Joliet ends contract with outside firm for city attorney

Joliet has quietly ended its contractual arrangement for city attorney services while the staff position remains open.

Deputy City Attorney Chris Regis has been serving as interim city attorney since early November, when Joliet ended its $6,000-a-week contract with the Ancel Glink law firm to provide city attorney services.

“We just decided to do that since we were getting ready to transition to a new city manager, and we didn’t need to pay Ancel Glink with Chris Regis doing the job,” Mayor Terry D’Arcy said Thursday.

D’Arcy, however, cast the deciding vote in a 5-4 decision to bring in Ancel Glink when other City Council members at the time said Regis was equipped to take on the duties of interim city attorney until a decision was made on who should fill the position.

Former City Attorney Sabrina Spano left the job in July to join the legal staff in Naperville as an assistant city attorney.

The decision to contract with Ancel Glink brought in Todd Greenburg, an attorney with the firm, who commuted from Bloomington and typically worked three days a week at City Hall to serve as interim city attorney.

Regis on Thursday said he took over the duties in early November and that he has not yet discussed his possible future in the position with new City Manager Beth Beatty, who arrived Dec. 11 and ultimately will decide who is city attorney.

The transition has been noticeable at City Council meetings with Regis in the city attorney’s seat instead of Greenburg. But there was no public debate over the exit of Greenburg as there was when the council narrowly voted to bring him on.

While Regis’s future in the position is undecided, D’Arcy said he has done the job well.

“Chris seems to be doing a fine job. I’ll just leave at that.”

D’Arcy noted that the decision on who is city attorney is up to Beatty.