Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham has hired a Democratic ally, a former campaign volunteer and a former city employee, sacked years ago by his predecessor, to jobs in his young administration, records and interviews show.
The hires have highlighted divisions on the City Council about how much leeway the mayor should have to hire the people he wants or whether the city should adopt a more open and competitive hiring process.
Aldermen Lisa May, 7th, who was Cunningham’s opponent in the April election, and David Villalobos, 4th, were the sole “no” votes when one of Cunningham’s hires was presented to the council for approval in August.
Cunningham nominated Michael Hewitt, who had two stints as the Waukegan Township highway commissioner and also worked as an assistant foreman in the city’s public works department for four years, as the city’s public works director.
When it comes to high-level positions, Waukegan should do more advertising and recruiting for the openings, May said.
“When we’re hiring, we need to be getting these jobs out on to the open market and making a competitive hiring process,” May said. “It’s not about the person. I just think there should have been a competition when we’re talking about the most important jobs in our city.”
Of the four new full-time hires made by the mayor, two were not posted publicly, said Tameika Jones, the city’s director of human resources.
But most aldermen agreed that the mayor should get to choose the people he wants in his top posts and approved Hewitt’s appointment in a 7-2 vote.
“We’ve always pretty much gone with the recommendation,” Ald. Greg Moisio said in an interview, adding later, “Unless I had a strong, strong objection, I’m going to let them pick who they’re going to pick.”
New leader for public works department
Hewitt, who stepped down as Waukegan Township’s highway commissioner in May, has been working as the city’s interim public works director since early May, a position held by Tom Hagerty until his retirement in April. The job carries a salary of about $103,000, according to city records.
The city’s public works department maintains 230 miles of streets and roadways and has a full-time staff of 87, including 75 non-supervisors and 12 supervisors, according to city spokesman David Motley. The number of employees includes those employed at the Waukegan Water Plant.
Issues related to two public works projects, overseen by Hagerty, had drawn the ire of several of the city’s aldermen — including Cunningham, then representing the 1st Ward — for what Cunningham said earlier this year “could be defined as mismanagement.”
The two projects — the decade-old reconstruction of Sheridan Road and the more recent effort to replace the Mathon Bridge connecting Grand Avenue with Pershing Road — left the city owing millions of dollars it hadn’t planned on.
Cunningham said he picked Hewitt to replace Hagerty based on his experience as Waukegan Township’s highway commissioner. The mayor said he has known Hewitt more than 20 years and that Hewitt had also worked at the city before going to the township.
Hewitt has long been involved with the Democratic Party in Lake County and served as chairman of the Waukegan Democratic Organization for a period. He and his wife, Diane, a Lake County Board member, contributed $550 to Cunningham’s campaign in January 2016, something Cunningham said had zero influence on his hiring decision.
“That’s a loaded question,” Cunningham said. “Mike Hewitt has more than enough experience to do the job, and I’m comfortable with that.”
Hewitt declined to comment on questions related to his hiring and the campaign contribution.
Cunningham has received 97 cash contributions since January 2016 that exceeded $150, the threshold set by the state that requires candidates to identify the contributor, according to campaign finance reports Cunningham’s campaign committee submitted to the State Board of Elections.
Cunningham said he believes the question should be what service is the city getting from Hewitt and how are residents and staff responding to his leadership.
“I am fully confident in this man’s ability,” Cunningham said.
May said she thought the position should have been publicly posted “because infrastructure is, not only in Waukegan but across the country, the hot issue we’re going to face in the next decade.”
Moisio, who also serves as the vice chairman of the council’s public works committee, said he would like to see the city replace the public works chairman job with a city engineer.
While Moisio would like to see the change, he said that “most of the time, I’m going to let the mayor decide who he wants” for the positions that require council approval, adding that he’s always had a good relationship with Hewitt.
While the city used to have an in-house, full-time city engineer, the responsibilities are currently being fulfilled by a consultant. That should be a full-time job, Moisio said.
“I’m not going to place blame on anybody in that situation, but perhaps if we had a city engineer, perhaps we would have had a better idea (of what’s coming),” he said regarding the Mathon Bridge project.
Cunningham said he plans on bringing an outside firm to help the city assist with the creation of long-term infrastructure plans.
Requiring the public works director to have an engineering degree would mean the council would have to be willing to pay more for that position, something Cunningham said he didn’t think the council was willing to do.
“For the first time in probably 20 or 30 years, we’re going to have a roadmap on that (infrastructure),” Cunningham said. “Once the infrastructure assessment is complete, then we have someone we have someone who can manage the infrastructure plan and manage it well.
Help in the Mayor’s Office
Cunningham’s other hires since taking office three months ago have been focused on three new positions within the mayor’s office.
The three special-project analyst positions, each with a salary of just under $65,000, have been filled, included one hire made before the jobs were approved as part of the budget process.
While Cunningham originally proposed creating a director of governmental services position, which was to serve as the mayor’s chief of staff, plus two community liaison positions, the budget ultimately included three special-project analysts, which come with smaller salaries.
The additions were a point of contention during the City Council’s budget debates earlier this year with some aldermen arguing that it was fiscally irresponsible to add positions when facing a projected budget deficit of $2.5 million.
The budget was approved in a 5-3 vote with aldermen Patrick Seger, 2nd, May and Ann Taylor, 9th, voting no.
Since then, the state has passed its own budget, one that cuts into the city’s home rule sales tax revenue and its share of income tax dollars to the tune of just over $1 million, Waukegan Finance Director Tina Smigielski said.
The mayor’s office could use more staff, Moisio said. He added that the mayor and his administrative assistant “can’t field every phone call, go everywhere he needs to go (plus) deal with nine aldermen.”
The special-project analysts will be tasked with assisting various departments with special projects, keeping the mayor informed of their progress and making sure they keep moving forward, Cunningham said.
The first hire for these jobs was Susana Figueroa, who was hired in May on a part-time basis, city records show.
Cunningham intends to make her a full-time employee now that the budget is in place, he said. He also has hired Markus Pitchford and Thomas Maillard.
Figueroa had worked at the city as a community liaison administrator in the mayor’s office from 1995 to 2013, when her position was eliminated by then-Mayor Wayne Motley, according to reports from the time.
Motley said at the time that her salary would be used to hire at least one police officer and denied that it had anything to do with Figueroa’s own run for mayor in 2013.
The proposed budget from 2013 showed a number of proposed cuts totaling nearly $600,000 that were offset by several additions, including the hiring of four police officers.
Motley, a Democrat, had run against Figueroa and the mayor at the time, Robert Sabonjian, both of whom ran as independents.
Figueroa supported Cunningham during his mayoral campaign and provided advertising that advocated for Cunningham on Radio Latina, an in-kind donation worth $700, according to the most recent campaign contribution reports submitted by Cunningham’s campaign.
Her most recent work has been with Faith in Place, a nonprofit where she has run all of the group’s Lake County outreach programs, according to its website.
Her experience makes the new special projects analyst role a “perfect fit for her,” Cunningham said.
“She supported me (during the campaign), but more important, she is a grassroots lady from Waukegan, and that is critical for anything,” he said. “She has grassroots relationships with the people of Waukegan — black, white, Hispanic. She’s just a solid individual.”
More jobs for young Waukegan residents
The city this year also hired two part-time summer clerk interns and eight part-time summer beach rangers, jobs aimed at getting young Waukegan residents involved in local government.
One of those part-time clerk interns was Cunningham’s teenage daughter, records show.
Cunningham said his being mayor had nothing to do with her getting the job, and that he did not contact the city clerk’s office about her application.
He said she would have gotten the job no matter what. Cunningham’s daughter already had been hired at the Waukegan Park District before she got the job at the city, he said.
“Her being my child is not the issue,” Cunningham said. “I will stand behind that. I will take whatever heat I need to for that.”
Municipal jobs for young people are important, Cunningham said, pointing to his own time working at the city as a young man. Several other aldermen also worked at the city as teenagers or young adults.
“Those jobs gave us a sense of responsibility and ownership of our community,” he said.
Moisio was one of the aldermen who worked in the city’s public works department when he was young.
He said that while he stays out of who gets hired and who doesn’t, he wouldn’t have hired family members if he were the mayor.
“It’s always going to cause problems,” he said. “You’re going to have to answer for it, and it always looks bad.”
Hiring options
Waukegan has a long history of mayors hiring their friends and allies, including Cunningham’s predecessor, Wayne Motley, who hired former colleagues from his years on the Waukegan police force to be the city’s corporation counsel and police chief.
Moisio said in a “perfect world” Waukegan would have a city manager and a part-time mayor instead of a full-time mayor making all the choices. He said he thinks the city would be better off with more space between politics and hiring.
The city of Waukegan is unusual for a suburban town of its size because it does not have a city manager or administrator, said Melissa Mouritsen, an assistant professor at the College of DuPage who has researched suburban politics.
Another option is for the city to adopt a hiring policy that would lay out what connections disqualify candidates and what process needs to be followed ahead of a new hire, said Sarah Brune, the executive director for the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.
Waukegan does not have nepotism or political patronage policies, Jones said.
Hiring for taxpayer-funded positions, especially directorships, should be an open process where the job is posted online and in other places the community is likely to see it, Brune said. Multiple candidates should be interviewed, and the best person should be hired, she said.
“It’s essential that there be an open and transparent process for those roles,” she said. “Knowing the mayor should not be the reason for being hired. Qualifications, experience and a desire to have a role in public service should be the main reasons.”
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