A decision about allowing liquor license holders to sit on the Naperville City Council might not be made until after voters go to the polls for the April 7 election, when one license holder is among the 20 candidates vying for eight seats.
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Current local law forbids anyone with a financial interest in the sale of alcohol from holding office in Naperville. Tuesday’s first reading of a measure designed to make the wording of the existing code consistent with a state law put on the books a decade ago that allows licensees to be in office, was met with differences of opinion among current council members about how and when to proceed.
At issue is the candidacy of Jimmy Bergeron, who holds the licenses for Jimmy’s Grill and the Wise Boxer Pour House, both in downtown Naperville. Bergeron, who said he learned of the discrepancy in the local code from city staff after filing to run late last year, stopped campaigning in late January but has not withdrawn his candidacy.
The vague language, Bergeron said, creates potential conflicts for more than just himself. He believes seven or eight people now serving on boards and commissions elsewhere in the community would be subject to the restriction as well, unless it’s changed.
“Technically if I wanted to run for school board, I couldn’t,” Bergeron said.
Officials agree the language in the existing code needs updating. City prosecutor Mike DiSanto proposed a set of changes that would clear up some of details that now are considered vague.
“It’s the stuff that’s been keeping me up at night…. imagining the ambiguities in some of the language,” DiSanto said.
The suggested updates would limit the restriction to appointed and elected city council members, rather than all elected public officials.
“I think that was the intent originally,” said DiSanto, who also is recommending that issues involving conflict of interest be defined under current general rules.
The existing city code stipulates that a council member must vote when present, “except on any matter in which he has a prohibited interest, (and) disclose such interest, leave City Council chambers and abstain from voting on the matter” – and according to some council members, that would happen too often.
Councilman Paul Hinterlong, who is seeking a new term next month, estimated that a license holder would have had to step out of the decision making process nearly three dozen times in the past year, as the council has grappled with changes in the local liquor code aimed at curtailing late-night violence in the downtown bar area. The incidents included a pair of drownings in a downtown Naperville quarry pond last July that witnesses say followed an evening of drinking in the city, and the fatal stabbing of a teacher during a bar fight three years ago
“That’s not providing a service to the residents, if someone’s got to recuse themselves that many times within a year,” Hinterlong said. “It’s a sensitive issue, to where we need nine people up here, because it makes a difference in a vote sometimes.”
It also would be problematic, Hinterlong said, if something bad happened “at a fellow councilman’s establishment” and the council’s subsequent response opened the door to allegations from other bar owners of favoritism.
“It’s just another thing that we’ll have to face if that day ever comes, and I just don’t want to see that, myself,” he said.
Bergeron, whom Hinterlong called a friend, said he thinks the residents should make the call. He likened the situation to Hinterlong, a union plumbing contractor, negotiating an agreement with the local fire or police department.
“There are clear-cut conflict of interest rules and regulations that you all sitting up there abide by,” Bergeron said, asserting that every board member has had to step away from a vote at some point, and adding that he makes it no secret that he’s a bar owner. “I really think it’s a real slippery slope when you start taking away the decision from the voters on an issue like this.”
Council member Doug Krause sees a different type of conflict of interest, a presence on the dais now. He suggested tabling the issue until after the election, noting that four current council members still face an electoral challenge from Bergeron.
“I think the new council should be looking at that,” said Krause, who is one of two council members, along with Steve Chirico, hoping to be elected mayor, a position that also includes oversight of local liquor laws. “We have two people running up here who are actually going to be the liquor commissioner. One of them will be.”
A total of four candidates are on the mayoral ballot. Jim Haselhorst and Marty Walker are also running for the office, and at least one of them thinks Hinterlong is making the right call on the issue.
“I agree completely with Paul,” said Walker, who noted that issues arising from liquor consumption in the downtown have taken up a great deal of the council’s attention in the recent past.
Council member Joe McElroy, who also is running to remain in office, said the matter is a technicality that demands prompt action, because neglecting to remedy it is unfair to Bergeron.
“We all agree that the law needs to be revised, and I was hopeful we could settle it tonight, even if it meant waiving first reading,” McElroy said.
Hinterlong, who said he would be OK with leaving the matter up to the reconfigured council later in the spring if that’s that the majority wants, stressed that a decision is important because it’s unfair to the voters to leave the flawed law unaddressed. He said he’ll poll residents about the issue when he is out campaigning in the coming days.
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Bergeron doesn’t argue with allowing the citizens inform the council’s action.
“It’s the voters’ decisions that should play into that,” he said. “It should be the voters who decide who they want to represent them. I think we have very clear language to define conflict of interest, and I think the ethics rules that this council has are very clear on that.”
Twitter @scarlman