Eli Hodapp’s large collection of words.

Here is a video of clip of me speaking during the public forum of the 8/6/07 City Council meeting:

I ended up cutting out of last night’s City Council meeting early. I had reviewed all of the minutes beforehand and didn’t see anything that interested me… so after the public forum was over, I figured there was no need to linger. I ended up missing seeing the amazing “New Business” portion of the meeting in person.

Awesome quotes from this clip:

Rosanova: “…I know that there’s the uh YouTube video that someone made…”
Mayor: “The gentleman was here.”
Rosanova: “Yeah, and I haven’t seen that.” (Note: I sent it to everyone on City Council… haha.)

Rosanova: “If Mr. Burchard could answer that…”
Burchard: “Interesting question, I guess we would have to have a uh… a… ordinance violation time or something. We would have to encourage people to go back to the bands.”

After watching this, I gave Dick Furstenau a call thanking him for his support. He will no doubt be a powerful ally in the fight to retain sanity in downtown Naperville. I’ve always enjoyed listening to him speak at City Council meetings, as he sort of redefines the term “straight talk.” He was no different on the phone, it was great.

I had heard reports of a potential secret Downtown Naperville Alliance meeting last night. Sure enough after calling the City Clerk’s office this morning I discovered the time and place of this meeting. It was unclear whether or not it was open to the public… but I figured I would go either way. I arrived about 15 minutes early, and sat in the back with my laptop- typing furiously.1:27 PM - People are filing in to the basement room of City Hall, meeting room “AB”. Peter Burchard just arrived and the meeting is about to get underway. The only people I recognize here are the City Manager and Chuck Rizzo, owner/operator of Rizzo’s and his henchman, Chris. (Who just so happen to be sitting right next to me.)1:31 PM - Meeting begins. Peter Burchard is going to do a roll call of everyone in the room. The people at the table are from the planning committee, development team, code enforcement people, police people, VINCE GORTNER, the city prosecutor, and the clerk.1:35 PM - Announced myself as “Eli Hodapp, professional whiner.” There are a ton of people from Jilly’s here sitting in the front row. Peter Burchard is talking about the history of the ordinance and laying out the intent of the meeting. Peter reveals that during the secret squirrel meeting that council members cannot speak during this meeting because it wasn’t truly public with the proper notifications and such. Continue reading »

This is the second City Council meeting that has passed since the noise ordinances started being enforced. I’ve extended the invitation to every single person who has emailed me or commented on a blog post to raise their concerns during the City Council’s public forum- I’ve even gone as far as to include detailed instructions on how to sign up to speak.

How many have shown up? Zero.

Instead of voicing their concerns to the only people who can do anything about the local noise ordinances, my opposition has decided to print shirts, or let out a sigh and write off the lack of involvement to apathy. Now, I’m no political science expert, but last I checked, in order for a motion to be brought to the table… …someone has to bring it to the table? A council member isn’t going to make a motion based on perceived apathy on the blogosphere and a t-shirt.

Here are the notes I quickly typed on my iPhone while I waited for my turn to speak:

“I already extended my thanks to our wonderful city manager here at the grand opening of the carillon, but I would also like to thank the rest of the council and the mayor for the prompt action after emailing my video of what Naperville turns in to at night. Thank you all for finally restoring some sanity to downtown Naperville after dark. It’s quite pleasant now and I really hope it stays that way. Thanks again and keep up the good work.”

I deviated from my notes a little bit, but that’s more or less what you missed if you weren’t watching the local public access cable channel. It’s too bad Councilman Furstenau wasn’t there for this meeting. He is by far my favorite and I would have loved to give him the thumbs up.

Oh well, there’s always next time.