D'Arcy Defeats Mayor O'Dekirk: 2023 Unofficial Election Results

JOLIET, IL — As the polling data showed, popular Joliet businessman and philanthropist Terry D'Arcy of D'Arcy Motors is poised to defeat Bob O'Dekirk by a wide margin in the Joliet mayor's race, with all of Will and Kendall County precincts reporting.

It was a busy Election Day for the three candidates in Joliet's mayoral race. Polls officially closed at 7 p.m. Early voting and vote-by-mail ballots are included in the total. Provisional ballots and late arriving vote-by-mail ballots are not included.

"I worked hard to make sure we were always one vote ahead," D'Arcy told Joliet Patch's editor at Tuesday night's victory party, which was attended by more than 300 people at the Inwood Golf Course's golf cart barn.

"They wanted a better attitude for the city."

Unofficial vote totals showed D'Arcy with about 62 percent of the vote, while O'Dekirk and a third candidate on the ballot, Tycee Bell, combined to capture the other 38 percent.

Joliet is the third largest city in Illinois, with more than 150,000 people. However, on Tuesday, only about one in 10 city residents came out to vote in the mayor's race. A total of 14,101 votes were cast in Will County and another 790 votes by Joliet's voters who live in Kendall County.

As far as winning Tuesday's mayor's race, "I think we had a really good team," D'Arcy told Joliet Patch. "A really strong message and I knocked on a lot of doors. I heard what they said. I want to help."

D'Arcy said he wants to make sure Joliet has a long-term comprehensive plan. D'Arcy said he did not plan to clean house at City Hall when he takes over next month as mayor.

"I bought four failing businesses and I turned them all around," D'Arcy remarked. "I believe we have a lot of really good people working for our city. My job is to lead people and manage that. I will be very easy to work with. I've been working in the city for 30 years and I want to help the city thrive."

All results are unofficial.

JOLIET MAYORAL RACE

Joliet residents who voted in Tuesday's election had three choices on their nonpartisan election ballots: Terry D'Arcy, president of D'Arcy Motors, two-term incumbent Bob O'Dekirk and Tycee Bell.

With all precincts in, here's where vote totals stood, as D'Arcy looks to win:

• Terry D'Arcy 9,075
• Incumbent Bob O'Dekirk 4,396
• Tycee Bell 1,405

With 1oo percent of precincts reporting in Will County

Joliet City Council seats:

District 1 With 100 percent of precincts reporting

• Incumbent Larry Hug 1,370
• Mike Eulitz 972

District 2

Incumbent Pat Mudron 1,581
Quinn Adamowski 1,334
Glenda Wright McCullum 762
Bob Wunderlich 1,103

With 100 percent of precincts reporting

District 3

Incumbent Sherri Reardon 1,324
Janean Jackson 417

With 100 percent of precincts reporting

District 4 (seat held by retiring Bettye Gavin)

• Cesar Cardenas 610
• Chris Parker 543
• Bill Ferguson 527
• Rosa Hernandez 476

With 100 percent of precincts reporting

District 5

• Suzanna Ibarra 981
• Incumbent Terry Morris 931
• Jim Lanham 381
• Michael William Carruthers 258

With 100 percent of precincts reporting

This marks O'Dekirk's first contested race since he became mayor in 2015 and he defeated Tom Giarrante. O'Dekirk didn't have any opponents in 2019.

D'Arcy has told Joliet Patch's editor that his campaign to become Joliet's next mayor involves three main goals: improving Joliet's quality of life, how city resources are allocated and improving how Joliet is viewed.

One of D'Arcy's key goals, if elected, was to diversify Joliet's housing stock.

He said that Joliet needs to offer more housing for recent college graduates as well as empty-nesters. He said that many of Joliet's surrounding communities including Plainfield and Romeoville are doing a much better job in offering housing for people who are 55 and older as well as for college graduates from nearby Lewis University, the University of St. Francis and Joliet Junior College.

Citywide beautification projects would be a focal point of D'Arcy's tenure as mayor.

"We just need to take pride in our city, and we need to come off as a world-class city," D'Arcy told Joliet Patch. "If we think that way, we will be that way."

Since his campaign announcement last June, D'Arcy has met with hundreds of citizens across Joliet. "A lot of people just don't feel like Joliet shows its pride when other people are entering our city the first time," D'Arcy remarked.

"Residents feel frustrated, and, in some cases, ignored when it comes to how the city is run and how and where resources are allocated," D'Arcy explained. "City leadership needs to do a better job of listening to our residents and restoring pride back in our city."

In 2019, the last mayoral election, O'Dekirk ran unopposed, and he garnered 7,604 votes in the third-largest city of Illinois, a community with a population topping 150,000.

Prior to the election, Joliet Patch asked Tycee Bell what it would take to defeat both O'Dekirk and D'Arcy.

Bell said she is 45 years old, and graduated from Joliet West High School in 1994.

"I'm a woman, and I'm a strong, very influential woman," Bell told Joliet Patch. "For me, the key thing is the relationship building and collaborative efforts with business groups, neighborhood associations, Will County, Joliet Township.

"My parents raised me here, and I'm from Joliet. I've been an active community member as a worker. A strong voter turnout and finding those people who feel ... they want something concrete for the next 10 to 20 years, and they want to be included."

On the topic of safety, Bell said she wanted to focus on healing families and the survivors of violent crimes. She advocates for "life-saving gun safety reforms — local, state and federal legislation."

Bell said one of her strengths that prepared her to become Joliet's next mayor "is the relationships I've built over the years have kept me very grounded and confident that I can assess peoples' needs and also empower them to speak up."

"I want people to know that I definitely will lead with my heart," Bell told Joliet Patch's editor. "My core values all centered around my service for others."

When he first got elected to the Joliet City Council in 2011, O'Dekirk said City Hall did not even have an economic development director. In those days, Mayor Giarrante had a small committee of "local business guys" who met in private with Giarrante. No news media could attend and there was no meeting agenda, O'Dekirk told everyone.

Under his time as mayor, "there are no secret committees. There are no backroom deals," O'Dekirk told the crowd at 176 West during his February state of the city speech.

Last year included several major announcements for Joliet, O'Dekirk said. Last June, Tony's Fresh Market opened at the blighted and vacant Kmart property at Joliet's busiest intersection. Last February, VASA Fitness opened at the former Ultra Foods grocery store in the North Ridge Plaza, as did the nation's first Portillo's Pickup. Last year, Hollywood Casino announced it would stay in Joliet and build a new casino and hotel at the Cullinan Property. And last year meant the new construction for Joliet's new Olive Garden restaurant.

If the turnout for Olive Garden is anything like the interest in getting an Olive Garden for Joliet, "Olive Garden will probably be printing money," O'Dekirk said, laughing.

As for his nine PowerPoint slides: O'Dekirk noted the following accomplishments have been made during his time as mayor:

No. 1 New Will County Courthouse in downtown Joliet.

No. 2 Houbolt Road Bridge over the Des Plaines River at Route 6

No. 3: Cullinan Property near Interstate 55 and Interstate 80, where infrastructure and new roads are well underway and construction of the new Hollywood Casino and hotel will begin this year.

No. 4: Prison Redevelopment. Built in 1858, the Old Joliet Prison was left abandoned by the Illinois Department of Corrections for 15 years and became the target of repeat vandalism and multiple arson fires during the summer of 2017.

No. 5: Development in the South, notably Amazon creating 3,500 new jobs, Lion Electric and NorthPoint. Lion Electric is the Canadian-based electric bus and school bus manufacturer that just opened its first plant in the U.S. here in Joliet off Youngs Road near Route 6. Excavation for NorthPoint got underway last summer along Route 53 near Elwood.

No. 6: I-80 Repairs And Improvements O'Dekirk cited $1.4 billion committed to Interstate 80 by the state of Illinois over the coming years for additional lanes of traffic along Joliet's I-80 corridor "and a whole new bridge built over the Des Plaines River."

No. 7: Evolution of Louis Joliet Mall.

No. 8: New Corporate Headquarters. O'Dekirk cited Joliet becoming the new corporate headquarters for four different companies.

No. 9: Water Project. Joliet worked out a long-time agreement to acquire its future drinking water from Chicago through a pipeline that will be built to Lake Michigan.

During one of his Town Hall With Terry mayoral forums, D'Arcy told his crowd that the U.S. Steel property has been a blight to our community for a long time.

"So, Bo and I have been talking about, you know he told me I was a little crazy to run for mayor, but I said, 'Bo, I want to do some work here in the city, one last thing.' And he and I were talking about what he's been doing with his company, Bo Jackson Elite Sports.

"So the newest thing that Bo's been doing with his team, they're developing what they call tournament centers. And he's got some of them around the country right now ... they take the domes. There's one coming out of Rosemont ... they're doing 130,000 square-foot Bo Domes and on a 30 to 40 acre campus, they're including hotels, restaurants and ways for families to pull in."

Related Patch coverage:

Joliet Mayor's Race: 'I Feel I Have A Strong Chance To Win'

Terry D'Arcy Wants To Improve Joliet's Quality Of Life, Image

Bo Jackson Dome For Joliet? Terry D'Arcy Draws Crowd To Town Hall

9 Joliet Milestones: Mayor O'Dekirk Proud He's 'Ultra Aggressive'

Joliet's Abandoned Steel Mill Means Hundreds Of New Jobs: O'Dekirk