Big City Hall Crowd Supports Marty Shanahan As City Manager

JOLIET, IL — Come Wednesday, Marty Shanahan may be cleaning out his office at City Hall as the interim city manager. His future employment with the city also remains murky. Joliet's City Council, led by recently re-elected councilman Pat Mudron, is expected to push through a vote at Tuesday night's regular meeting to oust Shanahan as interim city manager.

At Monday's pre-council meeting, there was a large turnout of people in support of Shanahan, who began in January 2015 as the city's corporation counsel and first served as interim city manager when Jim Hock retired in April 2017. He resumed that position last October after the City Council negotiated a severance of roughly $89,000 — five months of pay — to get rid of Dave Hales as its city manager. Hales lasted less than a year in Joliet.

During the first 15 minutes of Monday's meeting, five people took to the podium to offer several reasons why Shanahan should remain.

Later, toward the meeting's end, audience member John Sheridan, president of the Cunningham Neighborhood Association, and long-time community activist Bob Hernandez, sparred over the fate of Shanahan.

Here were John Sheridan's comments to the council:

No transparency at City Hall. A short time ago, an analysis done by the Better Government Association found the city of Joliet and Will County Sheriff's Office were among the worst offenders when it comes to improperly exempting public record requests under Freedom of Information Act, commonly known as FOIA. The city improperly applied exemption rules 58 percent of the time ... what's the city hiding? That's the city manager's job to see the rules are followed.

The Brian Nagra fiasco. Allegedly stealing $14,000 of overtime and no felony charges pursued. That money belongs to the taxpayers, in addition to the $45,000 for sitting at home and making a mockery of the whole process. Let's just for one minute assume the process is correct; no attempt has been made to close the loopholes so it doesn't happen again. Again, that's the city manager's job."

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Sheridan continued:

Hiding information from the public about employees being tested positive for steroids. A lawsuit had to be filed to get the documents turned over to the person. Again, six out of 10 requests get denied improperly. The filling of high salary jobs without posting. The positions ended up going to friends of friends. That's the city manager's job to make sure to see that's done properly. There's an ordinance on nepotism but it's time for a legislative committee to draft one on cronyism.

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Sheridan continued:

Yes, councilman (Larry) Hug I do agree with you on the (Old Joliet) Prison situation. The issue of the city dumping money into the prison without full disclosure to the city council and taxpayers is totally wrong ... and you're right, well over a million dollars. Again, the city manager's job is to have full disclosure on these projects and total costs ... and I'm surprised, frankly, that you're supporting a person that does that kind of secrecy. While I support the project, it should be done with volunteers, proceeds from fund-raisers and grants, not city money.

And last, the latest attempt for the ballpark agreement, keeping the agreement from the whole city council. This deal was signed on the evening of May 2, but yet no information was given to the city council. It was heard on (the) May 21st city council meeting when the Slammers announced it at this podium. It's the city manager's job to keep the city council informed and not hide details of the agreement ... The city of Joliet does not need a city manager that does not follow the city ordinances.

Let's not forget the settlement with the car involving the mayor. Yes, insurance companies handled the settlement but the city pays the premiums and the settlement should be approved by the city council. Premiums are set by payouts, pure and simple. There was no disclosure to the city council or the taxpayers ...

The city of Joliet should not operate in secrecy and the city does not need a city manager that operates in this fashion. I support the council's decision to remove Mr. Shanahan as interim city manager. Thank you.

Here were Bob Hernandez's comments to the council.

In 1991, when Mayor Art Schultz was elected we had a meeting at Vela's Restaurant (on Cass Street). The mayor wasn't a big fan of (city manager) John Mezera, but we had a meeting there. And, subsequently, over the next couple of years, there were several meetings held, because, the council war had started, which Mike Turk is well aware of, in which there was support for John Mezera, and there were those that didn't support him. There were meetings held all over because ... this war is getting out of hand. They wanted to try and broker. Those that supported John Mezera and those that didn't.

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Hernandez continued:

During the '90s, they wanted to get rid of the dump over on I-80. I got a call from (the business agent for the operating engineers.) He said, 'I own that City Council, I own that city manager.' I need to deliver councilman (Alex) Ledesma and councilman (Bob) Hacker because they're opposing it and we want those jobs, the operating engineers. We want to get rid of the Teamsters ... so the council war started back then and I had a good relationship with Tom Thanas. My relationship with John Mezera was rocky, but I can say in my 35 years the one man that had honesty and integrity was Marty Shanahan.

We may not always agree on different things we discussed, but he was a man of integrity. I didn't see anybody (from the public) that came up and questioned over $400 million of expenditures in the '90s or early 2000s that the city council had spent on riverboat gaming. Not one time, or questioned what was going on at the city a few years back when we had a city councilman who used city stamps and city envelopes and talked about how ethical that was. I didn't hear anybody from the public come up and criticize him.

What concerns me now is all the things going on in the background. (Rumors of) people that aren't on the city council getting involved in the process. I just want to say that I've had 35 years of experience. I was part of those council wars. I stood with Mayor Schultz back in those days, as Mike Turk is well aware, and they were some nasty wars.

A lot of politicking that was going on. Wheeling and dealing that shouldn't have been going on. And I don't want to see that happen again.

I think Marty's done a good job. I think he's been a very good city manager. Thank you.