Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard appears to be using preliminary vote counts from last week’s election to unleash a fresh round of attacks on her political foes.
A spectacle that unfolded at a Dolton Village Board meeting Monday night seemed surreal. A DJ blared loud music as Henyard entered dressed as Nino Brown, a drug kingpin character portrayed by Wesley Snipes in the 1991 film, “New Jack City.”
Henyard dressed in black leather and carried a stuffed dog to mimic a scene in which the head of a criminal enterprise intimidates, torments and physically assaults an underling.
“What happened?” Nino says during an iconic scene. “Huh? Don’t nobody know nuthin’?”
The mayor devoted at least an hour of a nearly three-hour public meeting on purely political purposes. She presented awards to village attorney Michael Del Galdo and Trustee Andrew Holmes, two of her supporters.
She turned the floor over to Stanley Brown and Joslyn King, Henyard supporters who ran in the Feb. 28 primary election. Brown and Holmes were two of nine candidates on ballots. They appeared to be the top vote-getters for two of the three available seats, preliminary results showed.
Incumbent Trustee Tammie Brown, a Henyard opponent, appeared to also keep her seat. But Henyard declared King received more write-in votes, though no write-in tallies have been officially announced.
Stan Brown and King were allowed several minutes each to address the audience at the start of the meeting, whereas public comment was at the end of the meeting. It would be inappropriate to call either a trustee-elect, since voters won’t decide the race until the April 4 consolidated election.
Henyard nonetheless declared they would be sworn in May 1 and end the gridlock that has politically paralyzed the village since Henyard was elected mayor in 2021. Five of the six trustees and the village clerk have battled Henyard in courts of law and in the court of public opinion over hiring, spending, transparency and accountability concerns.
Trustee Edward Steave appeared to lose his bid for another term. If Stan Brown replaces Steave on the board, trustees at odds with Henyard would maintain a 4-2 majority. If King turns out to have received more votes than Tammie Brown, Henyard might cast deciding votes if the board is split 3-3.
The Cook County clerk’s office did not immediately respond Tuesday to inquiries about when vote tallies for King would be available.
Tammie Brown made a public statement Monday denying allegations in campaign literature that circulated during the primary election.
“It is important to rely on factual information and credible sources before making any accusations,” she said. “As many of you know, me and my fellow trustees have been diligently dealing with this reckless and sheer irresponsible behavior.”
“My vote is not for sale,” she said.
Trustees in the majority have publicly accused Henyard of courting favor with voters by hiring friends and loyal supporters to work for the village and for Thornton Township, where Henyard was appointed to a $277,000-a-year job after former Supervisor Frank Zuccarelli died.
Henyard opponents have challenged the residency of King and Holmes, saying neither live in the village.
“First and foremost, I do live here in Dolton,” said King, 26, who works as an administrative assistant for Thornton Township.
Holmes blasted rivals who sought to verify his residency by visiting his 89-year-old mother’s home.
“My mother has (high) blood pressure,” Holmes said. “She don’t need nobody knocking on her door sending papers there, ‘Do your son stay here?’ I stay here in Dolton. Whether I rent, own or share with somebody, it’s not your responsibility.”
Dirty politics are nothing new in Dolton. However, Henyard’s pageantry has taken things to a new level. As Steave congratulated winners and talked about his upcoming charity walk to benefit people affected by multiple sclerosis, Henyard’s DJ began playing music to drown him out.
“Turn the music off,” a woman in the audience said. “That’s so disrespectful.”
“Please keep it down in the audience,” police Chief Robert Collins bellowed from the dais. “We’re not going to have that tonight.”
Trustees and the mayor and her supporters continued bickering and posturing over paying bills. Trustee Jason House moved to pay bills except for various vendors who provided services that trustees claimed were unauthorized. They included $188,035 to Del Galdo’s law firm and $32,924 to the firm of Bob Fioretti, an attorney who represented Henyard in a legal fight over last year’s recall election.
Henyard’s campaign, rather than taxpayers, would seem to bear responsibility for paying her lawyers. A majority of voters recalled Henyard, but a court eventually ruled the recall election was invalid. Trustees have supported paying the firm of attorney Burt Odelson for serving as legislative counsel to trustees.
“They want to pay their attorney for illegal recalls but won’t pay for the people.,” Henyard said. “That’s the problem.”
Henyard then directed her DJ to play a snippet of the song, “Bitch Better Have My Money,” by Rihanna, this year’s Super Bowl halftime performer. Rihanna’s music and lyrics filled the room and paused the public meeting.
“Pay me what you owe me, don’t act like you forgot,” Rihanna sang.
Bizarre scenes of political performance theater continued to play out. Trustees have accused Henyard of running up a $4.5 million deficit with reckless spending on programs and events that are popular with residents, such as building an ice rink, removing trees and fixing sidewalks.
Trustees have said they never approved the expenditures and sued to remove Henyard as an authorized signer of checks and payments issued by the village.
“Every time we went to court the judge looked at the facts that we presented, that our attorney and their attorney presented, and took her off the bank account,” Steave said.
The ice rink and other programs were luxuries the village could not afford, he said.
“We never spent any money from the village on the ice rink,” Henyard said.
“That’s not true,” Steave said. Numerous contractors removed from the warrants list appeared to be for work related to the ice rink. Henyard and her supporters claimed the village received a grant to fund the project.
Ultimately, the board voted 5-1 to pay bills minus the disputed vendors. No payments were approved for legal services, and Henyard’s proposal to fire Odelson’s firm as legislative counsel died for lack of a second.
“It’s all a power grab,” Henyard said. “Trustee House wants to be mayor, which he will never be.”
Ted Slowik is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.
