Okon: Joliet police chief/city manager issues in review

There has been a police chief issue in Joliet as long as there has been a city manager issue.

There have been three police chiefs in 2½ years. That compares to two city managers and three interim city managers in the same period.

Of course, for most of that time Al Roechner had been the police chief. But it’s worth going over some of the issues that have popped up over that period.

Maybe things will settle down now that new City Manager James Capparelli has appointed new interim Police Chief Dawn Malec. Three new deputy chiefs appointed by Malec will be sworn in Friday, suggesting that Malec’s future may not be so interim.

The last interim police chief that got the job on a permanent basis was Roechner.

Roechner became interim chief after Chief Ben Benton retired in August 2018. He didn’t get the job on a permanent basis until December of that year.

Former City Manager David Hales made Roechner interim chief but did not give him the job on a permanent basis. Hales wanted to do a candidate search for a police chief. He wanted to have community involvement. He hired a consultant to start the process.

Before that got done, Hales left in October 2018 with a $95,000 buyout of his contract in his first year on the job. Among the issues was Hales’ method of seeking a police chief.

Marty Shanahan, the first interim city manager, made Roechner the police chief in December 2018. Weeks later, Roechner announced his command staff of four deputy chiefs. Everything seemed settled then.

Within months, however, Shanahan wanted to make changes in the command staff. In his lawsuit, which the city settled in December with a $200,000 payout, Shanahan said that he was removed as interim city manager by a City Council majority in June 2019 as he was trying to make changes in the police command staff.

The next interim city manager was Steve Jones, who hired an outside law firm to investigate ongoing conflicts between the police department and City Hall, including the mayor’s office, after Roechner in an internal memo said Mayor Bob O’Dekirk had falsely made accusations that a police sergeant was drunk on duty and O’Dekirk announced an investigation into Roechner.

Things had deteriorated to the point that when Jim Hock was hired as interim city manager in August one of the questions he was being asked was if he was being brought in to fire Roechner.

Hock said no, and he didn’t fire Roechner. But he did have a conversation with the ex-chief last week discussing, in Hock’s words, Roechner’s “future with me no longer in this seat.”

Roechner put in his letter of retirement Friday just hours before the City Council voted 5-3 to approve the contract for Capparelli.

Now, there is a new city manager, a new interim police chief, and we will see if it is a new era.