Lori Lightfoot hired to investigate embattled Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been hired to lead an investigation into embattled Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard, at the price of $400 an hour.

Lightfoot was appointed Monday evening by the Village’s Board of Trustees to serve as a special investigator, looking into “misappropriation and misspending,” by the south suburban mayor’s office over the past two years.

But lawyers for the suburb claim the board lacks the authority to make such appointments, and it is expected the mayor’s office will veto the hiring.

Lightfoot was greeted by a round of applause and cheering at Monday’s meeting, telling the crowd their large turnout was an indication that “people in this village want something different, they want to go in a different direction.”

“The residents of Dolton deserve nothing less than a government that is fully accountable, responsive, transparent, and effective stewards of your precious tax dollars,” Lightfoot said while addressing the crowd Monday.

The board has tasked Lightfoot with investigating a May 2023 trip to Las Vegas by Henyard and other village employees, as well as Henyard’s allocations of federal relief funds through the American Rescue Plan Act, the hiring of contractors and making payments to vendors without approval, and paying village prosecutor Michael Del Galdo over $900,000 over the past two years.

Ahead of Monday’s meeting, Del Galdo sent a letter threatening to sue the board if they moved to hire Lightfoot as a “legislative counsel,” so the board changed her title to “special investigator.”

In the letter, Del Galdo argued hiring Lightfoot would “violate the Village Code as well as the Illinois Municipal Code and established case law,” and said they will not pay any bills from this “improper appointment.”

“If the trustees’ main motivation was to get media attention, the former mayor of Chicago was their perfect choice,” Del Galdo wrote in a statement Tuesday. “The only surprising part of this is that Ms. Lightfoot agreed to be part of this circus.”

Henyard and two trustees were absent from Monday’s special board meeting.

Lightfoot’s work was set to begin Tuesday at a rate of $400 an hour. As part of the hiring agreement, she will be required to provide the board with a summary of the investigation once she reaches $30,000 in payments.

Lightfoot has been hired to “find facts” which will then be turned over to the proper authorities, working on behalf of the board, not any law enforcement agency.

The work will require cooperation from the mayor’s office, which audience members suggested will be a challenge, noting failed attempts from residents to obtain information from the office through the Freedom of Information Act.

“I am expecting that there will be some roadblocks but ultimately I’m expecting we will get the information that is needed to be able to understand the breadth of what’s been going on,” Lightfoot said in response.

Lightfoot said she hopes Henyard and her administration fully cooperate with the investigation but “should they not, we are prepared to do what is necessary to get to the facts.”

Henyard is likely to veto Lightfoot’s appointment, but trustees say they have the majority to override that veto.

Before the vote on Lightfoot’s appointment, trustees voted Monday to override Henyard’s veto of their resolution calling for an outside investigation into her spending.