Joliet's City Manager David Hales May Need To Go: Ferak

JOLIET, IL - Last year, there was optimism about the Joliet City Council's selection of a new city manager. David Hales arrived on the job the week after Thanksgiving. He came with more than 25 years experience as a city manager or administrator. A Utah native, Hales, then 63, had been Bloomington's city manager. He previously ran city governments in Utah, Oregon and North Carolina.

The Joliet City Council gave Hales a three-year employment contract making him the highest paid employee at City Hall. His starting salary of $215,000 was $30,000 more than his successor, Jim Hock, who got $185,000 when he was hired in November 2013.

In addition, Joliet gave Hales a $12,500 relocation allowance to move from Bloomington, which is 95 miles away. His city manager contract with Joliet also provides him $250 every month as a vehicle allowance. Taxpayers are paying Hales nearly $65 per week to gas up his car on top of his $215,000 salary.

Last November, during his first week on the job, Hales sat down with the Joliet Patch at his new office. It was an opportunity for Hales to introduce himself to the state's third largest city of 149,000 residents.

Before arriving in Joliet, Hales was job hunting for several months. Other newspapers had reported Hales was a finalist for city manager jobs in Topeka, Kansas and Racine, Wisconsin.

"I want to say how much of a privilege and an honor it is to be the city manager for the city of Joliet," Hales told me last November. "They have been the envy of many cities."

During our interview, Hales made the following statements:

• "I want to make sure we have a long-term financial plan. Instead of focusing on every twelve months, let's look out three to five years."
• "Public safety is always going to be a No. 1 priority."
• "Economic development is going to be a critical part of our long-term (planning). What don't we have? What do we need to do retain businesses we have?"
• "I put a high priority on attending meetings with the public and neighborhoods to hear from them what's working and what's not. What suggestions do they have for the city of Joliet?"
• "I would certainly like to stay as long as I can make a great contribution."

After six months on the job making a $215,000 city salary, I don't believe Hales has made a great contribution to Joliet municipal government.

If Joliet were sending a delegate or delegates to a summer All-Star game for local government officials, Hales would not be near the top of my list. A far better choice would be Steve Jones, the city's economic development director, or Kendall Jackson, the city's community development director.

At the time of the hiring, Mayor Bob O'Dekirk issued the following statement, "The City Council is extremely impressed with the qualifications and background of Mr. Hales. He is clearly a seasoned and respected City Manager who will bring a tremendous amount of value to our city."

But after six months on the job, I haven't seen anything remarkable from Hales.

At the city council meetings, Hales does not seem a strong and forceful leader. When called upon for answers, Hales often delegates to other department heads in attendance at a nearby table.

On May 15, Hales gave his city manager report mentioning just one topic. He talked for about five minutes about the prospect of more cutbacks in local government revenue from the state of Illinois.

"Please let legislators know that any cut to take away any Joliet municipal revenue is going to have a very serious impact on our ability to provide municipal services. So that's the only message I wanted to share with the mayor and council tonight," Hales said.

At the May 1 council meeting, Hales announced, "Mayor and Council I have nothing to report tonight."

A few months ago, in February, O'Dekirk lambasted the Joliet Fire Department at a city council meeting for racking up "obscene" amounts of overtime in December and January even though there was not a spike in fires. Several firefighters were suspected of calling in sick on weekends as part of a scheme to rack up extra overtime pay; the city's fire union contracts require Joliet's fire stations be staffed 24/7.

In response to the mayor's concerns about overtime, Hales put forth a plan, recommending one of the damaged ladder trucks become a Quint. He also recommended the city purchase a 2017 Quint, that, after trade-ins and community block grants, would only cost the city around $133,000. Hales explained in a memo to the council that utilizing more Quints "will allow the Fire Department to save on staffing one position each day. This extra person could then be reassigned to reduce overtime costs."

Afterward, several fire union representatives came to a council meeting and protested. After all, more Quints would cut into their overtime pay. Hales subsequently caved under pressure. He yanked his proposal from the agenda. Joliet's new city manager's plan to add two more Quints to the fire department fleet never came back up for a council vote in the weeks and months ahead.

Instead, in May, Hales asked the council to spend $86,000 to simply fix the damaged ladder truck rather than convert it into a Quint. "As of the present time, we're setting that aside and just going forward with these repairs. Long term remains to be seen,"a Joliet Herald-News story quoted Hales as saying.

On a number of occasions over the past many months, perhaps a half dozen times, maybe more, I've stopped by the city manager's office, which is an odd and unwelcoming office at City Hall. First of all, the door is locked, unlike other offices such as the mayor's office. If you knock loud enough and you're lucky, an administrative assistant might be around to ask what you're knocking about.

In my case, whenever I've stopped by, Hales was not there, or I was told that he was busy and unavailable because he was in meetings. Every time I've asked for a call back from Hales, he ignored my call or did not return my emails. Every time.

So, I can only hope the 64-year-old Hales is super busy because he has several big projects in the pike for Joliet's constituents as a result of his many meetings that dominate his day.

Having said that, after six full months on the job, Hales should be unveiling his grand plans by now.

For starters, I would like to know about his plans to improve efficiencies and reduce costs at the fire stations, about efforts to increase the number of investigators at the police department so the city's current detectives aren't overly burdened with too many cases.

How does Hales plan to cut unnecessary overtime across the city?

Where, if anywhere, has Hales identified wasteful spending in the city's budget? What are the unnecessary positions across the city government that are being eliminated? As the city CEO, how does Hales plan to help inspire city employees, from patrol officers, to street crews to firefighters/paramedics, etc., become the best they can be?

As part of my review of Hales' three-year employment contract, I noticed some other finer details that might be worth revisiting by Joliet's City Council in the coming months.

One item of note is identified under subsection D. It's listed as "Severance."

"In the event the Mayor and City Council elect to terminate Mr. Hales' employment as city manager, then Mr. Hales shall be entitled to the payment of severance. Severance shall consist of six months of annual base salary, payable as a lump sum on the first regular payday following Mr. Hales' separation from service …"

Paying Hales six months of severance may be a better scenario than paying him three years for being unproductive and being a bad chemistry fit at the city of Joliet.

Then again, hopefully it won't come to that. Hopefully Hales will up his game big-time at the city of Joliet.

In the meantime, the next six months will be telling and more eyes will be watching.

A Joliet native and former investigative reporter and editor with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, John Ferak is Patch Editor for Joliet, New Lenox and Bolingbrook and Patch coverage for Shorewood and Channahon-Minooka.

Main image via city of Joliet