Joliet’s new city manager settles in: ‘I feel at home here’

New City Manager Beth Beatty may have worked in Chicago for the past 23 years but seems to have left a part of her heart in hometown of Moline.

“It was a wonderful place to grow up,” said Beatty, who has been in charge at Joliet City Hall since Dec. 11.

Since being in town, Beatty said Joliet feels a lot like the place where she was raised – an industrial area, a river town, families with roots, and “just the willingness of its people who want to give back to the community.”

“I’ve been so welcomed – the kindness of the people,” Beatty said of her experience so far. “It’s just a hard-working, blue-collar area. It’s a community I want to be part of.”

Beatty said there’s been some wariness because of her Chicago background, where she last served as deputy mayor of intergovernmental affairs. But that has worn off as people get to know her, she said.

“I don’t know how else to say it, other than I feel at home here,” she said.

Beatty took over a position that has been on the rocks since 2017 when former City Manager David Hales left before the end of the first year of a three-year contract. Since then the city has had four interim city managers. James Capparelli took the job in 2021 on a permanent basis but with three short-term contracts and left in June before the expiration of a six-month contract.

Beatty was hired a traditional three-year contract at an annual salary of $230,000, the most Joliet has ever paid to a city manager. She would like to stay beyond those three years if the mayor and city council will have her.

She has never worked as a city manager before, something Beatty had in common with the other people reported to be finalists for the job.

One big difference between this job and what she has done in Chicago is that Beatty now is in charge.

“I’m still learning about it, because I come from a strong mayor form of government,” she said. “I’m used to being the person behind the person.”

Under Joliet’s city manager form of government, the city manager, not the mayor, runs city operations.

Just how much control the city manager exerts, may depend on the city manager, the mayor and the council.

One thing Beatty said she is not going to insist on is that council members go through her when wanting to contact anyone at City Hall. In a short seminar on City Council duties in July, a couple of senior council members chafed at instructions that they should call no one in city government but the city manager.

“I’ve talked to all the council members,” Beatty said. “If they have a long relationship with one of the heads of the departments and want to call them, that’s OK with me. I just like to keep abreast of things.”

Beatty does have experience with City Council members.

She was former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s legislative liaison to the Chicago City Council.

“Eight is more manageable than 50,” Beatty said, comparing the smaller size of the Joliet City Council to the 50-member body in Chicago.

“I was looking for a change. I was looking to get out of the city and be in more of a community like the one I grew up in.”

—  Beth Beatty, city manager of Joliet

The city announcement of Beatty’s hiring said she worked for four Chicago mayors going back to Richard M. Daley. But before Emanuel hired her as legislative liaison, Beatty worked 10 years for three different Chicago aldermen dealing with neighborhood issues.

Beatty was deputy chief financial officer in former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration, a position that gave her an inside look at Joliet’s bargaining with Chicago over a contract for Lake Michigan water.

“Joliet drove a hard bargain and got a very good deal from the city,” she said.

Her experience in both Lightfoot’s and current Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration in Chicago gave her a good look at the migrant busing crisis. Beatty said Joliet city staff began having meetings on the issue before the first migrant bus arrived at the city’s Metra station.

“I thought with Chicago changing its rules that this was a possibility,” she said.

Joliet approved new rules for migrant buses last week.

Beatty said she’s “been really impressed” by both Joliet and city government staff, saying she’s relying on department heads as she gets accustomed to the job and the city.

“I’ve been really impressed by the quality of the restaurants,” she said, calling Joliet “a hidden gem” overlooked by many people in the region and especially by those living in Chicago.

Among the things that attracted Beatty to Joliet was housing affordability. She lives in a Joliet apartment now and is house hunting with her husband-to-be.

“I was looking for a change,” Beatty said of her move to Joliet. “I was looking to get out of the city and be in more of a community like the one I grew up in.”