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Joliet City Councilman Resigns After Scandal

 


John Raspante

    Over the past few weeks, the WAM 3 Communicator has covered the scandal surrounding Joliet City Councilman Don “Duck” Dickinson. Dickinson filed a police report accusing Joliet Mayor Bob O’Dekirk of blackmail over nude photos that Dickinson had sent to another consenting adult. O’Dekirk has repeatedly denied the allegations and accused Dickinson of filing a false police report. (For full coverage on that story, go here.)

    After weeks of the growing controversy, Dickinson announced on Friday, November 20 that he is resigning from the Joliet City Council. The resignation was effective immediately, and Dickinson issued a formal letter of resignation to the city clerk just yesterday, November 23. Dickinson said in a statement that he is looking forward to returning to living a private life and spending more time with his children and grandchildren.

    Before his resignation, Dickinson seemingly cut himself off from other city officials. He has not attended any of the weekly city council meetings since November 2, which is the day he made his statement about being a subject of harassment and blackmail. Additionally, Dickinson wasn’t available for comment from any news outlets before he resigned and even changed his cellphone number.

    Due to this opening on the city council, Mayor Bob O’Dekirk is set to instate an appointment to fill the vacant seat in a meeting next week. According to Joliet city code, the mayor must appoint a person to fill the council seat within sixty days of the seat becoming vacant. The appointee must then be approved by the city council.

    O’Dekirk stated that he is unlikely to choose an appointee from the pool of over twenty people who have already taken out petitions to run for three open at-large seats on the council. It’s unclear who O’Dekirk plans to appoint at the time of this writing. 

Image courtesy of Shaw Media



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