Irate residents denounced Naperville City Councilman Josh McBroom this week for his migrant housing sign-up sheet proposal, calling his actions insincere, self-serving and politically motivated.
More than half of the public comment portion of Tuesday’s City Council meeting was taken up by people who wanted to chastise McBroom for his suggestion that the city create a registry for Naperville people who want to house migrants — an idea he has acknowledged was intentionally “provactive.”
City Manager Doug Krieger ultimately directed staff to abandon research on the idea after it was learned other agencies were doing similar work, but not before the idea sparked national attention. In addition to social media posts that incited hundreds of comments, McBroom was interviewed by several news media outlets, including The New York Times and Fox News.
His critics did not mince words in what they had to say about McBroom’s actions.
“We do not need our City Council engaging in highly partisan activities to further their own interests and earn themselves their 15 seconds of fame,” Naperville resident Tim Thompson said, adding that contrary to McBroom’s claim, it “didn’t hold a bit of sincerity.”
Dianne McGuire, co-founder of Indivisible Naperville and former chairwoman of the Naperville Township Democratic Organization, called McBroom a “trickster and national media pundit.”
The whole affair has been “an endless political stunt that continues to smear the city and its residents,” Lynn Gosselin, of Naperville, said.
McBroom, however, stood by his idea. After Tuesday’s meeting, he told the Naperville Sun he had “no regrets.”
“I’d make the motion all over again,” he said.
At the Jan. 16 council meeting at which he made the initial proposal, McBroom emphasized that Naperville should not use taxpayer dollars to house or aid migrants but instead suggested the city create a sign-up sheet for local households willing to host migrant families. Enough of the council supported his idea for city staff to be directed to look into the idea.
After the idea was scrapped, McBroom said no one reached out to him to say they were interested in housing a migrant.
He made the same point in a letter he sent to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last week in which he lauded Abbott’s decision to bus migrants to sanctuary cities like Chicago. He said the housing registration idea was his way of addressing the position of “my Democratic friends who support the flow of migrants” coming into the country but don’t step up to help or have “compassion” for the problems that an open border policy generates.
Naperville resident Meena Banasiak rebuked McBroom for drawing a conclusion based only on the fact that no one contacted him personally about the sign-up sheet idea.
“It has been astonishing to hear a council member declare with baseless conviction that Naperville residents are hypocrites about supporting people in need because they didn’t sign a nonexistent form,” Banasiak said.
McBroom’s actions and words, she said, were “self-serving” and “tarnished the reputation, values and mission of this city.”
In his letter to Abbott, McBroom said he wanted to clarify his intentions in making the proposal.
“I acknowledge that my proposal was provocative, but it was sincere,” he wrote to Abbott, saying that many “of my colleagues and fellow residents are quick to support the idea of welcoming and supporting migrants, but no one is willing to invite them into their own home. And my statement proved that.”
McBroom’s dismissal spurred assurances Tuesday that there are people and organizations in Naperville involved with migrant aid and support.
Naperville-based Alliance of Latinos Motivating Action in the Suburbs (ALMAS) has been vocal in its commitment to engaging and educating community members about local migrant arrivals and assistance, organization founder and Vice President Laura Navarro said at the council meeting.
“We are disseminating accurate and compassionate information to counteract the prevalent narratives of racism, xenophobia and fear-mongering,” Navarro said.
Newly formed in the wake of McBroom’s proposal, a coalition named Naperville Compassion in Action is working with the Christian humanitarian organization World Relief to raise money for local migrant families and publicize ways to donate items to help them, Naperville resident Tony Andrews said.
Other criticism addressed McBroom’s behavior on social media following last month’s council meeting. From his “Josh McBroom Naperville City Council” Facebook account, McBroom has posted himself and reposted media coverage about his sign-up sheet idea. He’s also used the same account to respond to other online comments about his proposal.
In one instance, he responded to a “Republican Voters For Naperville” Facebook page comment, “You have no human is illegal sign in your yard? Great, here is a sign-up sheet. Prove to me you aren’t a hypocrite. They won’t. You know it and I know it. Most people saw it, and loved it. But it’s too bad so many could not see the nuance here.”
Several speakers said Tuesday that they believed McBroom’s use of social media was not appropriate per city ordinances.
Naperville Municipal Code states that city council members “may choose to post and/or comment on various social media sites using their personal accounts,” recomending that “the content and tenor of online comments and information posts should model the same decorum displayed during City Council meetings.”
According to City Attorney Mike DiSanto, interpretation and application of this provision is within the purview and discretion of the council. He added that the city does not operate the social media accounts of any of the eight council members.
Shannon Adcock, founder of the Naperville-based conservative group Awake Illinois, offered one of the lone statements in support of McBroom’s proposal. She thanked McBroom, former vice president of Awake Illinois, for shedding “much needed light on an important issue, which is open borders,” she said, adding that open borders are “false compassion.”
Councilman Ian Holzhauer weighed in on the situation, comparing it to “an ongoing reality TV show.”
“Sometimes it’s captivating, it’s dramatic and you can’t stop watching,” he said. “But what are we accomplishing?”
Calling McBroom’s proposal a “stunt,” Councilwoman Allison Longenbaugh likewise lamented the impact it’s had on the council’s actions and the city’s reputation.
“We arrived at this fragile balance and it took a lot of work to do it and then it was just … shattered. And for what?” she said. “To score some political points and to make a mockery of a humanitarian crisis. And that makes me sad.
“For the record, I am on team Naperville, and I sincerely thought that everyone else was too.”
Councilwoman Jennifer Bruzan Taylor implored her colleagues to “be careful with criticism” and instead, “get back to business.”
As for McBroom, he assured, “It’s not a joke to me.”
“You may not like my suggestion. You may not like my motives. But my motives are squarely on protecting our public safety and our public resources,” he said. “And I’m sorry if I was the only one that had the courage to start this conversation.”
There is no plan to bring anything back to the council on a local response to new arrivals, Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli said after Tuesday’s meeting.
“To date, we have not been asked to do anything with regard to anybody who’s come through our city,” he said.
Since Dec. 21, six buses carrying migrants have left passengers at Naperville’s downtown Metra station, who then took a train to Chicago, according to city spokeswoman Linda LaCloche. To the best of her knowledge, she said this week, none have come through the city since the start of the year.
