Tight race seen between Naperville mayoral front-runners Scott Wehrli and Benny White
A tight mayoral race in Naperville comes down to a choice between a candidate steeped in tradition and two others who represent how the city has changed as it’s grown.
Candidate Scott Wehrli comes from a family whose story is woven into the fabric of Naperville’s history whereas candidates Benny White and Tiffany Stephens reflect the city’s population boom in recent years.
Over the last half century, Naperville has grown from a former sundown community of roughly 23,000 in 1970 to the fourth largest city in the state with a multicultural population of 150,000.
A recent poll from Inverness-based Core Strategies shows front runners Wehrli and Benny White neck and neck, with the third candidate Stephens pulling up the rear as a possible spoiler.
Whomever wins will succeen Steve Chirico, who opted to step down after eight years as mayor.
Meet the candidates
The Wehrli family arrived in Naperville in 1840, and their 53-year-old ancestor has a lifetime of knowledge of Naperville.
His father, businessman and philanthropist Richard Wehrli, was one of 13 children of Gertrude and Frank Wehrli, who lived in the original Pre-Emption House — Naperville’s first hotel and tavern — from the 1920s to 1946, when it was torn down to make way for an automobile dealership parking lot at Main Street and Jackson Avenue.
Born and raised in the city, Scott Wehrli earned a bachelor’s degree at North Central College in Naperville before eventually becoming owner of Naperville-based Dukane Precast.
The father of two children also is a director at Busey Bank and a part-time police officer for the Naperville Park District.
Although his cousins have been elected to public office, this is Wehrli’s first run for an elected position.
White, 59, is a relative newcomer by comparison.
The retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who served 22 years as a field artillery officer has been a Naperville resident for 17 years.
White earned a bachelor’s degree in management from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and master’s degrees at Indiana University and Webster University. More recently he earned a business doctorate at Benedictine University in Lisle.
He works at Joliet West High School as the department head for the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program.
White was appointed to Indian Prairie District 204 School Board in 2012 and was elected in 2013.
He served on the District 204 board through 2017, when he was elected to Naperville City Council. The council’s first Black member, he was reelected in 2021.
If he wins, White would be the city’s first Black mayor.
Stephens, 51, who did not respond to the Naperville Sun’s request for information, founded Caring For Children Daycare and Kids Teen Rider, a nonprofit that provides transportation service to kids and teens.
The biography on her campaign’s website says she attended ATI in 2000, where she studied private investigation and prelaw.
In January, she won a court battle to remain on the ballot after her residency as a candidate was questioned. During the proceedings, Stephens testified that after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she resided at her 1240 Iroquois Ave. office and with friends and family before purchasing a town house in south Naperville in 2022.
At a recent council meeting, she reiterated that she’s been a resident of Naperville for more than 25 years.
Besides biographical information, the Naperville Sun asked the mayoral candidates for their opinions on several subjects. The following are the highlights of what they had to say about affordable housing, the city’s assault weapons sales ban and the future of city-owned property on Fifth Avenue.
The candidates’ full responses and another question on the Nichols Library parking deck can be viewed online.
White said the council put great effort into crafting a plan that 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,” White said.
While the city has incorporated successful affordable housing projects, the council needed to offer motivation for developers so the city can hit the 10% goal, he said.
With the measures in place, it’s time to see how it works in practice and consider adjustments if they are needed, he said.
Mandates won’t give better results and may scare off developers, he said.
“We’re looking for ways to make affordable housing the right fit, not ways to close the door on getting development,” he said.
“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.”
Wehrli said that while he supports efforts to bring affordable housing to Naperville, it must be the right project with the right characteristics at the right property.
“I believe the proposal the City Council has ... 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,” he said.
As a matter of fairness, equity and ensuring good government, the approval process should be the same for developing a market rate or affordable residential housing project with tax credits, Wehrli said.
All development should be transparent and open to discussion with neighbors, he said, adding the council should have to weigh in if there are deviations from applicable standards.
“We owe it to our residents, school and park districts to make sure we get these projects right,” he said.
“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,” Wehrli said.
Assault rifle sales ban
White said he stands by his vote establishing the city’s ban on the sale of assault rifles.
“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,” he said.
Wehrli said he would have taken a different approach to protecting Naperville from mass shootings.
“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,” he said.
When downtown Naperville faced problems downtown, including a murder, Wehrli said he and fellow members of the Liquor Commission brought community stakeholders and businesses together to develop solutions that could be immediately implemented.
As a part-time officer with the Naperville Park District’s police force, Wehrli said he’d bring law enforcement experience to the mayor’s office and council to work on these issues with the city’s 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,” he said.
Naperville can find solutions that avoid litigation while making progress to prevent senseless tragedies and the community safer.
“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,” he said.
Fifth Avenue project
As the city makes long-term plans for Fifth Avenue and the train station, Wehrli said city officials should go back to the basics.
He 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, he said.
“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,” Wehrli said.
White said it’s too early to assess whether the commuter parking around the main train station has stabilized or if the city can expect it to stay that way for the next 10 or 20 years.
As such, he said 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,” White said.
When the time comes to revisit it, he said, he intends the city to 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,” he said.
What will be needed the next time will 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,” he said.
White said the long-term plans for the DuPage Children’s Museum and adjacent parking lot must be part of discussions.
