Tiffany Henyard, the mayor of a small Illinois town, has always exuded a certain kind of swagger while in office.
But citizens now accuse the Thornton Township Supervisor and Dolton Mayor of crossing the line from looking like a gangster to acting like one.
“People look at politics like a joke, it’s like a mockery right now because of all this stuff,” Village of Dolton Trustee Kiana Belcher said at a public meeting. “She comes to board meetings dressed like Nino Brown.”
“During official meetings, Tiffany Henyard is seen dressed as the movie gangster Nino Brown from ‘New Jack City’,” reported Unlimited Ls on X.
“She even brought a DJ to play Rihanna’s ‘B***h Better Have My Money’,” the account noted. “One resident, Lawrence Gardner, claimed she forced the closure of his trucking business after he refused to renew a $3,500 contribution to her political fund.”
“I made the payment,” he said. “Then every year she started coming and required the same thing, and we had a problem about that.”
Gardner said that his failure to give out additional cash resulted in fraudulent claims of alcohol sales and the termination of his company license.
“What is she, Nino Brown?” he said. “Anything she wants done, she gets them to harass you. She likes nobody. If you are not doing what she say, if you are not doing how she’s saying to do it, you are a problem. She don’t like them.”
Former Dolton Mayor Riley Rogers, who lost to Henyard in 2021, expressed worry about town financed in addition to Heyward’s attitude. The community is now an estimated $6 million in debt.
“Some people take it as being glamorous by having a bunch of police officers around you and being escorted and being driven around,” Rogers said. “I never had a security detail as mayor.”
“I tried to stay away from the money,” he said. “It’s not your money so you can’t use it like it’s your piggy bank.”
Sherry Britton, 55, a village resident, expressed regret about her vote for Henyard.
“It was a vote that I regret,” she said. “Please put that in there! It was a vote that I regret deeply. When she got into office, she just shut everyone out and she went into the opposite direction. She became this tyrant and dictator.”
“It seems like her aspirations and goals are for her to be a reality star,” she said. “She didn’t [previously] wear all that make up. She just now thinks she’s this reality star. I don’t know this for sure but they say she is filming a reality show, because the cameras are always with her.”
Henyard has frequently defended herself by pointing out her race.
“You all should be ashamed of yourselves because you all are black. You all are black! And you all sitting up here beating and attacking a black woman that’s in power,” she said at a Feb. 5 meeting
A resident, whose name was not used by the New York Post, compared the community to Venezuela.
“It’s Venezuela. Isn’t that what they are doing out there with [President Nicolás] Maduro? His face is all over, like ‘I’m the dictator,’” a 66-year-old Dolton resident said.
“It’s like a dictator. There is no call for it. I’ve never seen a town that’s more screwed up under her, and I’ve seen 20 years of this malarkey. She’s … power-hungry. She doesn’t care how much she bleeds an area out of resources. It’s her life and that’s it,” the resident said.
Thornton Township residents have also accused Tiffany Henyard and other officials of shutting them out of public meetings, according to Fox 32.
“When I arrived there was security here,” said Stephanie Wiedeman, a former township employee . “He was standing at the bottom of the stairs preventing anybody from going up to the boardroom. I asked him if the meeting was downstairs, he replied yes.”
After being barred from entering the boardroom upstairs, the people were sent to the basement, where they were informed that the township board meeting would be place. It was not. They claim they requested a registration form for public feedback but never received it. And before they knew it, the four-minute meeting upstairs had ended, and Henyard had left without hearing from her constituents.
“They are violating our rights,” said Wiedeman. “I pay taxes here. I have a right to get up and speak whether this administration likes it or not.”
The New York Post reports accusations that Henyard has used the police to intimidate and harass her political enemies.
“She has come under scrutiny in recent weeks for a laundry list of antics, including accusations of blowing thousands in public funds on luxury travel and dining, turning local police into both her personal bodyguards and backup dancers for music videos, and hiring DJs for town meetings — all while the village falls $5 million into debt,” the Post notes.
“This town, the people have to watch. A lot of these people are scared because this police department is militaristic right now with her in it,” he said, declining to give his name to the Post over fears of retribution.
As reported by Ballotpedia, Tiffany Henyard, a Democrat, was elected in 2021. A recall to remove her in 2022 was unsuccessful because the findings that would have removed her were declared to be illegitimate.
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