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
Comments
Post a Comment