This is local news but you may not have heard of it. At WGN Jenna Barnes reports:
DOLTON, Ill. — Mayor Tiffany Henyard’s grip on the reins of Dolton is loosening after the village’s board of trustees voted to freeze spending on village credit cards Monday night.
“That was the main goal — To cut off her access and other operators in the municipality,” said Burt Odelson, one of the attorneys representing the Village of Dolton’s Board of Trustees.
According to attorneys representing Dolton’s trustees, moving forward, expenses on village credit cards will be limited to those approved by the board for the village’s Director of Administrative Services to make.
“This village has so many people with so many credit cards, they’re swiping like crazy and that’s why it had to come to a complete halt,” said Michael McGrath, another attorney representing Dolton’s trustees. “There’s thousands and thousands of dollars for Amazon purchases, for PayPal, for Target, for Walgreen’s, for Jewel [Osco] in the hundreds and thousands of dollars.”
McGrath said that a snapshot of just five-to-six months of spending was revealed in the last couple of weeks by Henyard’s top aide, Keith Freeman, who is now cooperating with the village’s board of trustees.
Freeman has pleaded not guilty to a federal bankruptcy fraud charge and is considered by some trustees to be a potential whistleblower.
At present this is our favorite soap opera. We can hardly wait to tune in to WGN News at 9 to learn the latest development.
I think that black voters expect a certain amount of corruption in government but there is a level of blatant corruption that is simply too much and the people of Dolton have apparently reached it. Dolton is a small town of about 20,000 people, 20% of whom are in poverty. Its population is 90% black. The town is starting to sell off assets to pay its bills.
Update
We can’t wait for the next installment. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will present her findings on the situation with Dolton’s government today.
Watching small town politics always worth while entertainment.
Locally, after the city manager took a trip to the Bermuda on the city, the council get off his travel budget, which lead to the Race card being played countered by a years pay in advance and the door is thataway.
The difference between Dolton and Washington, DC is one of scale—a couple of orders of magnitude.
A couple of smaller towns and a larger one have gone through what sounds like similar issues in the last 20 years. My favorite was when someone finally figured out that they gave the police union a contract that allowed them to retire at about 200% of their normal pay with very generous COLA added on.
Steve