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Suarez’s boss, Eva-Marie Tropper, the city of Joliet’s director of community development, was also notified that her time with Joliet was over.

I don’t know enough at the moment to comment one way or the other about Walsh. But I can say the dismissals of Tropper and Suarez were long overdue.

Both were hired by former city manager Jim Capparelli, and neither Suarez nor Tropper was performing at a level that Joliet’s taxpayers were paying for their exorbitant salaries. Suarez made over $135,000 in 2023 and Tropper made over $157,000 last year.

Tropper was hired in the summer of 2021, about six months after the retirement of Kendall Jackson, who was a well-known personality and likeable force at City Hall and in the community.

Jackson was a go-getter, a high achiever and when he announced his retirement in December 2020, that Joliet City Council meeting lasted late into the night because people continued to offer kind words and praise to Jackson for a job well done over the course of several years.

As for Suarez, Capparelli brought him on board in May of 2022 from a mid-management position with the city of Peoria and made him Joliet’s new economic development director.

Suarez followed in the footsteps of two accomplished and highly energized economic development directors, first Steve Jones and then Jones’ heir apparent, Derek Conley. Jones retired to part-time consulting. Conley left Joliet in 2022 to work for ex-Crest Hill official Heather McGuire, who serves as city administrator of St. Charles.

Conley’s departure came just days after Joliet celebrated the first Portillo’s Pick Up in the country inside the North Ridge Plaza on North Larkin Avenue. Thanks to Conley, Joliet’s struggling North Ridge Plaza came back to life, and it’s flourishing thanks to the addition of the new VASA Fitness Center at the former site of Ultra Foods, an anchor project that Jones made happen.

Unfortunately, over these past two years, Joliet has fallen backward with Suarez in the city economic development office, a job that paid him $135,000 per year, regardless of whether he was productive.

If you’re wondering why I have not been writing many stories about new Joliet businesses, business expansions or businesses moving to Joliet over the past two years, that’s because there have not been many with Suarez at the helm.

If you’re wondering why I have not interviewed Suarez much over the past two years, that’s because there haven’t been many opportunities for a legitimate news story.

I did meet with him in his second-floor office at City Hall a handful of times, including once earlier this year, but conversations with Suarez were rarely worth my time.

Unlike his two successful predecessors, Suarez often claimed he could not discuss any of his supposed business leads or developments that were in the works. More likely, I think that was because he did not have many leads or developments in the works.

On the other hand, Suarez seemed obsessed with treating his job like he was actually the city of Joliet’s Electric Vehicle Czar.

The main city projects and stories I wrote about Suarez often focused on Suarez’s efforts to open more and more electric vehicle battery charging stations across the city of Joliet.

On May 12, 2023, I published the following headline after interviewing Suarez: Joliet Wants To Add Electric Vehicle Charging Stations To City.”At the request of Joliet City Economic Development Director Cesar Suarez, the Joliet City Council is being asked to adopt a resolution at Tuesday night’s meeting authorizing city staff to apply for a Charging & Fuel Infrastructure Grant,” my story began.

Then, last August, I published another rare economic development story with Suarez in the spotlight. That story resulted from a press conference inside the city of Joliet’s Ottawa Street multi-level parking deck.

My headline for that story read: Joliet’s 1st Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Unveiled By City.

At that event, Suarez told me the number of electric vehicle registrations increased in Joliet from 25 to 222 between 2018 and 2021 and from 410 to 3,800 across Will County during that time frame.

And that’s about where Suarez’s efforts to make an impact in Joliet stopped.

Not only was Suarez unable to generate new business growth, redevelopment and corporate expansions into Joliet, his office was in shambles, literally.

At this time one year ago, Suarez had a staff of three full-time employees. For the past several months, Suarez was the only person left. His two subordinates left in 2023 and their jobs have sat empty for several months. According to the city website, the job opening for senior economic development specialist was posted by the human resources department last Nov. 27 with a salary range of $85,000 to $105,000.

Additionally, the job of economic development specialist was posted by HR on Dec. 4, with a targeted salary of $70,000 to $85,000.

Now that Suarez has been let go, the city of Joliet’s three-person economic development office at City Hall is down to nobody.

As for Tropper, she seemed like a ghost or a vapor in City Hall or City Council meetings. You really never noticed her presence. I never interviewed her once at City Hall for any story since her hiring almost three years ago, even though she had one of the top-paid positions with Joliet.

I could not even tell you if her office was on the first floor, second floor, or perhaps down in the basement of Joliet’s municipal building.

Tropper’s LinkedIn profile reads like something you would find straight out of bureaucracy school. It’s loaded with government speak and generalizations and absent of specific accomplishments:

“My approach combines vision, tenacity, analytics, and the ability to work across business functions to break down barriers, deliver high-impact solutions, and build consensus to achieve ambitious goals. I am a collaborative leader with a unique blend of experience leading and executing strategic operations and priority initiatives across geographies, functions, and industries with a focus on relationships and sustainability. Interests include people and philanthropy, organizational health and building a culture of performance, developing and scaling empathetic and agile public and social sector operations, innovation, cutting-edge projects, future cities and regions.”

One of my sources had this to say about Tropper on Friday, “I never really knew her to be a go-getter. She never had answers for anything, and if you’re a director on anything, you should have answers.”

As Joliet’s upper management, one of Tropper’s failures was her inability to supervise Suarez. She allowed him to turn in an abysmal performance for nearly two full years, well, except for his ability to attract two new Starbucks coffee shops so far this year, one for the former Baker’s Square property on West Jefferson and another that will be built on Houbolt Road near McDonough Street.

The immediate removal of Tropper and Suarez is addition through subtraction for the city of Joliet’s taxpayers.

I have no doubt that new city manager Beatty, with the input of Mayor Terry D’Arcy and the Joliet City Council, will find much better replacements for both, new directors who will bring energy and personality to those high-level positions. Just as Joliet had in the past when Kendall Jackson, Steve Jones and Derek Conley held those leading roles.

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