Interim City Manager Steve Jones Resigning From Joliet

JOLIET, IL — Late Tuesday night, following a closed door meeting of the Joliet City Council, interim city manager Steve Jones announced that he is done with the city of Joliet, and he tendered his resignation. His last official day of work will be Aug. 7, according to Joliet's news radio station, 1340 WJOL.

"Yes, I did submit my resignation to the City Council at last night's meeting," Jones told Joliet Patch on Wednesday morning. "The specific reasons for my decision were discussed with them in closed session. It was a decision that I had made over the weekend."

Throughout Tuesday night's regular meeting, Jones came under heavy criticism from Mayor Bob O'Dekirk for Jones' role in handling the Eric Lurry death investigation. At one point in the meeting, Jones announced that he and Joliet Police Chief Al Roechner agreed to hire a certain outside firm to conduct an investigation into the case.

O'Dekirk then criticized Jones during the meeting, saying Jones and Roechner were part of the problem, and they were the ones who needed to be investigated surrounding the Lurry case.

"They can't be allowed to steer the investigation," O'Dekirk told Joliet Patch on Wednesday. "I think Steve Jones did a great job for the city as our economic development director, but I never agreed with" giving Jones a consultant contract as a private independent contractor for the city.

On Feb. 29, Jones retired from the city, that way he can start collecting his Illinois municipal retirement pension and collect a paycheck as an independent contractor through an outside agency, a controversial practice known as double dipping.

"It was a mistake to have a city manager who not only does not live in the city but does not work for the city," O'Dekirk said of Jones' month to month contract that took effect March 1. Patch reported on Feb. 15 that Jones' new contract required the city council to spend $135.10 per hour to utilize Jones as the interim city manager.

"The whole contract was nuts," O'Dekirk said Wednesday.

This week, Roechner and Jones came under enormous criticism for their decision to put Joliet Police Sgt. Javier Esqueda on desk duty and strip him of his police powers after Esqueda revealed to a Chicago television station that he was the whistleblower who suspected his peers at the Joliet Police Department were engaged in evidence tampering with the Lurry investigation.

"This video that he accessed was shared outside the police department violating chain of custody and potentially compromising evidence in a criminal investigation. When this was discovered, I immediately opened a criminal investigation on June 18, 2020," Roechner wrote in Tuesday's night's news release.

During Tuesday night's meeting, roughly a dozen people who were family or friends of Lurry addressed the Joliet City Council. Many of the speakers told the city that they believe Lurry was murdered by the Joliet Police officers who had detained Lurry in the back of a squad car back on Jan. 28.

Mayor O'Dekirk said he strongly disagrees with the decision by Jones and Roechner to put Sgt. Esqueda on desk duty. "I don't agree with that at all. I think it's not sending the right signal. It's sending the wrong message. The reaction from the police chief to target the guy who brought this matter to light, it's just a poor decision and the wrong choice."

For five months, Roechner and his administration maintained the case was still under investigation. A videotape that was reviewed by the Joliet City Council in late June showed Sgt. Doug May holding Lurry's nose shut for nearly two minutes, restricting Lurry's ability to breathe, according to Sgt. Esqueda.

One of Jones' most controversial decisions came several weeks ago, when he chose to fire corporation counsel Marty Shanahan, who had previously been Jones' boss at City Hall.

Shanahan had served as the interim city manager from October 2018 until June 2019 when the city council's Pat Mudron coalition decided to remove Shanahan as interim city manager and replace him with Jones.

The council then held a national search for the city manager position, but after requiring the two finalists to under psychologist testing, the council chose not to offer either candidate the job, allowing Jones to remain in the job even though he has officially retired from the city of Joliet and now works as an independent consultant.

Mayor O'Dekirk previously remarked that one of the two city manager finalists did exceptionally well on the personality test, which was the idea of first-term councilwoman Sherri Reardon.

During an interview Joliet Patch published on May 18, Jones told Patch he hoped to remain in his current month-to-month agreement as interim Joliet's city manager until the next Joliet City Council elections in April 2021.

"I think spring of next year is time. It's probably the end of my rope," Jones told Patch in May. "I think I'm doing a decent job, and I'm willing to do it a little longer. Keep in mind I have been a city manager in other places for about 30 years."