Joliet City Council not in agreement on limiting City Hall contacts

The Joliet City Council had a mixed reaction to a presentation advising how much influence elected officials should have at City Hall.

The council met in a special session Tuesday, ostensibly called to provide guidance to new members, including the mayor, who came on board since the April election.

But the two most senior council members said instruction advising council members to limit their contacts at City Hall would slow down response to constituent concerns.

“If you’re asking me to change my way of doing things, I can’t do that,” council member Jan Quillman, the senior council member, said at the end of the presentation.

Quillman said she believed the presentation was aimed at her, noting that she calls department heads at City Hall after hearing from constituents who don’t get a response.

“That’s why everybody calls me,” she said. “I don’t wait.”

Council member Larry Hug also said that going through the city manager for complaints such as trees falling would lead to delays in addressing constituent concerns.

Brad Cole, executive director of the Illinois Municipal League, made the presentation and devoted a large portion of his talk to Joliet’s city manager form of government.

Cole, a former elected official who served two terms as mayor of Carbondale, said the city manager is equivalent to the chief executive officer of a business with the mayor and city council operating as a board of directors.

The mayor and council members should contact the city manager, not department heads, about constituent concerns, Cole said.

Under Joliet’s city manager form of government, the City Council hires the city manager who is responsible for all other city employees, Cole said.

“Your role is to go through your employee, which is the city manager,” he said. “That is the form of government you have.”

By law, although not always in practice, the city manager form of government puts control of daily operations in the hands of the city manager. The mayor and City Council serve as a legislative body with control over only one city employee – the city manager, who oversees all department heads and has final say in the hiring and firing of all other city employees.

One new council member, Suzanna Ibarra, said Cole’s presentation will change her past practice of contacting staff regarding city issues. Ibarra said she will now call interim City Manager Rodney Tonelli.

“This training has been invaluable,” Ibarra said. “Now I know that Mr. Tonelli, the city manger, is my go-to person.”

Mayor Terry D’Arcy, who called for the public meeting on what otherwise would have been one-on-one sessions with new council members, told the council he would like them to follow Cole’s instructions that they should go through the city manager or his office when contacting City Hall.

“I appreciate that we all understand the roles and goals of all our positions and we’re more fluent now” D’Arcy said before Quillman made her comments. “I really think this is going to help us.”