Will Jones: Joliet's Next City Manager?

JOLIET, IL — Joliet Patch has learned that the Joliet City Council's Mudron 5 may be intending to hire Will Jones, the city administrator of five years in the affluent Milwaukee suburb of Mequon, as its next full-time city manager. Before Mequon, Jones worked in the northern Illinois suburb of Glencoe, a village of about 9,000.

On Tuesday evening, Jones returned a message from Joliet Patch and confirmed that he is a finalist for the position. However, out of respect for the hiring process, which is still obviously ongoing, Jones said he did not want to comment further about the position.

Patch asked him if he was in the running as a finalist for other similar-sized cities.

"Right now, it's Joliet," Jones said.

Mequon, which is only 18 miles from Milwaukee, the 31st largest city in the U.S., had a population of slightly more than 24,000 in 2017. In 2018, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a photo gallery of the 10 wealthiest Milwaukee suburbs and Mequon was included in the package.

In case you're wondering, it's pronounced Mek-wahn.

Its city website touts Mequon as being "a community consistently ranked among the best places to do business in the United States ... Mequon has one of the lowest crime rates and one of the lowest tax rates in the Metropolitan Milwaukee area."

Joliet, the third largest city in Illinois, is six times the size of Mequon. If Jones took the job, he would inherit a Joliet Police Department that is considered a mess. He would need to address parts of downtown that look rundown, a West Jefferson Street that is falling into decay and areas of the far west side toward Kendall County where commercial growth is stagnant. He would be tasked with finding solutions for Joliet's rising homeless population and reversing the spike in 2019 deaths from drug overdoses. He would also be expected to have a key role in addressing the violent crime and recurring daytime shootings across the city.

In recent weeks, people connected with the candidate search have been selectively leaking information to Joliet area news outlets.

For instance, Joliet Herald-News reporter Bob Okon reported several weeks ago that his sources were telling him that city of Joliet corporation counsel Marty Shanahan did not make the list of three finalists. Joliet private attorney Jim Capparelli of Castle Law had made the list, the same sources informed Okon.

Capparelli is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army who worked as Illinois Assistant Attorney General, Bureau Chief, from 2005-2007. He was also appointed to Joliet's planning commission in 2019. Capparelli is usually inside the Will County Courthouse practicing law several days a week.

Then, last week, somebody with inside information on the three remaining city manager finalists leaked information about a second finalist, Mark Rooney, to WJOL Morning Show Host Scott Slocum. On Monday, WJOL published an unflattering story about Mark Rooney, noting that he has settled his 2018 lawsuit against his former employer, Carpentersville, for $220,000.

Rooney just finished his first full year on the job as town manager of Westerly, Rhode Island, which has a population of 23,000. He is actively looking for a new job throughout the U.S. Just last month, a news outlet reported that Rooney was a job finalist for city manager in Panama City Beach, Florida.

Rooney does have ties to Illinois, but not Joliet. He previously worked as village manager for seven years in Carpentersville, and he was village manager for Wheeling.

What's interesting to note: the city of Joliet sources who were leaking information to WJOL and The Herald-News about the city manager finalists were being very selective. The sources of their leaks made sure Will Jones' name was not published in the Joliet press.

On Monday, for instance, WJOL only reported that the third city manager candidate "is from Wisconsin."

On Monday night, Joliet Patch reached out directly to Mequon city administrator Will Jones by email and asked for his comments about the Joliet city manager's vacancy. Joliet Patch sent him a couple of questions and also provided a phone number to reach Editor John Ferak.

Jones followed up and reached out to Patch on Tuesday morning.

According to his Mequon bio, Jones holds a bachelor in history and political science from Boston College and a master's in public affairs from Indiana University.

Looking ahead, the Joliet City Council intends to conduct a second round of face to face interviews for its remaining three finalists — now identified as Will Jones, Mark Rooney and attorney Jim Capparelli — during the final week of January.

Capparelli told Patch that he does not expect to be offered the job.

Joliet Patch will publicize the times and dates of those meetings in advance so that Joliet residents can have an opportunity to meet these finalists up close and personal, since, after all, it's your tax dollars that will be paying their salaries and fringe benefits to manage the entire operations of City Hall.

The last outside city manager hired by Joliet Mayor Bob O'Dekirk and the current city council, with the exception of Sherri Reardon, who wasn't elected until April 2019, was David Hales, who was 63 and had been city manager of Bloomington, Illinois, during the previous eight years.

Hales lasted less than a year before the Joliet City Council broke the terms of the three-year city manager's contract they gave him. In October 2018, the council agreed to pay Hales roughly $89,000 in severance, five months of salary, to leave the position.

About 10 days ago, Bob Okon reported that his sources told him that Marty Shanahan, who was ousted last June after eight months as interim city manager following the Hales debacle, was removed as one of the finalists for the permanent city manager's post.

What Okon did not report, however, is that one key member of the Mudron 5 movement, Councilwoman Bettye Gavin, chose to skip Shanahan's candidate interview.

Everyone else on Joliet's City Council showed up for his face to face interview except for her.