New leadership reshaped Joliet City Hall in 2023

It was a year of change at the top at City Hall in Joliet.

In 2023, the city got a new mayor in May and a new city manager in December.

In April, local businessman Terry D’Arcy won a landslide victory over two-term incumbent Mayor Bob O’Dekirk, opening the door for change in city government.

The biggest change, however, may have been in the atmosphere toward developments as the city became more welcoming to some projects and less hospitable to others.

Particularly noticeable was a City Council vote in November to table a decision on an annexation sought by NorthPoint Development, which has plans to build a massive warehouse in Joliet that faced repeated opposition from surrounding residents but nothing but green lights from City Hall.

“I think it definitely shows that times are changing in Joliet,” longtime NorthPoint opponent Stephanie Irvine said after the vote.

The delay for NorthPoint, however, was only a yellow light, and it won’t take long to see just how much has changed at City Hall. The council will revisit the NorthPoint annexation at its Jan. 16 meeting.

New at that meeting will be City Manager Beth Beatty, who arrived Dec. 11 from her previous job with the city of Chicago as deputy mayor of intergovernmental affairs.

Beatty is the first female city manager of Joliet. A native of Moline, Beatty held various positions in Chicago city government for 20 years since the days of Richard M. Daley as mayor.

She brings small-city roots and big-city experience to Joliet, which has had it’s challenges and growing pains on the way to becoming the third largest municipality in Illinois.

This is Beatty’s first experience as a city manager. D’Arcy and others will look to her to bring some stability to the position that runs the day-to-day operations of the city but has been on the rocks since 2016.

The only permanent city manager in that period, James Capparelli, resigned in June shortly before the expiration of a six-month contract that reflected the short string he was working on.

D’Arcy ran for office saying that he wanted a candidate search for a city manager, a process that was aborted in January 2021 when Capparelli was hired after a string of interim city managers.

The new mayor views the hiring of Beatty during his first year in office as a major advancement.

“A lot of the focus was on getting a permanent city manager with a national search,” D’Arcy said. “I think we got the best person we could have gotten.”

Beatty replaced Rod Tonelli, who came in as interim city manager when Capparelli quit and was among four finalists for the job who reportedly all were from the Chicago area despite the search’s nationwide scope.

Just how much of a difference Beatty makes will be tested in the early months of 2024.

Under Joliet’s city manager form of government, the city manager runs city government. How that plays out can depend on the political will of the mayor and City Council.

D’Arcy, however, has signaled that he wants the city manager to control operations at City Hall.

The only other department head to leave since D’Arcy was elected was City Attorney Sabrina Spano. That position has not been filled. Who gets the job will be decided by Beatty.

The job of police chief, which changed three times during O’Dekirk’s eight years in office, appears secure under Chief William Evans, who started in March 2022 and was hired by Capparelli.

Aside from the roadblock for NorthPoint, one of the big signs of change in 2023 was the resurrection of the Volunteers of America Illinois plan for a residential treatment center for women recovering from opioid addiction at the former Silver Cross Hospital campus.

VOA Illinois, which runs a residential program for homeless veterans at the same location, pulled its application for city approval under heat from Capparelli and during an O’Dekirk administration that had become wary of the number of social service projects coming to Joliet rather than neighboring towns.

The VOA Illinois project was brought back and got a 5-3 vote of approval from the City Council in December.