08/19/2026
What Just Happened | August 18, 2026 City Council Meeting
Council only has one meeting in July and one in August, but what that typically means is that they’re long ones (and therefore so are my follow-up “What Just Happened” posts 🙂). Last night was no exception. We covered a lot, but here are a few things that stuck out to me:
THE FUTURE OF NAPERVILLE’S ELECTRIC UTILITY
Last night was our final energy presentation before our September workshop, and this one focused on the option of selling Naperville’s electric utility.
I don’t think there is much appetite on the dais for that option. Local control and flexibility are things we value, and in fact, preserving control and flexibility is one of my primary concerns as we consider our long term energy procurement options.
But the presentation and discussion did highlight something important: Naperville’s electric rates for customers are not synonymous with what the City pays for electricity.
Because we own our own electric utility, we set our own rates for customers. In recent years, the rates we charge customers haven’t fully kept pace with what the City pays for electricity, with the difference being absorbed in part by drawing down the electric utility’s cash reserves.
The City routinely conducts electric rate studies to ensure the rates we are charging customers align with the cost of energy the City buys from IMEA. That process is a normal part of operating our electric utility, and rates are periodically adjusted based on those studies. That distinction is especially important right now because customer rates are a key point of comparison as we consider our future energy procurement options. If our current rates are being partially supported by drawing down reserves, a simple rate-to-rate comparison to ComEd isn’t necessarily apples to apples.
And while the electric utility operates as its own self-supporting fund, drawing down those reserves still has consequences. Reserves also help pay for infrastructure and capital needs. Keeping rates lower today by drawing down reserves doesn’t make those costs disappear, and it can mean having fewer resources available when we need to make major investments tomorrow.
Affordable electricity is obviously a key consideration as we look at our long-term energy procurement options. But as we have these discussions, it’s important to distinguish between what our customers pay and what the City pays for electricity, and make sure we’re comparing apples to apples. I think the same distinction is important when we talk about reliability, the reliability of Naperville’s electric utility is not necessarily the same thing as grid reliability.
There is a LOT more to discuss on energy, and our September workshop should be an important one.
COMMUNITY SURVEY RESULTS
We heard a presentation on the City’s latest community survey results. Lots of interesting information in there — I’ll make a specific post about it over the coming days
FUND ACCOUNTING
This is one of those very “in the w**ds” parts of the Council job that probably doesn’t get much attention, but I think it’s really important.
We had an agenda item for roof work at three City facilities: an electric utility building, a water utility building and the Van Buren parking garage. The costs for the project were being covered by the electric utility fund, water utility fund, and the capital projects fund.
But the City also has a fund specifically intended for downtown parking garage maintenance and construction, funded through a portion of our food and beverage tax. Typically downtown parking deck construction and maintenance costs are allocated two-thirds to the Downtown Parking Fund, with one-third allocated to the Capital Projects Fund.
I raised the question of whether some of the parking garage roofing expense should instead be paid from the Downtown Parking Fund. Our Capital Projects Fund pays for infrastructure needs throughout the City, so every dollar we spend there on a parking garage, with its own dedicated funding source, is a dollar that isn’t available for another capital need.
Council ultimately directed that the Van Buren roof work be funded through the Downtown Parking Fund. We also formalized a request I had previously made to staff for an accounting of past parking garage maintenance expenses and which funds have been used to pay for them.
Definitely not the flashiest Council topic, but I think paying attention to where the money comes from, not just how much we’re spending, is an important part of my job.
KRATOM
We conducted a first reading on a proposed ban on the sale of kratom in Naperville.
One of the important nuances that has emerged through public comment and conversations with residents is the distinction between natural leaf kratom and concentrated or synthetic 7-OH products. While the public health concerns around concentrated and synthetic 7-OH products seem clear, we’ve also heard from members of our community who use natural leaf kratom for things like chronic pain management and have made a compelling case that it should not necessarily be treated the same way.
I think we need to take seriously what we’ve heard from those residents. Chronic pain can have a profound impact on people’s lives, and I don’t think we should minimize the experiences of residents who have told us that natural leaf kratom is something they rely on to manage it. I think we owe it to those residents to fully explore whether these two categories should be treated differently before making a final decision.
But even if we determine that they should be treated differently, there’s a practical question of whether we can actually do that. If our police department can’t readily determine whether a product being sold in Naperville is natural leaf kratom or a concentrated or synthetic product, an ordinance that treats them differently may be difficult to enforce. Some communities have banned kratom more broadly, while others have focused their restrictions on synthetic or concentrated products. If there isn’t a practical way to make that distinction, ultimately a broader ban may be the best option.
There’s also movement at the federal level that could affect that question. The DEA has begun the process of temporarily placing concentrated 7-OH and several related substances into Schedule I, while specifically excluding botanical kratom with naturally occurring 7-OH below a specified threshold. If that action takes effect, the sale and distribution of the covered 7-OH products would already be subject to federal controlled-substance laws. That means the practical effect of a broader Naperville ban could largely be to prohibit the sale of natural leaf kratom, since sale of the other versions would already be prohibited at the federal level.
Before this comes back to Council, I want to better understand how other communities have approached both the policy and enforcement questions, as well as where the federal action stands. This is exactly why I think it was important to have a first reading; the discussion and public input raised important questions that deserve additional research before we make a final decision.
NATIVE LANDSCAPING
A resident recently reached out with concerns about our ordinance regulating native landscaping. From our discussion, I was surprised to learn that Naperville’s w**d ordinance governing w**ds and native landscaping hasn’t been updated since 1996.
After talking with staff, it sounds like our code enforcement team already uses reasonable discretion when evaluating native plantings. But landscaping practices and our understanding of the benefits of native plants for pollinators, stormwater management and local ecosystems have evolved quite a bit over the last 30 years, so I think it makes sense to ask staff to take another look at the ordinance and see if there are any updates they would recommend to better align it with modern best practices.
It’s important to protect, and even encourage, responsible native landscaping, while still giving the City the tools it needs to appropriately address genuinely neglected or nuisance properties.
