Pradel wins fifth term as Naperville mayor

George Pradel has been the only guy to occupy the mayor's office at Naperville city hall since 1995.

And he'll be keeping that seat for another four years after coasting to victory Tuesday in his quest for a fifth term and crushing a pair of sitting councilmen, Doug Krause and Kenn Miller, who had hoped to unseat him.

With all precincts reporting, unofficial totals show Pradel with 10,836 votes followed by Krause with 3,082 and Miller with 2,760.

Both Krause and Miller will retain their council seats.

“This means we can keep going in the right direction for the next four years with a lot of support from the people of Naperville,” Pradel said Tuesday night. “As we work together as a team, I think we can help make the budget balanced and show people we care about them as a team.”

Pradel, the city's longest-serving mayor in history, said this will be his final term.

”Yeah, after this, I am done. I said that before but I am looking forward to the next four years,” Pradel said. “As long as I have a voice I want to be a cheerleader and spend my life supporting this city. In four years I'll do something less stressful like being a greeter at city hall.”

Pradel and both councilmen ran a gentleman's race with each claiming to have great respect for the other and vowing to continue working together for the good of the city.

“We have a lot of business to transact and we'll do it Wednesday night like nothing ever happened,” Pradel said. “Now that it's over we can go on with business.”

Moving forward, the three men will continue in their current roles to address future plans for Naperville's downtown, attempt to bridge a roughly $7 million budget deficit and figure out whether there is an incentive plan out there shiny enough to lure businesses back to the city, especially in the industrial park and along the Ogden Avenue corridor.