Last month Naperville lost our beloved Mayor Pradel. My girls remember him as Officer Friendly and from Safety Town, two roles he initiated to educate and protect our children. I knew of him in those capacities, but I also got to know him in other ways.
Years ago, I was a member of a board supported by the City, and found myself in the middle of an ugly controversy. After an agonizing board meeting, I asked to meet with the mayor at City Hall. I was in the “hot seat” and I knew it, but he was fair and unbiased and that situation was favorably resolved. A short while later he asked me about the “players” and as I carefully hedged my answers. I could see that he was instinctively a Cop. I was actually thrilled! The jolly, joyous public servant had morphed into a professional law officer. As an actor, I read his almost nonchalant body language and his easy but probing questions. He was good at that!
Later, I joined a prayer group that he started. Sometimes after our 6:30AM Thursday morning meetings at the downtown YMCA, we had breakfast at local restaurants. It was there that I saw another side of him. He owned a Model A Ford! Like him, it wasn’t fancy, and the leather was cracked, but it ran well. And once I even got a ride.
That small prayer group grew into the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast that is still held at the 95th YMCA and now includes hundreds who gather “to celebrate the holiday season and support the mission statement of the YMCA: a healthy spirit, mind and body.”
I join thousands who miss and celebrate him. He was the first politician I’ve known personally that I could honestly say was a true public servant with a strong sense of integrity and a devotion to duty.
