Ferak Column: Lionel Richie As Joliet's Next City Manager?

JOLIET, IL — Saturday will mark 14 months since Joliet's City Council ousted Marty Shanahan as interim city manager without having any plan to replace him.

On June 18, 2019, I published a Joliet Patch headline: "Mudron 5 Removes Marty Shanahan As Interim City Manager." In that article, four-term councilwoman Jan Quillman warned her colleagues that they should expect ridicule and be prepared to accept the embarrassing consequences of their 5-3 vote. She said getting rid of Shanahan "makes us look stupid, that we can't come to a consensus. In my opinion, our city is going to look like a disaster."

Since Shanahan's ouster, Steve Jones, a La Grange Park resident, has served as interim city manager. Jones recently gave notice of his resignation effective Aug. 7. The council's effort to hire a permanent city manager ended in February when the two out of state finalists were not offered the job.

At 4:30 p.m. Friday, July 31, the Joliet City Council will hold yet another special meeting to discuss the interim city manager's position. This week, the leading front-runner for the job, Joliet real estate and development lawyer Michael Hansen, withdrew his candidacy. The week before, the previous leading candidate for the job, acting city corporation counsel Sabrina Spano, withdrew her candidacy from the position.

Joliet's mayor position is a part-time position. It's not a full-time job. This makes the city manager the single most important and powerful position at Joliet's City Hall. And it's a job that the entire city council keeps fumbling.

Things are getting so desperate that I would not be surprised to see the Will County Courthouse judges, instead of sentencing someone to jail time, begin sentencing people to serve a three-month assignment as city manager.

And that's what leads me to my suggestion for Joliet's next interim city manager. We need someone with name recognition. Someone with strong city ties. Someone who's decisive. (And a strong singing voice would be an absolute positive to help liven up those boring city council meetings.) I say let's reach out to Lionel Richie's publicists and get his name signed on the dotted line to temporarily take over the fractured city where he grew up.

Richie is one of Joliet's greatest success stories. Richie grew up in Joliet, and his mother was a Joliet public school principal at Eliza Kelly. Richie graduated from Joliet East High School in 1967. He was a letterman in high school, a star athlete on Joliet East's tennis team.

From there, Richie went on to stardom with the Commodores before becoming one of the most popular music artists during the past 50 years.

"Hello." "Dancing on the Ceiling." "Say You, Say Me." "All Night Long." "Truly." "Stuck on You."

Richie wrote "Lady" for Kenny Rogers and co-wrote "We Are the World" with Michael Jackson.

Since 2018, millions of Americans have watched Richie as one of the judges on "American Idol."

Now, I realize, that some naysayer is going to point out, "Yeah, ha, ha, Ferak. Lionel Richie will never grace Joliet with his presence because he hates Joliet."

Sorry, but that's an urban legend. The notion that Lionel Richie wants nothing to do with Joliet is simply not true.

In June 2017, WGN Channel 9 interviewed Richie for a segment about his upcoming music tour, and Richie made it a point to highlight his roots.

"Joliet East High School, make that very clear," Richie told the three WGN anchors. "Well, I gotta tell you something, every time I say Joliet, they say, 'Oh, you were in prison?' But I tell them, I'm going to give my shout out to Joliet ... I had some great, great times there. The only thing that scared me most of all was the tornadoes that would come through every once in a while. I was not used to that, I must tell you, that was one thing that kind of freaked me out a little bit."

Then, on June 14, 2019, Richie performed at Highland Park's Ravinia Festival where his Joliet East classmates gave him a bracelet and other gifts for his 70th birthday: "Lionel Richie Celebrates 70th Birthday With Fan Club, High School Class On Stage In Chicago."

“They brought me a yearbook!” Richie told the crowd, according to Forbes. “I said put my yearbook away! That was before I had Commodore hair!”

OK, so now that I've established that Richie has a deep admiration for Joliet, I say it's time to end the shenanigans at Joliet's City Hall. Enough of these taxpayer-funded, local government head-hunting firms. Enough of these closed-door Joliet City Council meetings that do nothing but waste time and turn into battles.

It's time Joliet brings in someone with pizzazz, someone with star power, someone who is universally known, someone who will bring an end to all these Joliet City Council turf wars and petty feuds.

Lionel Richie is one of the most successful persons to come from Joliet. Believe me, he would change the dynamics of Joliet's City Hall. He would "Throw away the work to be done" and "Let the music play on, play on, play on, play on..."

"Hey, Ferak, what about city manager experience? When was the last time Lionel Richie hired or fired a police chief, negotiated a contract with the Fraternal Order of Police, made sure the toilet paper rolls at City Hall were being restocked?"

Indeed, I doubt Richie has hired a chief of police before. But I tell you this: name a more pressure-filled task than serving as an American Idol judge next to Katy Perry and Luke Bryan. If Richie can handle that role with ease, sliding into his new office at City Hall would be a piece of cake.

In a time of political turmoil with constant jabbing and backstabbing, Lionel Richie would bring a breath of fresh air inside the city of Joliet.

If Lionel Richie insisted that his greatest hits be blared over the sound system inside City Hall, I would be OK with that, too. "Yeah, once you get started you can't sit down. Come join the fun, it's a merry-go-round. Everyone's dancing their troubles away. Come join our party, See how we play!"

If it were up to me, I'd make a call to Hollywood and get Lionel Richie on the phone next week. There's no need for a Zoom interview. The job is his, I would tell him. Salary negotiations won't be an issue because Richie's net worth is estimated around $200 million. I can't see him haggling over an extra $100 per month for gas money to and from City Hall.

If Richie insists that the city of Joliet let him work around his "American Idol" judging schedule, I'd be OK with that, too.

Interim Joliet City Manager Lionel Richie. I like the sound of that.