Supna Jain, former vice president of the Indian Prairie District 204 School Board, was sworn in this week as a Naperville City Council member amid concerns about the transparency of the appointment process.
Jain, a principal lecturer in communication and media studies at Naperville’s North Central College, was selected by the council in closed session to fill Allison Longenbaugh’s vacancy and approved unanimously by the council at the start of its Tuesday meeting. She will hold the seat until April 2027.
The council chambers erupted in applause for Jain’s appointment, with family members and NCC students in attendance and her husband and two teenage sons seated in the front row of the council chambers.
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“This is a proud moment for the whole family, that one of us coming out of central Illinois can have a very big impact on a very big city like Naperville,” Supna Jain’s father Ramesh Chaudhari said. Jain grew up in Bloomington-Normal.
The 48-year-old was reelected to the District 204 school board earlier this year, and gave up that seat to fill the city position. She is the second Indian American and the first woman of color to serve on the council.
“While this was not the reason I sought this role, it is not lost on me that representation matters,” Jain said. “We should all be proud that our city’s leadership is beginning to look more like the community it serves.”
Near the end of the meeting, Councilman Nate Wilson raised general concerns about the city’s appointment process.
State laws dictate the way someone can be appointed to fill a council vacancy. It is legal for council members to make appointment decisions in closed session, but the final vote must be made in open session, City Attorney Michael DiSanto said.
“Under current law, we can fill a vacancy in closed session,” Wilson said. “That’s legally permissible. However, in my opinion, it limits transparency and may undermine the public’s confidence in council’s actions.”
More specifically, Wilson said he believed that excluding the public from deliberations opens the council up to the perception that “decisions are being driven through personal relationships” and “political favoritism.”
He also requested city staff to investigate how similar communities appoint council members and “provide several different options, which may include providing how a potential ordinance may look if we were to change it.”
While Councilman Josh McBroom agreed with Wilson’s concerns, other council members pushed back against Wilson’s comments.
“I would counter by saying that the members up here are all elected officials,” Councilman Benny White said. “We are representative of the community that put us up here so I think the community’s voice is being heard because their elected officials are making the decision.”
The process the council followed was consistent with what prior councils have done in the past when filling a vacant seat, according to City Manager Doug Krieger.
“We have not had any legal challenges from our appointment process at least for the last two decades,” Krieger said. “There have been some slight variations in the process, some included interviews, whereas others did not.”
Interviews with candidates in closed session did not take place in this most recent appointment process, he said.
“The statute is not very specific. It says council has the ability to choose the replacement to fill a vacancy and it gives discretion to the board to decide how to do that,” DiSanto said. “I caution council about tying the hands of future boards to make a decision in how they want to approach it.”
Mayor Scott Wehrli said he supported Wilson’s request to look at how other cities fill vacant seats and if other municipalities have local laws dictating the process.
“After Councilwoman Longenbaugh’s resignation, I received all sorts of inquiries from the community, lots of people believing I solely have the authority to appoint a replacement council person,” Wehrli said. “I think anytime we can potentially clarify something within our municipal code that assists us in future decisions that might not necessarily be a bad thing.”
City staff will do research on the subject and return to the council with information for future review.