Aurora Mayor-elect John Laesch’s 20-person transition team was in full swing ahead of his inauguration on Tuesday.
After he won the Aurora mayoral race in the April 1 consolidated election, Laesch tasked a team of past and present elected officials, community organizers, civic leaders and city employees, among others, with making sure there is a smooth transfer of city leadership.
That transfer of power is now coming up, with the inauguration of newly-elected and re-elected city officials set to take place at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Aurora.
Laesch, who has been an alderman at-large for the past two years, is set to give a speech at Tuesday’s inauguration about his plans and vision for Aurora, according to a city news release.
He told The Beacon-News on Monday that his transition team has been making good progress in its advisory role. The primary purpose of the team, Laesch said, has been to bring in subject matter experts to help discuss topics he may not specialize in.
Chuck Nelson said Laesch’s transition team also represents a good cross section of the city, from elected officials and civic leaders to engaged citizenry.
Nelson, a member of that team, is a retired city employee who worked under former Mayor Tom Weisner as his assistant chief of staff and more recently served as deputy mayor to outgoing Mayor Richard Irvin until near the end of 2020.
Laesch’s transition team so far has held several full meetings with all of its members, but it has also split off into subcommittees focused on specific topics like the city’s budget or sustainability, according to Shannon Cameron, the transition team’s chair.
“Really, it’s a way of us processing through the intense amount of information we’re getting by all these meetings that we’re having with city departments,” she said.
Those meetings are being done to better understand what each department and division does, Cameron said, along with their priorities, where they need more support and how they want to work with the mayor’s office.
Plus, she said the team is trying to make sure Laesch isn’t surprised by anything when he takes office.
The transition team, Nelson said, is taking a “complete inventory on everything right now, from A to Z.”
He is a part of the transition team’s economic development subcommittee, which compiled the city’s current economic development offerings, he told The Beacon-News Friday afternoon. He thinks the next step, he said, is to start exploring what can be added to those offerings.
A possible part of that will be helping to create a well-trained workforce for businesses large or small looking to move to Aurora, according to Nelson.
The budget, Cameron said, is something the transition team is also taking a close look at. Nelson said that’s one area the transition team seems to be making a lot of progress.
According to Cameron, the city needs to figure out how it’s going to pay off its debts from projects like RiverEdge Park and the new Hollywood Casino resort that is under construction.
“We’re being really honest with departments about that,” she said. “We’re in a place where … we’re not going to be able to probably do some projects everyone had hoped to do, and that’s not the message you want to deliver early on, but it’s just the truth.”
Even though these couple-hours-long meetings with city departments have been really helpful, there’s “so much more to still learn,” Cameron told The Beacon-News last Wednesday.
Nelson said he feels like Irvin’s administration has done a good job meeting with the transition team if requested, and that there’s been a good exchange of information. According to Cameron, the meetings with city staff have been positive, and it has been important to learn as much as possible before making decisions.
However, Laesch said the transition process as a whole has been “a little bit frustrating” both because the team is largely volunteer so there haven’t been many people to delegate tasks to, which means there have been some long hours, but also because it seems like city staff are in an uncomfortable position between the outgoing and incoming administration.
His early top priorities as mayor will be the IT, law and community services departments, according to Laesch. He said the leadership of those departments will likely be changing, including potentially bringing on a full-time lawyer, and community services will likely be given a “completely different mission.”
According to Cameron, Aurora city government will likely see an overall shift in culture and tone under Laesch’s incoming administration.
“John is interested in telling stories of the city, not so much of the mayor,” she said.
Plus, Cameron said Laesch will be highly involved in decision-making, which will also shift the tone. The incoming administration, she said, hopes to lead with empathy and transparency.
After Tuesday’s inauguration, the transition team will continue. The plan is to go public with a larger transition team that will be open to the public to serve on, Cameron said, which will also have subcommittees focused on things like housing or arts and culture.
Transition documents outlying recommendations are expected to be created after roughly the first 100 days of Laesch’s incoming administration, according to Cameron. Plus, she said Laesch is expected to do a citywide listening tour to hear residents’ needs and concerns within that first 100 days.
Generally, the incoming administration wants to wait a bit before making any broad changes, Cameron said.
Services may be reprioritized, and some projects may need to be put off to another year because of budget issues, she said, but for the most part, it will be just a sort of “fine-tuning” of things more than “broad strokes” changes.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
