The Naperville Sun asked candidates running for Naperville mayor in the April 4 election to provide biographical information and to answer four questions related to city issues.
These are the answers that were received. We are posting them as we receive them so check back for more later.
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(Candidates are listed in alphabetical order.)
SCOTT WEHRLI
Age: 53
Marital Status: Married to Lynda Wehrli
Children: Two children, Sam (22) & Hope (19)
Education: BA from North Central College
Employer & Title: Owner & Secretary-Treasurer of Dukane Precast Inc, Bank Director at Busey Bank, and Police Lieutenant with the Naperville Park District (part-time)
Prior offices: I’m a first-time candidate
Government Board/Commissions: Naperville Liquor Commissioner, serving nearly three decades under Mayors Macrane, Pradel, & Chirico and 20 year+ board member and past chairman of the Naperville Development Partnership
Community Service Organizations: Trustee, North Central College and Chairman, Board of Trustees Marmion Academy
1. Discussions on the future of any Fifth Avenue project were tabled as the city assessed the full impact of COVID-19 on long-term commuter parking needs. With commuter parking stabilizing, how would you like to see that property developed?
Let me start by emphasizing that we know what didn’t work, and I would not support any effort that resembled the last one.
The process broke down as citizens questioned the impartiality of the officials who were supposed to look out for their interests.
As the city makes long-term plans for 5th Avenue and the train station, I believe we should go back to the basics.
Naperville has attracted world-class developments when the city council wasn’t playing the role of developer. Going forward, we know what didn’t work.
As mayor, I would encourage the community to take the long view, remain patient and wait for the right project, at the right time, done the right way.
As mayor, my priority would be to ensure what is proposed is good for the neighborhood, the community, and our commuter population. My role would be to facilitate dialogue throughout the process and ensure that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.
2. With downtown roadwork nearing an end in the next couple years and existing parking garages aging, should the city revive discussion for a downtown parking garage at the Nichols Library? Why or why not?
My prior experiences tell me that the city should not rush into any decision.
I’m concerned that the city’s analysis on this issue is somewhat dated, and you cannot make the right decision without good data.
Secondly, we also must weigh that the cost of capital has significantly increased as interest rates have risen.
Third, the cost of building structures like this has increased due to inflation.
As of today, we don’t have current data, it’ll cost more to borrow the funds, and the ultimate structure will be more expensive. These are three significant hurdles.
However, we also need to ensure that any policy decision to move forward is focused on the future of transportation, mobility and the projected lifespan of the other parking facilities in the downtown. Changes in how we travel will impact whether these facilities are needed and how it should be configured to meet the demands of vehicles 5, 10, or 20 years into the future.
3. Would you support repealing Naperville’s assault weapons sales ban? Why or why not?
I believe the real question is whether you think the ordinance has been effective and if Naperville is safer because of its passage which was immediately met with a lawsuit preventing its implementation.
As mayor, I would have done what I did on the Liquor Commission when we had violence, including murder, and other out-of-control situations in our downtown. I would have brought the community stakeholders and the affected businesses together to develop locally focused solutions that could be immediately implemented. We solved those issues and passed local frameworks that have been replicated across the country by other communities.
The threat of mass shootings is real. Passing an ordinance and fighting its constitutionality in court may appease some and anger others, but it does nothing to prevent a mass shooting from taking place in Naperville.
I want to bring my 32 years of law enforcement experience to the mayor’s office and city council to work on these issues with our public safety professionals. When this ordinance was crafted, no one asked what tools, resources, or changes were needed to help prevent mass shootings and other acts of violence in Naperville.
We can and must do better. It may be difficult, but I still believe that we can replicate what I did on the Liquor Commission with downtown Naperville and find solutions that avoid litigation, make real progress to prevent senseless tragedies and make our community safer.
The safety of our community is local government’s top priority, and we shouldn’t play politics with public safety.
4. In regards to increasing the amount of affordable housing in Naperville, do you think the incentives adopted by the council go far enough or do they go too far? Should there be mandates, rather than incentives, placed on developers?
Naperville is the greatest community in America, and I know people want to live here. I’ve openly discussed that I’m adopted and wake up every day knowing that Naperville is an awesome place with the ability to change your life’s trajectory.
I support efforts to bring affordable housing to Naperville. But it must be the right project, with the right characteristics, at the right property.
These won’t be easy decisions; even a fence variance can get heated between neighbors. But I’m not afraid of hard work and building consensus in the community and the neighborhood where the proposed development would occur.
I believe the proposal the city council has worked on outsourced their role in ensuring responsible development takes place. Instead of residents having the opportunity to question a developer and voice concerns with their elected officials, the incumbent city council passed a bureaucratic process.
As a matter of fairness, equity, and ensuring good government, whether you’re developing a market rate or affordable residential housing project with tax credits, the local approval process should be the same for similarly situated proposals. We owe it to our residents, school and park districts to make sure we get these projects right.
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Under the council’s new direction, we’ll have different processes; I believe that’s wrong. If you don’t want to make tough decisions and build consensus, don’t run for the Naperville city council.
I believe all development should be transparent, open to discussion with your neighbors, and that the city council should have to weigh in if there are variances or deviations from applicable standards.
BENJAMIN (BENNY) WHITE
Age: 59
Marital status: Married for 35 years to Kim White
Children, if applicable: Two adult children. One is 31 and the other is 26.
Highest level of education: DBA, Values-Driven Leadership, Benedictine University (Also, MBA, Webster University; MS, Kinesiology, Indiana University; BS, Management, U.S. Military Academy at West Point)
Employer: Joliet West High School, Joliet Township High School District 204
Job title or description: Department Head, Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps
Offices to which you’ve previously been elected: Appointed to Indian Prairie District 204 School Board, 2012; Elected 2013 and served through 2017 (total of 5 years of service); elected to Naperville City Council 2017, re-elected 2021.
Government boards/commissions to which you currently or were previously appointed: Board of Fire and Police Commissioners, 2015-2017; Naperville Development Partnership, 2017 to present; NCTV-17, 2017 to present; Downtown Advisory Committee
Community service organizations and other groups to which you belong: Naperville Neighbors United, Founder; Loaves and Fishes Board of Directors; Community Alliance for Prevention, Board of Directors; 100 Black Men of Chicago
QUESTIONS
1. Discussions on the future of any Fifth Avenue project were tabled as the city assessed the full impact of COVID-19 on long-term commuter parking needs. With commuter parking stabilizing, how would you like to see that property developed?
It’s too early to assess commuter parking around the downtown train station as having stabilized. It has rebounded substantially, but far from completely, in the past year and maybe what we have now is the new normal for commuter parking demand. Although there has been some stabilization, I think it’s too early to assume that the commuter parking levels are at a point where we can expect them to stay for the next 10 or 20 years. We need to determine if hybrid working patterns are here to stay.
I don’t think the City is prepared to say that we know enough yet for long-term predictions. And without that, a cohesive redevelopment plan for that area can only be hypothetical right now. If we get it wrong, the community will be up in arms against us.
As one of the few council members to have been in office during the previous phases of this project, I’m optimistic that eventually we can revisit it. When we do, I intend to see that we do it right. We owe that to all the residents and staff who poured so much time and passion into working on it. The city knows much more about how to handle these projects, having gone through it before. That experience will be brought to bear to ensure that we don’t follow the same unproductive path as before.
Your question really has two sides. The obvious way to answer is to talk about what should be built. For that, we need to lean more on the extensive public input we’ve gathered. I said early on that this should be the community’s vision. We didn’t get to the point where we could mold the project into something that the community could support. Accomplishing that will give us a chance to show the public that they’re the partner in this that they were promised to be. It may involve hiring consultants to assemble public input, rather than creating an advisory board that chooses from a small number of potential land developers. That strategy did not work.
For one thing, the Children’s Museum is working on long-term plans and funding that will affect any considerations for redeveloping the parking lot they use. Should this property be taken out of the project, that changes several variables, including where we can stack commuter parking and how overall costs for the project are offset.
The previous broad goal of a mixed-use development (office, retail, and carefully chosen residential) is still sound, even if the plan will take on a new form when it’s revisited. We had expected to include an affordable housing component that composed 20% of the residential allocation. I would want to see this retained in any new plan. As I had called for in the early days of the project, having some units geared to seniors is an option I’d like to explore.
The other side of your question is how it should be developed, not actually what should be built. And there is where the experience we gained will play into it. As I noted already, we cannot start out the way we did before. There must be some guardrails established by the council to ensure that we take a better path. By doing so, the public will have a clearer idea of where we’re going. Instead of gaining support, it became apparent from the weight of opinions flooding into our inboxes that public confidence had waned. The public was not clear on where we were going and that caused alarm.
Between the public input and the working group reports, we have the seeds for what could comprise a successful plan. We just need to know what has changed in the market and in the public’s view to refresh the information we’ll use to make decisions.
2. With downtown roadwork nearing an end in the next couple years and existing parking garages aging, should the city revive discussion for a downtown parking garage at the Nichols Library? Why or why not?
There’s no question that the current Nichols lot is used by a lot of people who are not there to use the library. This has a negative impact on library patrons and staff, but it still has to be used as a public parking lot, regardless of what brings people downtown. Before I say that a new parking deck is needed next to the library, though, I want to see more data on what the overall parking demand is in the area. Without that in hand, my first inclination is that we have more of a parking convenience problem than a parking problem. We have plenty of parking in the downtown area, but it requires the public to walk a few blocks to use it. For library staff, we might need an option that allows them to reliably park near the library.
Considering that there are several multi-million-dollar infrastructure projects on deck for the city to tackle, I don’t want to jump into approving the capital expense of a parking deck without making sure that it is necessary and can be created in a way that is aesthetically acceptable.
3. Would you support repealing Naperville’s assault weapons sales ban? Why or why not?
No. I voted for the ban on the sale of assault rifles and stand by that decision. It has recently been upheld in court. The Naperville ordinance was carefully written so that it did not address possession, only sales within incorporated Naperville, the only area the City controls. It also did not include a wider definition of “assault weapons” and applies only to assault rifles.
4. In regard to increasing the amount of affordable housing in Naperville, do you think the incentives adopted by the council go far enough or do they go too far? Should there be mandates, rather than incentives, placed on developers?
We put a lot of effort into crafting a plan we believed would move the needle on increasing affordable housing. We’re required by state law to hit a threshold of 10% of our housing stock qualifying as affordable and we’re at about 7.5% today. Overall, we’ve incorporated successful affordable housing projects throughout the city. We just needed to offer some motivation for developers to help us get to 10%.
Having gotten this plan approved, now we can see how it works in practice. People can speculate on whether it’s too much or too little, but we need data to make an informed determination. That’ll take time to gather. So, we can revisit this down the line and consider if adjustments are needed.
I don’t believe mandates would get us a better result. That could scare off developers, who can simply take their projects elsewhere. We’re looking for ways to make affordable housing the right fit, not ways to close the door on getting development. Development is a conversation where you must listen as well as talk. Just as we must listen to residents, we must listen to developers. Bringing all impacted parties together and hashing out those concerns gets us to a better result for everyone.