Will Mayor D'Arcy Give State Of City Address In 2025?

JOLIET — For years now, mayors across the Will County region have conducted what's called a state of the city address, reflecting on their community's recent accomplishments as they talk about other major economic development projects in the works or other issues and challenges facing their municipality.

In Joliet, Bob O'Dekirk made it an annual tradition, giving his State of the City presentation in February or March. O'Dekirk attracted 2oo to 400 people to his PowerPoint presentations, during which, at times, he injected laughter into the room, such as on Feb. 24, 2020, at the Joliet Renaissance Center, when O'Dekirk's first slide showed recently released prison inmate Rod Blagojevich in a meme that read: "Unemployed with Extensive Government Experience. Joliet City Manager?"

O'Dekirk's eight-year run as Joliet's mayor ended two years ago after Terry D'Arcy of Joliet's D'Arcy Motors overwhelmingly defeated O'Dekirk in April 2023. However, D'Arcy decided not to hold a state of the city presentation for Joliet in 2024.

And now that D'Arcy is marking the midway point of his four-year as term, it remains possible that D'Arcy will bypass holding a state of the city address for Joliet for the second straight year.
Joliet Patch noticed that several area mayors have already announced and scheduled their annual state of the city presentations for 2025 — and D'Arcy is not one of them.

On the other hand, Plainfield Mayor John Argoudelis will hold his state of the village presentation next week on March 12. Romeoville Mayor John Noak will hold his 2025 Romeoville State of the Village talk on March 20.

Channahon Mayor Missey Moorman Schumacher has scheduled her 2025 Village of Channahon State of the Village Address for the morning of April 10. Long-time New Lenox Mayor Tim Baldermann told Joliet Patch that he always has his New Lenox presentation at the Silver Cross Hospital downstairs conference room every September.

At Tuesday night's Joliet City Council meeting, Mayor D'Arcy did not talk about scheduling or setting up a state of the city presentation for Joliet.

On Wednesday, Joliet Patch reached out to city manager Beth Beattie and Rosemaria DiBenedetto, Joliet's director of communications and D'Arcy's former campaign manager, inquiring about the status of any state of the city talks for D'Arcy in 2025.

"The mayor is speaking at the Rotary club next week," DiBenedetto responded to Joliet Patch. "I think he is planning to have some kind of state of the city address later this spring or early summer. I will keep you posted."

When D'Arcy ran for Joliet mayor, he rejected the O'Dekirk administration's idea of bringing a battery recycling plant to the shuttered U.S. Steel property off Collins Street. Instead, D'Arcy brought up the idea of getting professional sports legend Bo Jackson to open one of his Bo Domes on the U.S. Steel property.

During a campaign event attended by 180 voters at the Stone City VFW in February 2023, D'Arcy told everyone that Jackson's plans for his ever-expanding tournament domes are, "he's developing these things where they have hotels, restaurants and recreation right there.

"And I thought rather than have a battery recycling spot right in the middle of our town, perhaps, we could have a Bo Dome, or a tournament area. And you know, there's a lot of property over there. We could turn some of that property into outdoor sports. We've got soccer, we've got baseball. There's a lot of things we could do with that."

As it stands, at no point since D'Arcy has taken office has the city of Joliet reviewed any plans to attract a Bo Jackson Sports Dome to Joliet.

And rather than cut spending at City Hall, D'Arcy voted to raise Joliet's property taxes and raise the city's fuel taxes to fund Joliet's 2025 operating budget.

Under D'Arcy, the city of Joliet has plans to grow government, rather than reduce staff.

In December, Joliet Patch reported that the 174-page budget listed the creation of nearly 30 new city of Joliet positions including: 14 new police officers, 3 new firefighter/paramedics, 3 new firefighter lieutenants, 1 new fire captain, 1 community paramedic funded by a grant, 3 new information and technology staff, 1 bilingual employee for City Hall's front desk, 1 new office manager at Public Works and 1 new development coordinator for community development.

One of D'Arcy's noteworthy projects as mayor is the downtown city plaza project. The roughly $20 million project, awarded to Austin Tyler construction, won't be completed for another year. Because the project's North Chicago Street closures have decimated several downtown Joliet businesses, City Hall has established a program to provide financial subsidies to struggling businesses that qualify.

In January, Patch reported that Joliet has paid out a total of $80,053.56, so far, to Chicago Street Pub, Cut 158 Inc., Mousa Greek Tavern, Juliet’s Tavern and the Internode Greenery And Home Store.