mobanmarketJOLIET, IL — Three people who have been involved with events at the Joliet Area Historical Museum and the Old Joliet Prison, Mary Beth Gannon, plus Dan Philip and Kara Philip, addressed the Joliet City Council on Tuesday night making disparaging remarks about the museum and its leadership team, urging drastic leadership changes at the museum.
As a result of Tuesday night’s meeting, the Joliet City Council voted 5-4 to delay making its decision on whether to give the Joliet Area Historical Museum its annual allotment of $250,000.
The funding vote has been delayed until February.
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“I’m coming to you tonight as a concerned citizen, but also as your town historian,” Gannon began her remarks. “By now you’ve received the inspector general’s report about what happened at the museum and the prison and what all of us have been through, unfortunately. I urge you to read it and there’s probably a lot more that’s not even in it, and I’d be happy to talk to you a lot about it.”
Gannon said that she loves her city, she loves Joliet’s history and that when she took her job at the museum, “it thrilled me to be part of the city that all got along. We all got along until about a year ago when management changed. We brought in some new management and we were pretty much terrorized and people giving themselves raises over and over. And, a lot of bad things happened. I went to our H.R. person and I worked with a young man in our gift shop who had autism and some of the people sitting near me at work, and they were managers, would routinely make fun of him every day and when I complained to H.R. about it, nothing happened.
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“I also worked with a couple other disabled persons who were regularly picked on. These people no longer work at the prison or the museum and they were great people. They didn’t deserve that. And we had our guard tours at the prison, our two guards, Mike and Ron, were pulling in $700 a day for that prison. They were making money. And when the prison makes money and the museum makes money, that’s less money that the taxpayer is responsible for and that’s what we all want, right? And not managers continually giving themselves pay raises, not managers who think there’s no such thing as ghosts or people who are interested in ghosts so we shouldn’t have tours about it.
“My rooftop talks, I brought in a bigger crowd … my talks on history brought in a bigger crowd than our rooftop concerts and I suggested over and over again, why don’t we charge for these? No, no, no, even though we’d run out of chairs when I did my talk on Al Baskins … I did Boston Store. We ran out of chairs in that building. It was a good thing, if we just charge maybe five bucks a head, it would have made them a lot of money that day … but no. I also suggested getting sponsors, like Mr. D’Arcy. It’s just a poor mismanagement of money over there and a loss of potential resources. Please read that report. I think there’s going to be a legal action over the way these people were treated. Don’t be surprised about it …
“I think it would be great if we had new management there. I would love to be able to come back. I would love to be able to do my talk on the history of Fehrenbacher’s. I had already started working on it. The history of the Gordie Gillespie years, of Joliet Catholic, so many things, and it’s not going to happen now. And they’re supposedly out of money, but they’ve got money to go buy a Launching Pad and a Dairy Queen? Put the money, invest in your people. Something needs to change there. And the way these people, my friends, were treated was terrible … let’s get this museum going in the right direction. These people all have a tremendous passion for what they do, and we all know how to get along here. Don’t let one or two people ruin a great thing for our whole community. Thank you.”
Kara Phillip told the Joliet City Council that she worked as a volunteer at the Old Joliet Prison, where she often worked and cleaned at the prison on her weekends.
“I first saw the person when it was in operation in the ’80s. I would drive with my mom to work and I thought, wow, that looks amazing. I finally saw that there was a volunteer day that I was able to go to and it was just amazing, that I could help preserve, help clean, help be a part of this historic site and city. And like a lot of my fellow volunteers, I have gladly given that time.
“We aren’t there anymore. But in the meantime, we certainly did, like it was already mentioned, the guard tours, the money that has been lost for that and all kinds of tours. Paranormal … those are what are close to my heart, personally, and those were at least $12.50 a tour, run mostly by volunteers. So that’s a lot of money lost that they’re asking you for in this grant. The prison after dark tours were canceled and those were about 25 people on average, three times a week. Those people would pay $40 a tour to come be a part of the prison. All the general history tours were canceled as of May 29th and those were running six tours a week. The guard tours were all canceled, once the guards were no longer there. Those again were making money.
“Kind of concerned with the leadership asking you for money and saying the point isn’t to make money. That doesn’t seem like strong leadership and doesn’t seem like where the city of Joliet should be putting their money … there’s more than one person in this town that can look at running this prison, this isn’t the only way we have to do it. We don’t have to give this money to somebody that is mismanaging it, and just canceling tours and getting rid of volunteers.
“And I just want to be able to get back, like Mary Beth (Gannon) and everybody else, to this place we love and to make the city of Joliet pretty great. And I think we can, if we’re given the chance.”
The third and final person to address the City Council was Dan Philip. He made accusations of Joliet Area Historical Museum personnel being inebriated beyond belief as the Council listened.
“I am also one of the banned volunteers,” Dan Philip told Mayor D’Arcy and the Council. “Mostly I want to talk about some ethical concerns that I have that the city’s implicitly involved with … the leadership there. The purge of, what is it, thirteen people, over an ego, I suppose. That inspector general report, I’m sure, delves real far into it, but at the end of the day, an ego got hurt and thirteen people who had spent years, some sixteen years, as volunteers, were let go. It seems weird. I don’t know what happened between the Blues Brothers Con and March of 2023, but something happened. On Blues Brothers Con, we were welcomed, were part of the team, we were introduced to Tom “Bones” Malone and entertained him for hours. And then suddenly in March, we’re all suspended. No reason given, and all I could think was, we didn’t do anything. It was over the winter. Why are we suspended? There was no interaction.
“And then it started to make a little bit of sense. The president of the board for Joliet Area Historical Museum would routinely be at those events, driving clearly intoxicated, with a drink in his hand and a cigarette, driving through the crowd, to the point that he was passed out on a bench after one of these events. Whatever instigated the purge of the thirteen people couldn’t possibly have warranted that kind of action and ruining reputations.
“And to me, to pass the resolutions that are on the board right now, is to tacitly approve the behavior of leadership of Joliet Area Historical Museum. I do not approve their behavior. Thank you.”
“Is there anyone else that would like to speak on an agenda item this evening?” inquired City Clerk Christa Desiderio.
And that’s when Quinn Adamowski came to the podium. In April, he lost in his Joliet City Council race against incumbent Pat Mudron.
“Good evening, Quinn Adamowski, president of the museum and I’m going to disregard the disparaging comments we just heard. I’m not going to talk about staffing tonight because you don’t do that in public. Period. Full stop … we are an independent board. Staff answers to the board. We have a high level board that’s very invested in this organization and we do our oversight of everything that takes place.
“I am curious. We have been asking for months, months, to understand what was going on with the I.G. report and yet a private citizen apparently knows about said I.G. report and has seen it. Can someone please explain to me how someone who is not being investigated knows that this report’s finalized and yet we haven’t even had a chance to look at it, or talk with anybody about it? And that’s how we’re going to do this? After months of the staff’s time being wasted putting together documents based on false charges. It’s just ridiculous.
“This is the third-largest city in the sixth-largest state. We are a non-profit organization. We’ve done yeoman’s work to protect and promote our cultural resources, including the prison, including 1314 Elizabeth, including Dairy Queen. Yes, including and conversation about Gemini Giant … we brought in $10 million in federal and state money. We have mobilized at the prison. I think that what we are doing, speaks for itself. And so, no, I don’t want to engage in public, but I’m not going to have people sit here and come up in a public setting, come to a group, and yes, there is a grant on the agenda for consideration.
“But with respect, we don’t report to you. We’re an independent organization, and if these folks have a problem with the way that we’re acting, that’s fine. They’re entitled to feel that way. But to disparage that organization, my organization, our organization, for what? Those of you who have been involved, know what we are doing. And I’m looking at you guys. We’ve had conversations. Some of you have been on the board. I’m not too concerned with what has been said tonight as it relates to what you each think independently. My concern is, and this has always been my concern since this ridiculous I.G. report thing started, we’re an institution in Joliet that’s leading the way in culture and arts.
“Everytime something like this happens, all we’re doing is hurting ourselves and it doesn’t make any sense. I would challenge everyone in this room to point to something that we’ve done or we haven’t done that has not been high level, that has not brought real pride to this city, with all the, I mean, countless hours of work. And yes, it is true that we did have people volunteering, again I’m not going to get into the reasons why that’s no longer a thing. We brought a Governor’s Hometown Award here for our volunteer activities. We have the respect of state officials. I feel that if we can get the respect there, and we’re doing this wonderful work that other people see that our own hometown and our own elected representatives can see it as well. Thank you.”
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