Mayor D'Arcy: 'I Take Offense' At Claim That Joliet Is A Blue Collar Town

JOLIET, IL — Even though six-term Joliet City Councilwoman Jan Quillman revealed that her constituents were overwhelmingly opposed to adding another $140,000 to $160,000 director position at City Hall, Mayor Terry D'Arcy had a different outlook, and that's why he voted in favor of creating one more new position in the city manager's office.

At Tuesday's meeting, the Council voted 7 to 2 to create the director of cultural affairs position. Quillman and Larry Hug voted against the measure. Before the vote, city clerk Lauren O'Hara read letters submitted by Mike Trizna, long-time owner of Chicago Street Pub, and Jen Howard, Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce president, who were overwhelmingly in favor of Joliet adding a special events director for City Hall.

The longest set of remarks on the topic came from Mayor D'Arcy.

"When I ran for mayor, I did so with a commitment to improving our community. I hear this thing we're blue collar. I take offense to that," D'Arcy began his remarks. "We're a great community of great people. We work, we save our money, we want to have fun like every other community I know of.

"We're just a great community, but there's a lot of love here, and I really think that part of what this term is, cultural affairs. We're a very wonderfully diverse community. But everybody seems to be going in different ways. We need to get someone to bring this umbrella together so we can all enjoy each other's cultures. I mean, that's what we're all about. We love one another."

From there, D'Arcy went on to explain, "I wasn't here when the city decided to invest $800 million in a water project. We all know we need water. That investment is to bring 250,000 people to our community. Did we have to invest $800 million for this community to bring another 100,000 people in? Someone thought so. We can't wait until we get all that water plugged in to decide how those folks are going to get here and what the quality of life for them is going to be, right?"

D'Arcy continued his speech by saying, "if we don't start planning now, it's going to be too late. And we really to have again embrace the culture of our community, embrace the quality of life and bring someone in to do that with us. That can't be incumbent on me the mayor, (or) Beth (Beatty), the city manager, 'you should be calling Home Depot and Amazon,' you know, honestly, no, I shouldn't be.

"We need somebody who's going to put together a plan and then go out and ask someone to help us invest in that plan and then execute that plan. That's how things get done."

At that point in his fiery City Council speech, D'Arcy reflected on his success as an auto dealer in Joliet over the past three-plus decades. According to his bio, D’Arcy is owner and president of D'Arcy Automobiles, a prominent automotive dealership with two locations in Morris and Joliet.

"I started in this community, thank God, 34 years ago with 26 employees, a work ethic and a big loan," D'Arcy revealed. "We're now 300 employees. We've strategically grown. We've done that with deliberate chances we take. But you know what? We run a world-class operation, I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, because we make mistakes. Our dealership is nationally renowned. And I will settle for nothing less than world-class in my fellow employees. Why should we settle for less in this community?"

In closing, Mayor D'Arcy pointed out, "I think about we have a wonderful baseball stadium over there. I don't know, what do they play, 40, 45 games over there? We've got 300 days of an empty baseball diamond that our previous Council committed millions of dollars to. We're not using it. We've got Bicentennial Park, we've got a lot of inventory days there that aren't being used. Again, I didn't expect to win to be the mayor, but I wanted to bring some ideas to the community that could help us change. And low and behold, here we sit today with this opportunity. So, I'll take responsibility for this idea because I really feel that strongly about it ... we're going to continue to develop the quality of life of our community. We're going to invite people in here and people are going to say, 'What a great community' ... people are talking about our community with very positive aspects, and we have to continue to bring that light of positivity to our community.

"So, this is not an expense, this is not spending our money, this is investing our money, and I know that there are some stats that were given to us. But Schaumburg, they have 260,000 people attend events, 78,000 people is their population. They brought in $175,000 in sponsorships and donations. St. Charles, 33,000 people, $205,000 in donations and sponsorships. Those are a couple of shining examples of how this position is not going to be an expense. It's going to be an investment, and it's going to create a better quality of life for all of us."

What were Councilwoman Quillman's comments before her no vote?

"I know this has been discussed back and forth, and I was hoping maybe we could wait until the fall budget when we look at this again. Also, City Center Partnership does do a lot that we pay them for, so maybe we shouldn't be paying them so much that we can get more over here," Quillman remarked.

"And again, we need other positions, we're looking at improving the neighborhood policing department. We don't have enough police officers in the neighborhoods. We talked about that, it was campaigned on by many prior council people that were trying to win ... and on this particular issue, I have received overwhelming texts and phone calls on this, 'please vote no until we can look at this more closely' and 'can we just wait?' So, therefore, I have to represent my constituents that called me today, so I have to vote no. I know it's going to pass, but I have to vote no to represent my constituents."