SOUTH HOLLAND, Illinois (CBS) — The Municipality of Thornton Supervisor Tiffany Henyard was the only one to show up for a scheduled board meeting Tuesday night, while others said they were concerned for their own safety.
The most noticeable difference during the Tuesday evening meeting was that everyone entering the township building in South Holland had to go through security.
It is due to a lack of security that the curators chose not to attend on Tuesday evening, leaving Henyard to give her own speech on a variety of topics.
Henyard entered the room and saw an almost empty dining table. She gave the clerk a hug, but all the other seats next to them were empty.
“Due to the fact that we do not have a quorum, there will be no actual voting meeting,” Henyard said.
The reason the curators didn’t show up, they say, is due to meetings that got out of hand.
“It was about to get physical,” Trustee Chris Gonzalez said of a recent meeting.
Gonzalez sat out the meeting Tuesday night after claiming the trustees had not received an answer from Henyard on how to get the meetings done safely.
“I do know that the trustee also sent a message to the state basically asking for help,” he said, “saying, ‘Hey, we need some help here because this is getting out of hand, and you know you, someone is going to get hurt. ”
Henyard said she values safety.
“Anyone who knows me personally knows that safety is my top priority,” Henyard said.
Henyard said administrators insisted on holding meetings in the basement overflow room. She said she wanted the meeting at the Thornton Township Board Chambers, where she sat alone Tuesday evening.
‘We called our security company. We made sure they had wands,” she said, “and we also told our board to come upstairs because there were different ways they could get out of the building.”
Henyard also suggested this was all a stall tactic by the board.
“To say it’s a caper,” Gonzalez said. “Well, let’s sit down and put something together – a safety plan – and go from there. But again, there’s no communication.”
One trustee did communicate with Henyard and the clerk. Trustee Jerry Jones suddenly resigned, according to Henyard.
“I, the board and also the clerk – we will talk about our steps forward in filling the vacancy that will soon be created,” Henyard said.
With no official business to attend to, Henyard took the time to speak about the massive surplus she believes exists in the township.
“There’s a surplus here in Thornton County of about nine point, something million dollars,” she said.
Henyard added that $2 million is available to help 25,000 homeowners with their property tax filings.
As for Jones’ sudden resignation, the reason was unclear late Tuesday. Jones was the senior trustee on the board.
Henyard is also mayor of Dolton, where a controversy has raged around her for some time.
Last month,a judge has put a stop to it to Henyard’s plans to appoint new Dolton village leaders himself, in an order granted Wednesday. Cook County Judge Thaddeus Wilson’s order included an injunction prohibiting Henyard from making appointments without the approval of the village board, and a restraining order prohibiting any of her appointees from taking office.
Henyard had appointed a new village manager, a village attorney and a police chief, none of whom can take office now that the ruling is in effect.
All this followed former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot He came in as a special investigator in Dolton and revealed that the village’s general fund was a negative balance of $3.65 million. That was after a limited investigation of Dolton’s finances.
Lightfoot was originally hired by trustees concerned about Henyard’s spending. The allegations regarding Henyard’s expenses include taxpayer-funded billboards, advertisements and spending on lavish dinners and outings.
Lightfoot found that $40,000 was spent on Amazon purchases in one day. This money is not registered.
But former Mayor Lightfoot isn’t the only one investigating. The FBI is also investigating at Dolton Village Hall – without explaining who is being investigated.
Jermont Terry
