Maria Lindsay, an Aurora deputy chief of staff, is set to serve out her last day with the city on May 13.
That’s the day Mayor-elect John Laesch, alongside newly-elected and reelected members of the Aurora City Council, are set to be sworn into office.
Lindsay first joined the city of Aurora alongside outgoing Mayor Richard Irvin when he was first elected in 2017. She was later promoted to be one of the city’s two deputy chiefs of staff alongside Alex Voigt.
However, Lindsay’s first day with the city was not her first time working for Irvin — she previously worked at his law firm starting in 2008, she told The Beacon-News. It took a while, she said, to get used to calling the man she had worked with for so long “mayor.”
Her time at the city has been a journey, but a fun one, according to Lindsay. She said this feels like “a breakup that never ends” looking back on all the things she has done with the city.
Since getting promoted to deputy chief of staff in 2022, Lindsay has helped to manage half of all city departments, with the other half under Voigt. While Voigt took on more legislative responsibilities, Lindsay said she worked more on the community engagement side.
One of the things Lindsay has discovered she is passionate about, she said, is economic development. She has learned a lot about it, including how an idea starts and leads to a big project like a new restaurant being completed, she said.
“It’s going to be fun to be able to drive and say, ‘Oh, we worked on this. We worked on that,’” Lindsay said.
One thing Lindsay said she is going to miss about her job is dealing with residents’ concerns. Between her and Deputy Mayor Guillermo Trujillo, she said they would take turns handling anything going on in the community.
Lindsay said she is also sad she will no longer be the liaison to the city’s Education Commission because there are so many new initiatives that are being worked on. Being one of the liaisons to the city’s Fiestas Patrias celebration has also been one of Lindsay’s big accomplishments, she said.
But when asked what her proudest accomplishment is, she said it is “where we are and everything that we’ve done” and pointed out successes in public safety, education and the economy.
“When I start talking about what I love the most, I start from the downtown and then I just kind of pick a corner,” Lindsay said. “Every corner and every part of the city … the Irvin administration has touched or has made a difference.”
Irvin always has a vision, and he hasn’t stopped since day one, according to Lindsay. She said that, as soon as one thing was complete, he was already on to the next thing.
At an event honoring outgoing Mayor Richard Irvin and many from the mayor’s office on Tuesday night, Irvin said he has worked with Lindsay going on 17 years, and when she recently reminded him that they soon will no longer see each other every day, it scared him a little bit.
During her speech at the event, Lindsay thanked “all my new friends, all my old friends, all of the city staff.” And specifically to the mayor’s office staff, she said, “Oh God, it’s been fun.”
There is a friendship among those who work in the mayor’s office, Lindsay told The Beacon-News, and everyone fits together like a puzzle to make it all work. She said the various tragedies the city has had to deal with over the course of Irvin’s administration, such as the Henry Pratt mass shooting and the COVID-19 pandemic, brought everyone together.
The people she works with are what she’ll miss the most from this job, she said.
“I feel like we have such an amazing team, not just here in the mayor’s office but also as a whole,” Lindsay said.
One thing Lindsay won’t miss, she said, is working late nights and weekends, especially as a single mother of two children. She’s looking forward to getting that time back, especially since summer break is coming up, she said.
She’ll be taking a break with her children this summer, she said, but she feels like she will start to miss her job once her children go back to school.
Although Lindsay said she doesn’t have anything else lined up yet, she wants to stay in Aurora, the city she is passionate about and calls her hometown.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
