether DF should sue is a matter of opinion. What's not is what anon points out. A former councilman told me that the city sat around for days trying to decide what to do about DF after the incident. There is no doubt that the city should have never charged DF. Not because he was innocent, because it took too long to charge him. How could the cops and city attorney think that was a good idea? Or did the rest of the inept council make the decision?

If DF isn't charged, there's no $1M lawsuit, period. Speaking of the $1M, I never understood why outside counsel was used here. Not that the city's group is any good, but what was the risk? Use outside counsel = $1M. I assume we'd have got the same result with the city's law clerks handling it.

Some other great comments in this section. Yes, the council has cost us more than DF's lawsuit. Yes, the bufoon we call a mayor is horrid. Again, tracing things back, the reason DF was allowed to do all the crap he did was absolutely the mayor's fault. He did nothing to control him as he does nothing to control the meetings he presides over. Enjoy your pension$ George.

We have a mayor who looks like a cross between a clown and circus barker and a total fool when he puts on a top hat. The history books won't be kind to the damage he levied during his tenure.

Now the city manager is going around trying to look like Abe Lincoln. All in a days play at city hall.

Just another example of the tomfoolery that goes on around city hall and the lack of seriousness considering the economy and the financial situation of the city budget. And the same lackadaisical attitude that permeates all of the city departments. Little wonder because the leadership example starts at the top and flows downhill from there. When the city manager can't lead any better by his own example, don't expect anyone else to know how to follow any differently.

The city council should tell all of them to knock this crap off and get back to work and give the taxpayer an honest days work for a days pay.

So much here, but Furstenau did himself in, and the things you say have been said about him are absolutely true. Keep in mind too please, that all those other money wasting ego projects were also approved while he was still a member of the Council. He voted yes for the Smart Grid, they all did, and they should all be removed from Council for that along with their other wasteful ego fulfilling spending habits.

We will always disagree that suing the City was an acceptable way to sooth Furstenau's ego, but there are hundreds of examples where the City, it's management, and the council has wasted our money. The blame for this is everywhere, but under the current City Manager it has taken on a life of it's own. If you got rid of Krieger, Marshall, and those who lead us down an unethical path in the Legal Department, you would START to change the culture of lie first and spin later.

This group, from Council through the entire upper Management Group, feels they are somehow entitled to do and take whatever they please. They say that they are not, but their actions scream that they do. So long as that attitude continues to be elected and employed, we will never see anything different than what we've seen in recent years.

You wrote: "Are there no solutions to disagreement that don't include hiring a lawyer and suing the taxpayers - because that was exactly what he did." Well, the same thing could have been said about those in charge at the City of Naperville before they got the prosecutor involved and filed criminal charges. Two wrongs don't make a right, but a lawsuit frequently results in a counter suit. Blame the lawyers for making a mockery of the judicial system.

You wrote: "You are absolutely right though when you peg the Council, the Management, and the Legal department as foolish. Furstenau, or no Furstenau, they waste time and resources on senseless ego projects every single day - and it will never change because as a whole they don't believe they are ever wrong, or that they are replaceable."

I agree. And I think the City of Naperville wasted a bunch of time and resources when they spent several days behind closed doors before filing charges that ultimately didn't hold up in court. If the average person had did what the police claim they would have been arrested and charged on the spot. Cops make these kinds of arrests all of the time and don't need days to think about it. You may disagree but there are a lot of people in town who believe it took the cops and insiders at city hall several days to try to cover their own ass on trumped up charges and they only filed a criminal complaint when they thought they had all the bases covered. The city still hasn't adequately explained why they wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars defending the criminal charges and why they lost.

Maybe it's just me but the competence of the city attorney comes into question when this kind of money gets spent and they don't win the case. Competence means evaluating everything and making a reasonable decision in terms of what is to be gained and what is to be lost. In the end the city attorney gained nothing and lost credibility. And I agree with you that all of the egos at city hall had tunnel vision and wanted to win at all cost and were simply unable to impartially evaluate the pro and con of their own case.

Mostly the Naperville police department is to blame for this entire mess. They screwed up the no parking notice. A beat cop took on an elected official instead of getting a watch commander involved in sorting out their own mistake because they were actually illegally towing cars. Then there was the alleged finger poke that no one else witnessed on a busy downtown street. Then it took several days to decide if a finger poke constituted aggravated battery. Cops have never operated in a black and white world... their world has many shades of gray that they like to use for their own advantage. There are thousands of examples of where cops have used better discretion and gotten great leverage out of the situation. Unfortunately the Naperville Police were blinded by a headfirst rush to extract revenge from someone who demanded they operate more responsibly and who demanded more accountability from city employees.

DF may have had some faults but he did look out for the taxpayer better than anyone on the city council then or now. Some thought DF was pretty full of himself. If you ask me the entire city council is loaded with people who are pretty full of themselves and by and large it is undeserved arrogance. DF may have been blunt, to the point, and called it like he saw it. I'll take that any day over the rest of the bunch who have syrup dripping out of their mouth every time they lie to the taxpayer and stab us in the back.

Yes, DF may have cost us a $1MM if you want to try to blame him for exercising his constitutional right to defend himself. While you are adding up what it cost us... well how much did the rest of these clowns cost us for the carillon, children's museum, smart grid, and all the other pork barrel projects they wanted and the taxpayers didn't? Once again DF ends up being the least expensive choice. And what did we trade him in for? Hold on to your wallet, you are about to get what you wished for.

I had just cant resist. I tried this a couple of weeks ago, but must have had a glitch. The Legal Team is a bunch of law clerks at best. Kudos? They cost us $1M. Kudos.

I applaud the city for not caving into "Richard the Extorionist" Furstenau. If they would have settled with this little creep, every Tom, Dick and Harry that has ever been arrested would have tried this same stunt. Kudos to the Naperville legal team!!

Standing up and fighting City Hall is admirable, unless of course you are taking your living from City Hall, and your arrogance is costing the people you pretend to represent a fortune, IF you actually care about other people in that instance, you find some way to make your point without filing a lawsuit. People like Dick Furstenau are the problem with this City/Country. They hold themselves above everyone else - it is the same problem we have with the Council and the Management of the City to this day.

To say what Furstenau did was right is beyond insane, the man was completely self absorbed and could NEVER see that what he was doing was embarrassing himself and the City. Are there no solutions to disagreement that don't include hiring a lawyer and suing the taxpayers - because that was exactly what he did.

You are absolutely right though when you peg the Council, the Management, and the Legal department as foolish. Furstenau, or no Furstenau, they waste time and resources on senseless ego projects every single day - and it will never change because as a whole they don't believe they are ever wrong, or that they are replaceable. They are of course completely replaceable, and the best hope this City has is that we do just that.

You don't have to worry about the Management sharing much income with the people that do the work ..... if they give increases at all, it will be 1 or 2 percent, which will be taken right back in benefit costs or pay range adjustments. The money you need to watch is the money the inner circle takes for themselves. A twenty thousand dollar bonus here and there, along with a salary increase, then toss someone who covers up your screw ups a 14 or 15 percent "equity" increase and you have this City's idea of a pay policy. Car allowances and self congratulation go hand in hand with that, just in case the cash doesn't quite meet their personal needs.

Or ...... I think that most people are so fed up with the wasted dollars that we don't much care what the source is anymore. It's ALL our money - be it from the City, the County, the State, or the Federal Government. It's time to spend money on NEEDS, not ridiculous side projects that somebody somewhere thinks is nice to have or is a perfect project to hire the cousins sons in-laws firms to do.

The people who are charged with representing the people of this City need to tune in and get the idea - if it isn't a NEED, we don't want it right now. Save the money, spend it on the services and projects the City and it's residents can't live without - and stop spending millions on things that are not essential but make a councilman or manager feel good or special.

I can't help but root for anyone who has the guts to stand up and fight city hall. When government starts pushing people around they have a right to defend themselves and it doesn't matter if they are a no body or a some body. That is why we have laws and a judicial system and is what sets America apart from those who have to live in some god forsaken place ruled by dictators. Freedom isn't free. Even still the amount of the legal bills run up by the city was totally unnecessary, was at their own doing, and wasn't even close to being reasonable. Smacks of too little oversight and too little accountability in terms of what the legal department is doing.

Only a fool or an idiot would spend a million dollars to avoid spending one hundred thousand. With this lawsuit everyone who had any kind of hand in the decision making proved themselves fools at least twice over. Makes me feel real safe and secure that our police department, legal department, and city council has a majority of people who can at best be described as twice the fool.

I'm enough of a cynic to believe there will be more lawsuits just like Dick's because the fundamental problem is neither the city council, the legal department, or the police department learned anything from the whole fiasco they started and insisted on keeping in play.

That sets the stage for same people with the same personalities to do it again and for the city to get sued again. The only thing I regret is that the whole mess didn't play out to the end in court so all of this could have been put to rest once and for all.

What we have now is a gray area with people who are on opposite sides of the issue because of their opinions who will never have any real closure with regard to what could have been decided as legal facts in terms of who did what, who was responsible, etc. And I expect these opinions will be defended by each side for years to come.

Will County is the lead agency building the bridge. Bolingbrook and Naperville both have received federal funding. This project has been planned since at least 1990. Construction costs at present are lower than they have been at least for a decade.

I'm all for the bridge. It is a good deal. I'd rather have a dozen bridges that are used every day than one bell tower that is rarely used.

The only thing that is missing is the exact dollar number that Naperville is putting into this project. If someone knows how to find that out and would post it would probably set a lot of other minds at ease because it is no where near the total cost of the project.

What type of salary increases are included in these bugets? You know that Doug, Bob and Karen want big increases.

Here is the added caution. Obama and his cronies are pushing us into a double dip. Sales tax revenues could go down again and the City will have an unexpected deficit.

There should be no raises for the next year, rather year end bonuses IF THERE IS A SURPLUS and the bonuses should be limited to half the surplus.

And eliminating unneeded bridges would help protect the City's financial position. No bridge until pensions are 100% funded!!!

You do understand that 75% of the money is not coming from Naperville but from Will County and Bolingbrook. And, I hope you understand that most of the Naperville money is a federal grant.