ASHOK EASWARAN
CHICAGO: Many local South Asian-American community leaders from different walks of life assembled at Royal Banquet in Naperville to demonstrate their strong commitment to vote, in huge numbers, for the re-election of Steve Chirico as Mayor of Naperville.
Mayor Steve Chirico, who spoke at the event, said, with a sense of pride that, under his leadership as Mayor, Naperville has been recognized as one of the country’s best and safest cities of its size and also ranked in the top 25 on a list of best towns for small businesses.
He further said that Naperville had many financial challenges when he took over as the mayor in 2015. He talked about the bold steps he took to address all of the budget-related issues through strong financial discipline, reducing long term debt, holding Naperville’s AAA bond rating, creating sustainable revenue, and giving a boost to business development.
“We not only reduced our debt by $24 million but also increased our investment in infrastructure in the amount of $36 million for the multidimensional development of our city, its roads, traffic signals, water and electricity supply, safe neighborhoods, excellent career opportunities, exciting entertainment avenues, multi-cuisine restaurants, great schools, wonderful parks, etc. and at the same time brought down the property taxes by about 15 per cent over the past four years,” Chirico stated, adding that being recognized as one of the safest cities in the US was the icing on the cake.
The presentation by Chirico was followed by a question-answer session. He answered all the questions to the satisfaction of the audience. Subsequently, Chirico thanked Syed Ashfaq Hussain and Ayeisha Osman for hosting the event.
Earlier, Hussain welcomed the guests. Juveria Syeda, in her vote of thanks, called upon the youth to also vote for Chirico for his re-election.
Some of the prominent community leaders, who graced the occasion, included Adil Farid, Sanjeev Pandey, Shoaib Khadri, Moin Haq, Krishna Bansal, Sanjiv Singh, Ninad Daftari, Mahfooz Khan, Maqsood Qadri, Anees Rahman, Shalini Gupta and Vinoz Chanamolu.
