Drive around downtown Naperville, one of Chicago’s most affluent suburbs, and you’ll find trendy shops and restaurants lining the streets. You’ll also find Scott Huber, a 58 year old man who has been camping out on a busy sidewalk for the past eight years.  Huber refers to his site as a protest vigil and  refuses to call himself homeless.  ”I’ve been pretty much railroaded because of this homeless label people want to affix to me.  I’m a business man and protestor, that’s what the focus should be. I’m just not utilizing a home, ya know.” Huber says he is protesting the city of Naperville and it’s Police Department for causing his electronics business,   A& A Electronics, to fail more than 10 years ago. Huber says he was evicted from his apartment in 1999, after failing to pay overdue telephone bills.

Huber says he’s survived the past eight years thanks to donations of money and food from strangers.  He saved up enough money to buy a used laptop that he uses with the city’s Wi-Fi to blog about his situation on Flickr.com. Huber also has a pay-as-you-go cell phone that one of his supporters gave to him. Within the past two years Huber bought a large gray tarp along with an umbrella that he uses to shelter himself. During the winter months, Huber uses a generator fueled by gasoline and surrounds himself in blankets to stay warm at night under his make-shift tent.

Some people we spoke to shopping in downtown Naperville say they hardly notice Huber, others who live and work in town feel enough is enough and it’s time for Huber and his expanding camp site to go. “I didn’t think Naperville would allow this kind of set up. I thought are they letting him get away with this ? They aren’t saying anything to him?,” said Gwendolyn Myles.  Local resident, Elizabeth Lupori says she’s lived in Naperville for eight years and never knew Huber was camped out on the sidewalk, “Just today my daughter asked me what’s going on with that man in the tent, and I said, I have no idea. So, he’s really not disturbing the peace at all, that I know of.”

The controversy over Huber’s presence has created some heated debate among members of the Naperville City Council.  The Council is one step closer to passing an ordinance to prevent anyone from camping or sleeping on a public sidewalk in the downtown area. At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting only one local business owner spoke out in favor of the proposed ordinance to remove Huber.  David Sinker, the owner of a comedy club across the street from Huber’s protest site told the city council,  ”This is not an 8 year protest, but an 8 year pout, and this council has allowed him to pout for 8 years and his time is up. End it.”

Council member James Boyajian added, “it is high time that we step up and take responsibility for what is our responsibility and that is to protect and preserve the environment of our downtown and business community.” Another  council member, Doug Krause says the whole situation boils down to safety, “To me it’s a safety issue, not only for Mr. Huber but for anyone using the sidewalk.”

Only one council member, Bob Fieseler, feels strongly that Huber should be allowed to stay and protest on the public sidewalk using a chair and umbrella but should get rid of the rest of his property. “A wise person said, it’s the kinder touch in life that counts. When we pass an ordinance we lose sight of the consequences of that. Yeah he’s accumulated a lot of stuff, but we already have an ordinance that targets stuff.”

Huber, who spoke in his own defense at the council meeting, says if the ordinance passes, he will try and fight it with help from a local attorney. “I feel that it’s wrong, i feel that it’s illegal and infringes on my First Amendment rights to protest here..  they are just trying to make my stay difficult so I dry up and blow away and I give up, and I’m not going to.”

The Naperville City Council will vote on the ordinance that will determine Huber’s fate at its next council meeting, October 6th.{VignetteVideo assettitl=”Protest+Site+or+City%27s+Eyesore%3F” id=”C418BA80AB13F9B2C04180D2197899E1″ width=”375″ aspectratio=”1.77″ height=”211″ autoplay=”off” }