New Aurora Mayor John Laesch, who has now been in office for over a week, has chosen the team of people who will help him lead the city.
Laesch was sworn in as Aurora’s 60th mayor on May 13 after winning over incumbent Mayor Richard Irvin in the April 1 consolidated election.
Soon after taking office, Laesch hired three new people from his transition team to work in the Mayor’s Office and recently appointed four others, with approval from the Aurora City Council, to other upper city management positions.
Shannon Cameron, who led Laesch’s transition team, was hired to be his chief of staff — a position that seems to functionally replace the chief management officer position formerly held by Alex Alexandrou.
The job of the chief of staff position, Laesch told The Beacon-News, will be to run the city when he is not around, even though he plans to be hands-on with city staff. The goal is to have him and Cameron be “interchangeable,” he said.
Cameron was chosen because she is a “get-it-done kind of person,” according to Laesch. He said she is able to cut through the red tape, speak her mind and jump into action to do the right thing.
Alexandrou also had that type of personality, which the role needs, Laesch said.
Plus Cameron’s experience both from her time helping to found the Paramount School of the Arts and from her time as executive director of the Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry means she brings a strategic planning perspective to the mayor’s office, he said, which balances out his own tendency to be goal-oriented.
Nicholas Richard-Thompson, who was also on Laesch’s transition team, is now serving as the city’s deputy chief of staff. The city previously had two of these positions, held by Alex Voigt and Maria Lindsay, and Laesch said he is planning to hire another soon.
Richard-Thompson will bring a different perspective to the mayor’s office, Laesch said, and is a creative thinker while having similar values to others on the team. Plus, Richard-Thompson knows a lot of people in the community and within city government, Laesch said.
When asked by The Beacon-News about his new role, Richard-Thompson said he was happy and honored to be selected, but also surprised.
He said he has been a local community organizer for over a decade, and has years of experience working in public administration, including seven years with the city of Aurora working in community engagement, economic development and communications.
He hopes to bring all that experience with him to this new role and to “lead with integrity, execute excellently and build a stronger community,” he said.
According to Richard-Thompson, Laesch has built a “robust” and “dynamic” team that he is looking forward to working within.
Rounding out Laesch’s new mayor’s office team is Casildo “Casey” Cuevas, who is now the deputy mayor. Also a member of Laesch’s transition team, Cuevas was brought in because of his experience, particularly in working with the constituents of other elected officials, as one of the new administration’s goals is to be more responsive to the community, according to Laesch.
Cuevas previously worked for state Sen. Karina Villa, D-West Chicago, as her community service director. In a Facebook post last week, Villa said Cuevas was a “fierce advocate for our community, going above and beyond to support our constituents.”
In the deputy mayor role, Cuevas will bring that same level of responsiveness to residents, according to Laesch. Plus, he said Cuevas is bilingual and “knows his way around multiple layers of government, which is important.”
The goal, Laesch said, is to have Cuevas working with a restructured communications department that is more focused on active community engagement out in the neighborhoods, particularly in those which have a heavy Latino population.
In addition to the nonprofits Cuevas has founded or worked with, he is also the chair of Working Families Aurora, a local political action committee, or PAC, that supported Laesch and many others — including the newly-inaugurated Ald. Keith Larson, at large, and Ald. Javier Banuelos, 7th Ward — in past elections.
According to Laesch, Cuevas was the only person he hired that was an active part of his campaign.
Still, two of the four people Laesch appointed to upper city management positions outside of the mayor’s office — both of which were confirmed by the Aurora City Council Tuesday — have been supported by Working Families Aurora when they previously ran for local public office.
Ram Tyagi, who was confirmed as the city’s new chief information officer, unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Aurora Public Library Board in the recent April 1 consolidated election. Tyagi was not only supported by Working Families Aurora but was also endorsed by Laesch, as seen in a sample ballot posted to his mayoral campaign Facebook page.
Laesch told The Beacon-News that Tyagi is an ethical, transparent and strong leader that has the right personality to take over the city’s IT department during a time when changes are coming soon.
“I think he’ll be able to make assessments about what needs to change,” Laesch said. “He’s got a very laid-back personality but (is) also very firm in his position.”
Tyagi, whose resume shows he most recently worked at Harris Associates, an investment firm, as its vice president and head of investment operations — technology, is taking a pay cut to join the city, according to Laesch. He said public service is a big part of who Tyagi is as a person.
Nicole Mullins, who was confirmed Tuesday as the city’s new chief community services officer, was also formerly endorsed by the Working Families Aurora PAC when she unsuccessfully ran for the Aurora City Council’s 6th Ward seat in 2023.
Laesch said that, while there are probably other people equally as qualified to take the position, Mullins has high standards as a team builder and, similar to Tyagi, is not afraid to push for change where it is needed. She has a good vision, and the community services department will be seeing some changes in its focus areas, he said.
According to her resume, Mullins most recently managed the Illinois Department on Aging’s Community Care Program for Southern Kane and Kendall counties. However, she may be more well known in Aurora as the founder and president of L.I.F.T. Aurora, the organization behind Culture Stock, which ran a bookstore and cultural arts center in downtown from 2012 to 2018.
Although Tyagi and the others whose appointments were OK’d by the Aurora City Council on Tuesday saw unanimous approval, Mullins did not. Ald. Juany Garza, 2nd Ward, and Ald. Carl Franco, 5th Ward, voted against her appointment.
When asked why he didn’t vote for Mullins, Franco said she was part of a group that, a couple of years ago during his re-election campaign, disrupted one of his neighborhood meetings by “yelling and swearing and screaming” and trying to make him angry so they could videotape it.
Plus, during a different meeting that residents had called to discuss issues with the HelloFresh factory, he was shut down by the same group when he tried to speak, he said.
“I find it pretty amazing that a person who’s going to be now in charge of the neighborhood groups would act in such a way — a despicable way,” Franco said. “It was not just her, it was the whole group, but if you’re part of that group, then you have some culpability in how people act.”
Mullins told The Beacon-News that she attends many community meetings and was not involved in stopping Franco from speaking at the meeting about HelloFresh. She is not responsible for what other people do, she said, and doesn’t believe city officials should “dictate how community members organize to share their concerns.”
“I think those of us in positions of power, elected or otherwise, need to realize that criticism and expectations of accountability comes with the territory,” Mullins said. “We serve the community. I’m now also not immune to that.”
As the city’s new chief community services officer, Mullins said she sees many opportunities to fix or improve relationships in the community and wants to focus her energy there, including on her own with elected officials. She wants a good working relationship with all aldermen regardless of how they voted, she said, so they can work together for the benefit of the community.
Another upper-level appointment approved by the Aurora City Council Tuesday was Eduardo Questell, who is the city’s new director of brand, marketing and digital strategy. Questell most recently worked at Gilmore Marketing Concepts, Inc., of Elgin, as a visual and web designer.
Questell, Mullins and Tyagi were all on Laesch’s transition team.
Also confirmed to an upper city leadership position by the Aurora City Council at the Tuesday meeting was Adrian Perez, a longtime city employee who will now serve as the city’s superintendent of streets.
Perez has worked in Aurora’s Public Works Department for years, originally starting as a seasonal worker in 2005 before being hired on as a maintenance worker in 2012, according to his resume. Since then, he has risen through the ranks and most recently served as the assistant superintendent since 2021.
The Aurora City Council also chose at Tuesday’s meeting to keep Ald. Mike Saville, 6th Ward, as the mayor pro tem, meaning he will lead City Council and Committee of the Whole meetings when Laesch isn’t there.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com