Public Safety

Naperville residents value public safety, and I am dedicated to supporting our two world-class public safety departments and ensuring that Naperville remains one of the best and safest cities to raise a family in America.  Important public safety initiatives that I have supported over the past four years include:

• Hiring Additional Police Officers – Four years ago, my campaign website included the following verbatim language: “Many residents have told me that police response time, particularly to non-violent offenses during the day, has lagged in recent years. If more patrol officers are needed to ensure that the police department can respond in a timely manner, then the budget should be adjusted accordingly to provide for funds to hire those officers.”  In the four years since, I helped do exactly that, by voting to add funding to our budget to hire eight new police officers and a new social worker.  I also support the 2023 budget request to add two new police sergeants and a new records specialist.

• Maintaining Low Rates of Crime – Naperville crime rates remain extremely low, compared to both other communities and Naperville historically, and we maintain an accredited police department consistently on the forefront of community policing. Concurrent with the recent hiring of additional police officers, our crime rates have decreased over the past few years (excluding identity theft, which unfortunately skyrocketed nationwide during Covid).

Even compared to prior decades, when Naperville’s population was much smaller than it is today, our rates of serious crimes are nearly as low or lower than they have ever been:

*Statistics for 2022 are for only the first half of the calendar year. All statistics provided directly by the Naperville Police Department.

• Approving Equipment and Training – In addition to ensuring that our police and fire departments are adequately staffed, I am committed to ensuring both departments function at the highest level possible, which requires world class equipment and training.
  • The police department had for many years requested that our City Council approve an expenditure to purchase a modern “bearcat” vehicle to protect our officers in highly dangerous situations, such as the Henry Pratt shooting in Aurora. One of the first things I approved on Council was the purchase of a new bearcat as part of the 2020 budget only a few months after being elected in 2019.
  • I led the push to equip our entire police department with body worn cameras well before they were required by the state. The body camera program is now fully operational, and helps protect both our police officers and residents.
  • Our Council has also approved the expansion of Crisis Intervention Training for our police department, new, best-in-class vehicle purchases for our fire department, and in the relatively near future, our fire department will lead an assessment of the city’s potential need for a centralized emergency management facility that could serve as a location to deploy resources, providing training spaces, and serve as an emergency operations center.