It has been a year of change for Tim Nugent.

Nugent, the former mayor of Manteno for the past 20 years until he decided not to run for re-election in April, was recently appointed to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board by Gov. JB Pritzker.

Nugent, 72, said he applied for the 15-member Prisoner Review Board a few months ago because he wanted to put his law enforcement experience to good use.

“I was a police officer and police chief for 19 years, so I qualified,” he said. “I had the criteria to meet the requirements for the board, and I thought it would be an interesting position. I followed the board in past years, over different cases that they worked on, I had interest in.”

Also part of the requirement to be on the Prisoner Review Board, one can’t hold any elected position, so Nugent will be resigning as president/CEO of the Economic Alliance of Kankakee County, effective Sept. 12.

Nugent has been president/CEO of the Economic Alliance for the past nine and a half years, and he’ll start his new post on Sept. 16.

“We’ve obviously had a lot of highs and lows,” Nugent said of his time at the Economic Alliance. “We’ve had companies that expanded, and you’ve got companies that have closed; increasing the job base, increasing the wages for people in the county, lowering the unemployment rate. There’s been some good things that we’ve done. Obviously, some of it has been controversial, but anytime you make progress, you’re going to make some controversy, too. I think we’ve made progress.”

The biggest project that Nugent and the Economic Alliance accomplished was helping land the Gotion plant in Manteno at the site of the former Kmart distribution center. The lithium battery manufacturer has been met with vocal opposition from some Manteno residents, who are in the midst of a lawsuit against the village and Gotion, whose parent company is based in China.

Michael Boyd, president of Kankakee Community College and chairman of the board of directors of the Economic Alliance for the past two years, said Nugent has a vision to sell Kankakee County to would-be investors.

“He just gets it, and he’s able to connect the dots between our education systems, our nonprofit systems, our local government systems and business and industry,” Boyd said. “He can bring all of those interests together around a common goal of developing and making opportunities for people that didn’t exist before we did a lot of the work that he’s leading.”

Angela Morrey, vice president of business development for the Economic Alliance, said Nugent has led the organization to benefit the entire Kankakee County business community.

“He’s brought great experience and knowledge, and I’m fortunate to have worked under him and learn from him during this time,” she said.

Full-time job

Pritzker appointed Nugent and Tracey Buckley, a contractor for the review board, on Aug. 29. The appointments fill two of the six open seats on the board, and members are paid nearly $148,000 annually, according to the state.

Nugent said being on the Prisoner Review Board is a full-time job, and there are various meetings each month in Springfield and Chicago.

“I don’t know what the exact schedule is, but my understanding is that you meet once a month as a total board group,” he said. “But then you meet regularly in different parts of the state, with certain members of the smaller parts of the group, and with inmates, so I say it’s pretty steady.”

Nugent added that, in addition to board members who have law enforcement experience, others come from the social work field, former prosecutors and other related experiences.

Nugent has served on the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board for the past 10 years. He was originally appointed by former Gov. Pat Quinn in 2015 and then subsequently reappointed by Gov. Bruce Rauner and Pritzker.

Nugent was the police chief of the Kankakee Police Department from 1985 to 1993, and before that, he worked for the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Department.

The Prisoner Review Board came under intense scrutiny in March 2024 after it allowed Crosetti Brand, a man with a history of violence against women, to be released from custody. Brand then attacked a pregnant woman he once dated and killed her 11-year-old son, Jayden Perkins, when the child came to his mother’s rescue, according to published reports.

“It was obviously a tragic situation in all respects,” Nugent said. “The legislature passed new rules earlier this year, changing the makeup of the board, requiring more law enforcement experience, requiring more training by the board members, to have more domestic violence training, and to have more training so they would all become, hopefully, better board members and more highly trained board members. I’ll have to go through that training before I start serving.”

Nugent said he first met Pritzker several years ago when the governor came to CSL Behring when the local manufacturer announced an expansion.

“I talked with him during the Gotion announcement, and we’ve talked a few times,” he said. “But that’s the only contact that I’ve had with him. Now, I’ve had a lot of contact with the governor’s office through his staff members and through other channels.”