Joliet brings in outside law firm amid police, City Hall clash

The law firm Ancel Glink promotes itself on its website as providing "creative and cost-effective solutions to your local government problems."

In Joliet, the firm has been hired to sort out problems that seem to be mounting between City Hall and the police department.

“I will call it a review of matters involving City Hall and the police department,” interim City Manager Steve Jones said.

Jones said he has retained the services of Ancel Glink, but the firm hasn’t started working yet.

“We’re in the process of putting together a scope of services of the areas we want them to look at,” Jones said.

According to sources, those areas are likely to include the discharge of police officers Brian Nagra and Lionel Allen, who were kept on the payroll for months and retired before city legal staff took their cases to the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners for discharge hearings.

Those areas of review could include an investigation that Mayor Bob O’Dekirk ordered after the police department concluded that the mayor had wrongly insisted that a sergeant was drunk on the job.

That investigation is being conducted by Inspector General Chris Regis, who, along with the mayor, won’t say who or what is under investigation other than that it involves Police Chief Al Roechner.

O'Dekirk announced at a Sept. 30 City Council meeting that Roechner was under investigation hours after The Herald-News published a story quoting a memo from the chief concluding that the mayor had wrongly accused Sgt. Lindsey Heavener of being drunk at a downtown street festival in which he was serving on a security detail.

Roechner had Heavener take blood and urine tests that night after getting a text from O’Dekirk saying Heavener was “drunk as a skunk.”

Roechner said Thursday that he has not been questioned and is not aware of any of his police officers being questioned in an inspector general investigation.

“I have not been told anything at all about it,” Roechner said of the investigation. “I’m not aware of it at all.”

Regis on Thursday said his investigation is proceeding. But he would not comment on what he’s investigating or when he might report any findings.

Neither would the mayor.

“It’s an ongoing investigation, so I’m not going to talk about it,” O’Dekirk said.

Because the inspector general reports only to the mayor, O’Dekirk and Regis may be the only two who know what is under investigation.

Jones said he does not know whether the Regis investigation is proceeding and has not heard of anyone being questioned, adding that the inspector general does not report to him.

That is an issue that council member Pat Mudron said he thinks Ancel Glink should review.

The inspector general, Mudron said, “answers only to the mayor. That doesn’t seem to fit the city manager-committee form of government Joliet has. We’re not strong mayor-Chicago form of government.”

Mudron voted for the creation of the inspector general position, which was sought by O'Dekirk, in December 2015. Both Mudron and O'Dekirk were in their first year of office at the time.

“So, Mudron is saying he made a mistake,” O’Dekirk said when told the council member was questioning the position.

“I know what we did, but does that make sense for the form of government Joliet has?” Mudron said. “Right now, that seems to be a mistake. As I understand better our form of government, this person needs to report to the city manager and the council.”