City Hall has lots of leftovers to reheat from 2021

It’s easy to lose track of things that seemed to be of great importance at one time and then just disappear from view.

Inaction is the mother of disinvention.

With most of 2022 still ahead of us, I can only imagine that some of the urgent issues of 2021 still smolder somewhere on the back burners at City Hall awaiting answers.

There must be a copy somewhere of the policy regulating partial alley closures recommended for approval by the Joliet City Council Land Use and Legislative Committee in February 2021.

But they may as well set fire to it as it’s unlikely City Manager James Capparelli will ever bring it to the council for a vote. The policy arose out of controversy involving an alley, the mayor and a political foe. Unless Mayor Bob O’Dekirk wants the council to vote on it, I don’t think Capparelli will bring it to them. Despite complaints from a couple of council members, the rest appear willing to let it lie somewhere in Capparelli’s office.

But there are other matters beyond this squabble that surely will come back in some form in 2022. Or will they?

Remember the Police Department Citizens Advisory Board? This goes back to 2020, and an ordinance has been drafted to create such a board.

But every time the Land Use and Legislative Committee meets to possibly vote on a proposal, there is a reason to take it back to the drawing board. The committee last considered the matter in November and said it would do so again in early January. There’s still time for early February.

The mother of all matters going back to the drawing board is a proposal to add single-family rentals to the city’s rental inspection program.

I don’t really blame the current administration, staff and group of elected officials for delaying this matter to 2022. The city has been kicking this around since at least 2009, in my experience. I still remember former council member Joe Shetina making a plea for people’s property rights under the Constitution when this matter came up then.

I’m sure it will come up again it 2022. It always does.

Then there’s the matter of city rules on Airbnbs, or short-term rentals.

I remember the dazed look in John O’Lear’s eyes as he learned the city, after first giving him the green light, was putting a hold on his plans to convert a Plainfield Road house into an Airbnb until the city developed some regulations for short-term rentals.

How long could this take? O’Lear asked repeatedly.

That was on Jan. 21, 2021.