Are you smarter than a city council candidate?

Attention Napervilleans, candidates, others interested in the local electoral process. Here's a pop quiz. Part I: Can you name the people who hold these key jobs:

Police chief. Fire chief. City manager.

Part II. Who are these people:

Donna Dziedzic. Sue Broad. Peggy Frank. Brand Bobosky. Suzyn Price. (answers below)

So, how did you do? Get all eight? Take a bow. I lived in Naperville for almost 40 years and have been the DuPage County editor for 19 years, but I managed only six of eight correct; couldn't come up with the names of the fire chief and city manager, both of whom are relatively new in the jobs. Do I get any credit for knowing the names of their predecessors?

Nope, said Bob Smith, our city editor and the man in charge of all things Naperville. Bob also is one of many editors here who have interviewed hundreds of candidates for local village boards/city councils, school and park boards to help us determine who we endorse for the April 7 election. When he talked to the candidates for Naperville City Council, Bob sprung the pop quiz on them. He thought it'd be interesting to see how familiar the candidates were with some of the people they'd likely encounter if they were elected to the council. Here are the results:

Ken Bochenski: 3 of 8 correct; James Boyajian: 7 of 8; Judith Brodhead: 8 of 8; Jim DerKacy: 2 of 8; Raj Durga: 1 of 8; Bill Eagan: 2 of 8; Patty Gustin: 5 of 8; Paul Hinterlong: 8 of 8; Doug Krause: 8 of 8; Kevin Lynch: 5 of 8; Kamala Martinez: 2 of 8; Joe McElroy: 7 of 8; Tim Messer: 8 of 8; Kenn Miller: 8 of 8; Chuck Schneider: 2 of 8; Janet Trowbridge: 1 of 8.

It's important to note three of the candidates -- Boyajian, Krause and Miller -- are incumbents; they certainly ought to know these things. And, perhaps not coincidentally, they did extremely well in their Daily Herald endorsement interview, as did the other high scorers on the quiz: Brodhead, Hinterlong, McElroy and Messer. We endorsed five of the aforementioned people (the three incumbents, Brodhead and McElroy) earlier this week. Obviously, much more than the pop quiz went into our assessment of the candidates. All were asked (as have candidates throughout our circulation area) to fill out questionnaires -- which we plan to post online by this weekend. Other factors, beyond candidates' knowledge of their towns, come in to play. It's an inexact science, but I really liked the extra tool Bob devised to help him make an informed choice about who "had done their homework."

"These people all filed their nominating petitions in December," Bob adds, "and we didn't talk to them until March. They had nearly three months to pick the brains of some of the city's key players, and it would seem obvious some of them didn't take advantage of it.

"Before you ask people to elect you to the city council of one of the state's largest cities, I think voters have the right to expect you to have a working knowledge of most of the issues facing that city and to recognize the vast majority of the key players involved in those issues."

Answers: Police Chief David Dial; Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis; City Manager Doug Krieger; Naperville Library executive director; DuPage Children's Museum director; Naper Settlement director; attorney and head of city's Century Walk public art project; Naperville Unit District 203 board president.

• Listen to Bob Smith as he's interviewed about his candidate pop quiz by WBBM 780-AM's suburban bureau chief Julie Mann during this morning's drive time.