Joliet City Council meets and mulls city manager choice

The Joliet City Council went into a closed meeting on Monday to discuss city manager candidates with a few of them saying they were ready or close to making a decision.

“I’m ready to listen to everyone, but I have a candidate I feel confident in,” council member Sherri Reardon said as she waited for the meeting to start.

No vote was to be taken at the special meeting called Monday solely to discuss city manager candidates.

Mayor Terry D’Arcy said the soonest a vote could come would be Nov. 7, which is the next regular council meeting. But that depends on the council coming to agreement on who should get the job and the favored candidate then agreeing to contract terms in the next couple of days.

“That contract would have to go out and be put out before Wednesday of this week to be on our agenda for the meeting next Tuesday,” D’Arcy said before the meeting.

D’Arcy said he believed there were “qualified candidates” on whom the council could reach a consensus on Monday.

Council member Larry Hug said he wasn’t so sure.

“We’re going to have a discussion tonight,” Hug said. “But I don’t want to feel pressured. I don’t want to settle.”

The council has interviewed four candidates, including interim City Manager Rod Tonelli.

The candidates have not been publicly identified. But Tonelli early on indicated his interest in the job, and sources have confirmed that he is among the finalists.

Tonelli is the fourth interim city manager for Joliet since 2018 when David Hales left with a separation agreement near the end of the first year of a three-year contract.

The position, which is the top administrative job in Joliet city government, has been in a state of instability since.

James Capparelli, a private attorney in Joliet, was hired to the job on a so-called permanent basis in January 2021. But Capparelli worked on two one-year contracts. His last contract was a six-month contract going into the April 2023 election, a reflection that a change in mayor and council makeup could cost him his job.

D’Arcy, who unseated incumbent Mayor Bob O’Dekirk, ran for mayor saying he wanted to open the job up to an application process, something which had not been successfully done to fill the position since Hales was hired. Capparelli resigned in June as the council began to prepare to seek applicants.

“I think we’re close,” council member Suzanna Ibarra said before the Monday meeting. “Our candidate is definitely there. I just hope we can get it done. The city needs to move forward.”

The city manager is the one job under control of the City Council under Joliet’s city manager form of government. The city manager, at least officially, then oversees all other city jobs and departments.