John Sheridan, President Of Joliet's Cunningham Neighborhood Association, 'Told Me To Have Courage': D'Arcy

JOLIET, IL — John Sheridan, the long-time and often outspoken Joliet Cunningham Neighborhood Association president, who played a leading role in helping Terry D'Arcy defeat two-term Mayor Bob O'Dekirk in April 2023, died Wednesday night following a lengthy battle against cancer. He was in his 70s.

Close friends of Sheridan informed Joliet Patch that he passed away at his home.

"He was loved and will be missed. I will definitely miss him," remarked dear friend Jim Lanham.

During Thursday morning's phone interview, Mayor D'Arcy told Joliet Patch that Sheridan's passing will be a huge loss for the entire city, especially the Cunningham Neighborhood where Sheridan lived and had an influential role in keeping the residents active and enthused about their properties, public safety and quality of life.

D'Arcy said that Sheridan often went against the grain and offered suggestions and ideas that were not always popular at City Hall, but to Sheridan's credit, "he did his homework. Even if his views were against you, he did it with tremendous respect if he disagreed with you. I saw his wisdom because he was a very critical thinker. John told me to have to courage when I ran for mayor and he thought with his heart.

"It's a tremendous loss for the community," D'Arcy stressed. "His wisdom will be a loss, and he helped me a lot and he was great for the community and in particular the residents of the Cunningham Neighborhood. His thoughts were always in the best interests of the city."

Joliet Patch produced multiple stories on Sheridan over the past several years including one that may be his legacy: his efforts to install term limits on the Joliet City Council.

He made his last major presentation on the topic of term limits in the spring of 2025.

Here's a recap of several major Joliet Patch stories involving Sheridan having a major role in them:

March 2025:

Joliet Needs Term Limits On City Council: John Sheridan Explains Why

With three open seats on the Joliet City Council up for grabs in the April 1, 2025 municipal elections, Sheridan, president of Joliet's Cunningham Neighborhood Council, made an appearance to implore Joliet to follow the lead of several other Illinois communities by enacting term limits for the city's elected officials.

"I'm here tonight to start a discussion amongst the Council and the voters of Joliet," Sheridan said. "I'm going to talk about term limits. There seems to be a tidal wave going across America to put term limits on elected officials. The number one issue with overwhelming support from the American people across all political party lines is term limits."

Sheridan said he conducted a poll more than a month ago and received about 300 responses about term limits, "and about 90 percent were in favor of term limits," Sheridan shared. "Concentrating on our local elections, of the three at-large seats for City Council, now is the time to vote for candidates that endorse the concept of term limits. There are seven candidates that are currently running for the three seats at large. The voters of Joliet need to have them commit to putting in term limits for the Council seats, or chance not getting elected on April 1st."

October 2024:

Pedophiles On The Move? Joliet Funds New Cunningham Neighborhood Park

The Joliet City Council voted unanimously to spend about $100,000 to finally build a neighborhood park near the site of the two-story apartment building at 1000 Cora that is known by some as "the pedophile palace."

Back in 2022, the previous Joliet city administration of Jim Capparelli purchased the corner lot at 1000 North Center Street in hopes of building a playground here. City officials contended that opening a public park would drive away the out-of-town company that provides rental housing at 1000 Cora Street to several convicted sex offenders who have served out their prison terms.

However, back in 2022 and 2023, city officials never finished the park project, and the sex offenders are now in their third year in Joliet's Cunningham neighborhood.

During the summer of 2022 interview, Sheridan, president of Joliet's Cunningham Neighborhood, said that these days, there's an enormous amount of neighborhood pride in his area.

More and more new people moving into the older neighborhood are fixing up their homes and remodeling them, taking steps to improve the overall quality of life.

For Cunningham's residents of all ages, races and ethnic backgrounds, NewDay Apartments is considered a tremendous detriment to the neighborhood, Sheridan said.

Joliet Patch asked if Sheridan anticipates the child sexual predator apartment building will be gone from his neighborhood, never to resurface.

"It won't be quick," Sheridan answered. "It's going to take some time."

Sheridan fears it is only a matter of time before one of the five men staying at 1000 Cora St. preys upon an unsuspecting Joliet child.

"When they have the urge, what are you going to do?" Sheridan asked.

October 2023:

'Joliet Does Not Want To Become A Sanctuary City, Period': Sheridan

Downtown Joliet's Peter Claver Center at 172 S. Chicago St. is one of the key locations listed in Joliet Township Supervisor Angel Contreras' grant application to bring asylum seekers from other countries to Joliet, documents obtained by Joliet Patch reveal. Patch reported that Contreras would talk more about his plans of bringing an influx of immigrants to Joliet now that he has been awarded a grant of $8.6 million from Gov. JB Pritzker, at the Joliet Township Government meeting. The meeting has been moved to the Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park & Theatre, 201 W. Jefferson St.

"It holds 350 people, and that place needs to be standing room-only Tuesday night," Cunningham Neighborhood President John Sheridan told Joliet Patch. "The reason people should come is to let the Township officials understand that Joliet does not want to become a Sanctuary City, period. This will in fact raise your taxes, especially from the Township government.

"The Township government works for us, and they should not be buying up all these empty buildings with taxpayers' money and without the taxpayer's permission. The irony of it all is that if you talk to someone who supports this grant and ask them if they would be willing to use their extra bedroom to house a family, the answer has been 'No' with all kinds of excuses. Then I said would you be willing to throw a couple of bucks into the kitty to help them and the answer varies, but no one would donate their money."

According to Sheridan, "I had my Cunningham Neighborhood Council meeting on October 4th and this proposal from the Joliet Township did not get a warm welcome. People were very upset that the needs of the Joliet resident are not being met, yet the Township wants to help people that have invaded our borders while the Biden administration has done nothing to stop it."

February 2023:

Sheridan Draws Tremendous Crowd To D'Arcy's Town Hall

A crowd of roughly 160 to 180 area residents packed into the Stone City VFW on Route 53 for D'Arcy's first "Town Hall with Terry" as part of his campaign in hopes of defeating O'Dekirk in the April 4, 2023 elections. Sheridan served as the event's master of ceremonies. At the two-hour event, D'Arcy revealed plans to tap into his personal friendship with legendary NFL and Major League Baseball star, Bo Jackson, in hopes of drawing more tourism dollars to the city.

"So, Bo and I have been talking about, you know he told me I was a little crazy to run for mayor, but I said, 'Bo, I want to do some work here in the city, one last thing.' And he and I were talking about what he's been doing with his company, Bo Jackson Elite Sports.

"So the newest thing that Bo's been doing with his team, they're developing what they call tournament centers. And he's got some of them around the country right now ... they take the domes. There's one coming out of Rosemont ... they're doing 130,000 square-foot Bo Domes and on a 30 to 40 acre campus, they're including hotels, restaurants and ways for families to pull in."

October 2019:

Sheridan To Steve Jones: 'The Mayor Is Out Of Control'

The city of Joliet has publicly released all emails exchanged between Joliet resident John Sheridan and Interim Joliet City Manager Steve Jones during the past six months. In the communications, the president of Joliet's Cunningham Neighborhood Association expressed a new sense of admiration for Jones and he says he also wants to take a lie-detector test.

Additionally, Sheridan made it clear that he views Joliet Mayor Bob O'Dekirk as a "big bully." Moreover, Sheridan informed Jones that his confidential source related to the Kendall County State's Attorney's Office's secret criminal subpoena "did not come from City Hall."

"I'm well-connected in the community, including Kendall County," Sheridan wrote. "I have many people feeding me information because the Mayor is out of control ... I'm not indebted to no one."

Later in his email to Jones, Sheridan reflected on Mayor O'Dekirk's ongoing performance, saying, "There are people in power that want him gone."

At the last council meeting, Sheridan spoke during the public comment section and informed the city and the mayor that he had inside knowledge concerning the widening of the criminal investigation of former Joliet Police officer Brian Nagra, who faces five criminal charges.

That night, Sheridan suggested that Mayor Bob O'Dekirk and City of Joliet Inspector General Chris Regis had worked out a shady deal that allowed Nagra to remain on the city's payroll for many months so Nagra could reach his 20-year service date with the city.

In the summer of 2018, city officials first suspected that Nagra was falsifying his payroll records to inflate his overtime pay. In spite of that, Nagra remained on regular active duty patrol until January when Police Chief Al Roechner fired him. However, Nagra appealed his firing and the city let him remain on the payroll for another seven months; Joliet never presented its evidence at a hearing before the city's police and fire commission to justify why Nagra was being canned.

Finally in early July, Nagra submitted notice of his retirement. A couple weeks later, once he had parted ways with the city on his own terms, Nagra was formally charged in Kendall County with five felony crimes related to public misconduct and theft from the city of Joliet.

Sheridan grew up in Joliet and is retired from the Caterpillar plant. He was a regular at council meetings and often speaks his mind at the podium. Sheridan was a strong proponent of City Councilman Pat Mudron and the Mudron 5's decision to remove Marty Shanahan as interim city manager back in June of 2019.