When Dan Barreiro started at Aurora City Hall as an intern in 1986, one of his first assignments was putting together the city’s application to become a Certified City.
He said this week the job took him on a “deep dive” into city government, and the workings of City Hall. It was something he would learn well after 35 years on the job, working in four different city departments.
He also served over the years on both the Fox Valley Park Board and the East Aurora School Board – the position of vice president from which he will resign to become alderman.
“I carry a lot of institutional knowledge across many areas,” he said.
Barreiro was ceremonially sworn-in as Aurora’s 1st Ward alderman just a few hours after he took his seat for the City Council Committee of the Whole meeting, his first as alderman.
He fills the spot vacated by former Ald. Emmanuel Llamas, who resigned to care for his ailing father as of Aug. 1.
Barreiro’s swearing-in was a party with about 100 people attending at Two Brothers Roundhouse downtown, which sits in the 1st Ward. As he took the stage, the ex-Beatles drummer Ringo Starr’s version of “It Don’t Come Easy” played, a song Barreiro chose because he likes the Beatles, and it symbolizes his life.
“That song rings true for me,” he said. “Nothing’s been easy. I come from humble beginnings.”
Indeed, Barreiro told people something many of them probably did not know – that he was born in Idaho, and moved with his family to Aurora when he was 5 years old. But he has been in Aurora’s 1st Ward ever since, and choosing to spend his life there shows he is committed to the city, he and others said this week.
“I had to interview 12 good people,” said Mayor Richard Irvin, talking about the process of appointing an alderman to the vacant 1st Ward seat. “Not one could hold a candle to Dan Barreiro.”
Irvin said Barreiro backed former Mayor Tom Weisner both times Irvin lost to him in 2005 and 2009, and “I don’t know if he backed me in 2017.”
But when he was elected and took over at City Hall, Barreiro was a department head.
“I learned he had pride in the work that he did, and he is committed to Aurora,” Irvin said.
In welcoming him to the City Council, Ald. Michael Saville, 6th Ward, the senior alderman on the council, joked that while he was appointed originally to the job in 1985, just like Barreiro, it was “nothing like this.”
“It was just me and the city clerk,” he said.
A number of Kane County Democratic Party elected officials were on hand for the swearing-in, including Barreiro’s wife, Kane County Circuit Clerk Theresa Barreiro.
In fact, the swearing-in host, Clayton Muhammed, a senior advisor to the mayor and chief communications officer for the city, said there were “so many public officials, they call this the DNC Fox Valley.”
Barreiro became an administrative assistant in the Mayor’s Office, to Mayor David Pierce, in 1988, and retired in 2021 as Chief Community Services Officer, a position he held for 15 years.
Throughout his time at City Hall, Barreiro held such other roles as assistant director of personnel, assistant finance director and assistant chief of staff.
Barreiro has held positions on the boards of the Aurora East Educational Foundation, the East Aurora Alumni Association, El Centro Pan Americano, the Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley, the Fox Valley Girl Scouts Council, the Fox Valley Park District, the Fox Valley Symphony, the Fox Valley United Way, the Salvation Army and Sci Tech.
He currently serves with the Knights of Columbus, the Three Fires Council of the Boys Scouts and Project Safe Aurora.
After graduating from East Aurora High School, Barreiro earned a bachelor’s degree in political science, with an emphasis in local government, and a master’s degree in public administration, with an emphasis in urban management, from Northern Illinois University.
slord@tribpub.com
