Today’s must-read
Wednesday, Jan 17, 2024 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Chris Teale at Route Fifty compiles all the reporting and online furor over Thornton Township Supervisor and Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard. A brief excerpt…
But the self-proclaimed “super mayor” is also garnering attention from social media, online forums and local news outlets for her alleged misdeeds. Henyard has been sued for fraud, accused of misusing public funds, and criticized for flaunting the law and frivolous spending, in general. Just before Christmas, TikTok videos of the local lawmaker popped up discussing her latest controversy—a salary ordinance.
Henyard got a measure through the Thornton Township board that would reduce the salary of her potential successor in the event she loses her bid for reelection next year. Henyard, who makes $224,000 a year as township supervisor, drafted legislation that would cut her successor’s salary to just $25,000. If Henyard stays in office, her salary stays the same.
The editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times denounced the move as “about as politically rotten and self-serving as it gets—a bid by elected officials to use tax dollars and the law to chase away political rivals.” Her colleagues on the Board of Trustees criticized the move in the local media, while municipal attorney Burt Odelson, who represents Henyard’s political opponents, called it “illegal in so many ways.”
There’s so much more. Click here.
- Almost the Weekend - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 11:58 am:
This is great reporting and I’m sure this will be spun as a racist hit piece by Henyard’s fiefdom before the EOD.
- vern - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 11:59 am:
This has gotten totally out of hand. Law enforcement agencies at all levels have a duty to stop ongoing, very public crime sprees. The feds, the AG, the CCSAO, and the sheriff all have potential tools to rein it in. One of them needs to step up.
- JS Mill - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 12:03 pm:
Clearly someone who has never read a history book. These people always end up in jail. That is where she is headed, it is just a matter of time.
- Rabid - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 12:06 pm:
Henyard is a good egg, keeping it all in her basket
- The Truth - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 12:16 pm:
I can not wait for the takedown. (And watching the inevitable Netflix movie about Henyard in about five years.)
- Baloneymous - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 12:21 pm:
when I saw those TikTok videos a month ago I assumed it wouldn’t be long before she starts getting in trouble. hopefully the Feds have already been investigating. it’s so blatantly illegal and corrupt at what she’s been doing.
- That Guy - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 12:29 pm:
I’ve never heard of someone passing law to lower their potential replacement’s salary down so drastically from where it stands, WHILE ALSO making it so if they win their election, the salary would remain at its bloated amount.
This is cartoonishly corrupt and greedy.
- Rudy’s teeth - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 12:34 pm:
If Ms. Henyard is a student of history, she might brush up on the exploits of fellow politicians.
A look back into the two Eddies—Burke and Vrdolyak—and their history in Chicago politics reveals a direct path to the Dirksen Federal Building.
Eddie Vrdolyak, a once powerful alderman, lost his law license and was sent to prison not once but twice. His fellow alderman, Eddie Burke is awaiting sentencing on June 19, 2024 on charges of racketeering and extortion.
Let’s not forget about girlfriend Betty Loren-Maltese. Betty’s exploits earned her an eight year sentence in the joint.
Eventually, the gravy train will come to a screeching halt for Ms. Henyard.
- AG - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 12:43 pm:
Prosecuting this type of conduct is a duty of the AG’s office. Hopefully this has begun or is already being passed off to the feds. Blatant corruption is the worst. Not even wink and nod type of conduct taking place here.
- Consider This - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 12:55 pm:
The whole article goes on to describe her as a pandering local politician who makes sure to do things meant solely to keep her constituents happy and unwilling to oppose her.
Not a whole lot different from pandering local politicians that dress up in a sheriff’s costume and publicly state their outright refusal to enforce certain laws passed by their State Legislators. Whatever plays to their base. Seems to work.
- JP Altgeld - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 1:04 pm:
==would cut her successor’s salary to just $25,000.==
How quickly everyone here has turned against a fiscally responsible official. Shameful.
- Southwest Side - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 1:06 pm:
Didn’t Keith Pekau do the same move in orland park? Lower the pay but it stated the same for him until he leaves office ?
- TheInvisibleMan - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 1:12 pm:
—Prosecuting this type of conduct is a duty of the AG’s office.—
Eh, maybe eventually.
If I remember correctly, and anyone jump in and add details if I’ve stated anything wrong, the way the law is set up to work in Illinois is the state AG has to more or less get permission from the local SA in order to initiate even an investigation, much less a prosecution. As that is the jurisdiction where the supposed events have taken place. It’s rare for a SA to along with this setup, and it usually only breaks down once feds get involved.
We had to play this same game in a local township one county over from where this is happening. The local SA, when approached with credible evidence of wrongdoing, simply dismissed all the complaints(some including illegal listening devices in public buildings) and stated that it is ‘up to the local voters to decide the fate of their local politicians’. The SA then did a grand total of nothing about the situation.
Granted, about a year or so later the Feds did come in, and that township supervisor is now sitting in federal prison, for I think another year and a half. It was for a different crime, but the same “I’m invincible and you can’t stop me” attitude was on full display and even came into scope when the judge was setting final sentencing.
There are a lot of mostly invisible roadblocks which exist, which prevent(or even enable) SAs from bringing criminal charges against local politicians before it can even get to the AG. It’s a huge problem.
- OneMan - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 1:17 pm:
When I was a lad, I worked for the Village of Dolton and spent a lot of time there growing up.
So much about what she (and, to a degree, the Shaws) did in that town is beyond mind-boggling. Sh
The idea that the mayor of Dolton would have a protective detail is beyond my comprehension. The trustees (and the mayor in his Hawaiian shirt) would always swing by the outdoor pool I worked at in their cars. If someone even suggested that the mayor needed bodyguards, you would have had people look at you like you needed to be institutionalized. When I was a kid, the Mayor took a pay cut because his Social Security went up.
All that being said, seeing the attention she has attracted on TikTok and all the different ways people pronounce Dolton, think Doll-Ton, and there isn’t an A in there, folks, is entertaining.
I would say I was impressed by the brazenness of it all, but I have friends whose parents still live in town, and the citizens suffer because of all of this. I hope they can get their stuff together when this is all over.
- Frumpy White Guy - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 2:15 pm:
Tiffany Henyard often refers to former Clerk of the Circuit Court Dorothy Brown as her mentor. In fact, Dorothy Brown served as her Chief of Staff in Dolton but was pressured to leave by the reform minded Dolton Trustees.
- cover - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 2:32 pm:
Is it time for the General Assembly to abolish township government entirely?
- Anyone Remember - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 2:40 pm:
The fact Mayor Henyard has gotten this far in plain sight is, once again, proof Illinois has too many units of government. As a first step, perhaps statutorily limiting people to only one elective office at a time?
- Sense of a goose - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 3:02 pm:
The mayor of Chicago makes $221k. A township supervisor salary anywhere near that range is obscene.
- Poll Tax - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 3:15 pm:
She carries the race card and has DEI immunity. Clear for a nolle prosequi if it ever comes to that.
- Gravitas - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 3:58 pm:
Simply appalling. Dolton used to a blue collar working class suburb. Now it is the laughingstock of the South suburbs and saddled with millions in debt thanks to Henyard.
- Just a guy - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 4:56 pm:
Unfortunately, it’s not surprising. It is sad. You have to feel for the residents there who pay into the system with their taxes, and yet when it comes to services…
- G'Kar - Wednesday, Jan 17, 24 @ 7:48 pm:
And Dolton made national news tonight when ABC World News Tonight showed the video of a Dolton police office tazing a 14 year old with autism who turned out not to be the suspect. https://abc7chicago.com/avarius-thompson-dolton-police-department-body-camera-caught-on-video/14331223/