Judge permanently blocks Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard's appointments to key village posts
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Cook County judge has permanently blocked Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard's picks to serve as the village's police chief, administrator, and attorney, after she sought to put them in office without the approval of the village board.
Under Judge Thaddeus Wilson's order, Ronnie Burge Sr. may not serve as Dolton police chief, Michael Smith may not serve as village administrator, and Angela Lockett may not serve as village attorney.
In addition, Henyard cannot name anyone else to those seats without the advice and consent of the village board of trustees.
Wilson had temporarily blocked those three appointments in September, only to later allow Burge and Lockett to serve in their roles on a 30-day interim basis last month.
After Henyard's lawyers failed to file a formal response to trustees' complaint that she was exceeding her authority by appointing people to village positions without approval from the village board, Wilson permanently blocked Burge, Smith, and Lockett from serving in the roles Henyard had appointed them to.
In addition, the judge ruled that Dolton village administrator Keith Freeman, whom Henyard tried to fire earlier this year and replace with Smith, will stay in his job until or unless Henyard follows proper procedure to remove him, or he resigns on his own. The board never approved of Henyard's move to fire Freeman.
Any new appointments Henyard makes to those positions or other official village positions must be approved by the village board.
Henyard is running for re-election next year, despite being under federal investigation, and being embroiled in several ongoing scandals for allegedly embezzling money and targeting political opponents.
Her office was investigated by former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot—revealing the village's general fund had a negative balance of $3.65 million. In a *limited examination of Dolton's finances, Lightfoot found $40,000 spent on Amazon purchases in one day—all of which is unaccounted for.
Voters in Dolton here first head to the polls in February for the primary election. The mayoral general election is in April.
Earlier this week, an ally of Henyard's dropped an attempt to block one of the mayor's opponents from appearing on the ballot.
Meantime, Henyard has filed a lawsuit against the Thornton Township Democratic Party, after losing the party's caucus for her other role as Thornton Township Supervisor. The result of the caucus was that Henyard was denied a place on the ballot for reelection for that office because she did not have a full slate as required.
All township supervisor hopefuls needed all eight people for their slate—supervisor, highway director, clerk, assessor, and four trustees. Henyard did not have a certified assessor on her ticket, and therefore, was deemed not valid to be considered for nomination. However, she has called the caucus process "illegal" and is fighting that ruling in court.