Joliet Finally Selects Permanent City Manager By 6-3 Vote

JOLIET, IL — Joliet's new permanent city manager Jim Capparelli has a resume unlike other city managers in Illinois. He has no past city manager experience. He went to Airborne School. Jump Master School. Ranger School. He has a combat infantryman badge and a parachutist badge.

He was at the U.S. Army headquarters in Washington, D.C. from 2009 to 2012 as a colonel. The next two years, he was sent to Afghanistan and to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He oversaw 7,000 contract linguists in Afghanistan and managed Army contracts valued at more than $5 billion.

"I was in the Pentagon at the U.S. Department of Defense," Capparelli said during Friday's meeting.

Starting Monday, Jim Capparelli brings his military leadership skills to Joliet's City Hall.

On Friday night, the Joliet City Council voted 6-3 to make Capparelli its first permanent city manager since David Hales was forced to resign in October 2018 after less than 11 months on the job after coming from Bloomington.

The city of Joliet won't be spending a nickel to pay Capparelli to come to Joliet. He already lives here on Oneida Street.

Capparelli has been an attorney in private practice at Joliet's Castle Law since 2013.

From 2002 to 2005, he was an assistant Will County State's Attorney who prosecuted felony crimes. He was an assistant Illinois attorney general, bureau chief, from 2005 to 2007.

Joliet's city employees and city department heads who have been working on cruise control these past couple years as Joliet was without a permanent city manager may be in for a rude awakening starting next week with Capparelli at the helm.

While in the Army, Capparelli parachuted into Panama as part of a combat jump, he confirmed when asked by Mayor O'Dekirk during Friday's meeting.

"Well, it's an outstanding resume, thank you," the mayor replied.

Joliet has been without a permanent city manager for two years and three months. Marty Shanahan, Steve Jones and Jim Hock all served as interim city manager following the Hales debacle.

Capparelli was O'Dekirk's pick for the job. Until November, the Mudron 5 had been in power since Sherri Reardon's election to the Joliet City Council in April 2019. That June, Reardon achieved one of her top priorities, getting rid of Marty Shanahan as interim city manager.

However, the Mudron 5 coalition consisting of Reardon, Don "Duck" Dickinson, Pat Mudron, Mike Turk and Bettye Gavin didn't have a plan for Joliet to go forward. Eventually, they convinced a reluctant Steve Jones to come out of the economic development office to run Joliet.

The Mudron 5's 2020 city budget included several tax increases including a 3-cent per gallon fuel tax increase that remains in effect around Joliet to this day. Gavin told her colleagues that the fuel tax wouldn't affect her because she goes to the Murphy's station in Lockport to buy her gas.

Last February, a national job search for city manager left Joliet with three finalists and one was Capparelli. Mudron's coalition trimmed Capparelli from the list. Then they chose not to offer the job to either of the two remaining out of state candidates, Will Jones of suburban Milwaukee and Mark Rooney of Rhode Island, formerly of the western Chicago suburbs.

Steve Jones agreed to stay on the job indefinitely, then he packed his bags in August.

Jim Hock came out of retirement from Michigan to run Joliet these past five months. Friday marked his final day.

Ever since her re-election in April 2019, Bettye Gavin has been a reliable and consistent vote for the Mudron 5. But after Dickinson resigned from office in November, Mudron lost his power and the mayor regained control of the Joliet City Council.

On Friday night, Gavin broke ranks with Mudron, and she voted to hire Capparelli as Joliet's permanent city manager.

Is the losing side on the city manager's vote now reduced to being called the Mudron 3?

Mudron, Reardon and outgoing Councilman Mike Turk voted against Capparelli on Friday.

Capparelli's four-page resume states that while he was a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve he had "a Top Secret clearance" while in Washington, D.C. at the headquarters for the Department of the Army.

On Friday evening, Councilwoman Gavin's only question to Capparelli, prior to voting on his appointment, was asking whether he had a passed an employment background check with the city of Joliet.

He and others assured Gavin that he had.

"Obviously, he has an outstanding resume, and definitely qualified to handle the position," O'Dekirk told Patch afterward. "As I said during the meeting, we're starting 2021 out right. I think the vote tonight spoke pretty loud and clear and people are putting Joliet first regardless of what their private agenda is."

At the meeting, Capparelli provided Joliet Patch's editor and Bob Okon of The Herald-News with copies of resume. Here's what it says: