Naperville City Council members must privately vet appointees to city boards and commissions before nominees are announced to the public, Mayor Steve Chirico said this week.
The names of Special Events and Cultural Amenities Commission nominee Shannon Adcock and Naperville Public Library Board nominee Kevin Coyne were released prematurely, which incited a series of letter- and email-writing campaigns and online petitions against and for the candidates as well as a storm of attacks on social media from both sides.
“This has caused our community a lot of angst. It’s caused our council a lot of angst. It’s caused the applicants a lot of angst. It was unnecessary, and it’s really unfortunate,” Chirico said.
Although no action was taken at Tuesday’s meeting, the Naperville City Council listened to more than an hour of public comments, mostly calling for the mayor to reconsider his picks.
Chirico responded by explaining that the practice has been for the mayor to distribute candidate applications to the council for a 10-day review. The vetting, he said, is done in confidence to protect the applicants.
If the council determines there’s no support for a candidate, he said, there’s an opportunity to remove that person without it being done publicly.
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“We’re not here to embarrass people or shame them. We’re here to vet out volunteers for these positions,” he said.
Unfortunately the process was breached and the names released before they were properly scrutinized, Chirico said.
In the coming weeks, the mayor said he’ll be gathering feedback from the council, which he’ll use to guide his decision. The time for public input comes after the candidates are vetted.
He also said the council will need to dig a little deeper to determine why the city is at this point. “We will get down to the bottom of that and make sure that we can do better and improve,” Chirico said.
Opponents have painted Adcock and the Awake Illinois group she founded as anti-diversity, equity and inclusion; anti-Black history; anti-mask and anti-LGBTQ.
Naperville resident Tim Thompson said no other conservative voice has ever been challenged to this extent, and what’s different is Awake’s extremist opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and support for censoring books deemed offensive.
“Diversity of thought is important on these committees, but we need individuals who will work together to better our city. Extreme voices will disrupt that harmony,” Thompson said.
Adcock said those fighting her appointment deploy tactics against their perceived enemies in an attempt “to utterly and economically destroy those with whom they disagree.”
The cancel culture is deterring “an untold number of otherwise good citizens from stepping into volunteering leadership roles, and not just in Naperville,” she said.
Because of his affiliation with Adcock, Coyne, a former member of the City Council and Plan Commission, is considered as being in the same vein.
Coyne said his voting record as a councilman on diversity, equity and inclusion is proof of his commitment.
Not moving forward with the nominations would appear a “capitulation to these activists that are incapable of mere civility those having different political beliefs,” he said.
“The whole town knows these appointments were put forward by the mayor and place you all — and quite frankly us as appointees — in a terrible position and public circus.”
Naperville resident Robert Harris said Naperville schools, libraries and cultural events must be world class and built to compete globally, nationally and locally. That happens, he said, by selecting leaders who respect all communities’ cultures and are willing to listen with the intention of inclusion.
“The person selected needs to believe in and work with evidence-based facts, not Fox-based fantasy,” Harris said. “We need leadership with a diverse mindset, high integrity and someone that has the confidence of the entire Naperville community.”
Becky Simon, public policy chair for the League of Women Voters of Naperville, represented a group of area organizations that published a letter to the editor in the Naperville Sun asking that the city’s boards and commissions reflect the diversity, equity and inclusion and the civility and public discourse that Naperville embraces.
Since Sunday, she said the list of co-signers has grown to include AAUW Naperville area, LWV of Naperville, Illinois National Organization for Women, National Council of Jewish Women Illinois, DuPage County Diversity Allies, Equity and Health Advisors Network, Naperville Pride, Naperville District 203 pragmatic parents, Naperville Women’s March Action, PFLAG DuPage, Will County NOW, Will County STEAM Women, Will County Pride Coalition and Youth Outlook.
Simon said the groups welcome the council’s careful deliberation in forming boards and commissions to help guide decision making on issues affecting the community’s well being.
Chirico said his work to make the city’s boards and commissions inclusive has been very intentional since he took office in 2015.
At that time, he only five or six were women and five to seven people of color were among the more than 130 advisory members.
“One of my first goals was to make sure that our boards and commissions looked like our community,” he said
“Our boards definitely are starting to look very much like our community looks, and that was a lot of work. It takes a lot of time because these terms are three-year terms. They don’t turn over that fast,” Chirico said.
The effort would not have been possible, he said, unless the council agreed to support that type of inclusion.
Part of that is appointing people not in lock-step with his ideology, the mayor said, adding that conservative friends have questioned why he would nominate someone so extreme on the left.
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“I would respond by saying it’s important that we listen to everybody that we’re going to have better public policy. We’re listening to everybody and that’s important,” Chirico said.
“I think it has made our boards and commissions stronger. I think it’s going to make our community stronger to make sure that we’re including all those voices.”