Naperville mayor reflects on first year in office, looks to future
Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli vividly remembers the day the Webster Street covered bridge was to be installed.
A child at the time, Wehrli and others gathered to watch two cranes lift the wooden structures into place. They watched and waited, but the cranes couldn’t move the structures.
A week later, after some revisions to the plans, two larger cranes successfully placed the bridge into the place where it still stands today.
During his State of the City address on Wednesday, Wehrli said it was “what went wrong” and how the city responded that Wehrli remembers most about the bridge installation.
“Sometimes you need to put your head down and work together to move past what seems impossible and break it into smaller parts, segments and pieces,” Wehrli said in a video that played before his speech.
Wehrli shared a look back on the past year — his first as mayor — in a speech delivered to more than 500 people at a luncheon hosted by the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce.
Some of the year’s highlights included welcoming more than 35 new businesses to town, adopting a budget that gave the city the lowest property tax rate in 54 years, hiring six new police officers, updating zoning along the I-88 corridor to limit warehouse development and encourage office and research development and earning Niche’s “triple crown” as the best city to live, best schools and safest city.
He also shared updates on future developments, including the Block 59 development at the northeast corner of Route 59 and Aurora Avenue, the transformation of a former Dominick’s store into 99 Ranch Market, the construction of a Lifetime Athletic Resort at Route 59 and 103rd Street and the redevelopment of a former Butera market into a Heinen’s grocery store on Chicago Avenue.
Wehrli touted other positives, such as the city’s electric utility celebrating its 125th anniversary and delivering the most reliable municipal service in the state. At 16.5 minutes, Naperville customers experienced the fewest minutes of power outages of any municipal-run electrical utility in Illinois.
He noted that the city’s riverwalk, downtown district, schools and parks are among some of the things that help set Naperville apart and draw businesses, visitors and residents. Noting that the city is looking beyond that, Wehrli encouraged people to be “doers” and work together as the city’s forefathers did when placing the Webster Street bridge.
“Let’s do what those who came before us did by following this approach: put our heads together and work together,” he said. “That’s Naperville in one sentence.”