Board votes to remove member
The Dolton Elementary School District 149 Board voted Monday to remove a board member after he used a list of district vendors to solicit campaign donations on behalf of candidates running for board seats, according to the district.
The action came at a special board meeting and targets Wilbur Tillman, who has been on the board since 2015.
The unanimous board vote, with Tillman abstaining, recommends to the South Cook Intermediate Service Center, which oversees 66 public school districts in the region under the Illinois school code, that it initiate the process to formally remove Tillman, according to the district.
“This is the first step, this is not the end” of the process, David Ormsby, spokesman for the district, said
Wednesday.
At the meeting, Tillman said he had not deposited any of the checks received and would return them to vendors, according to the district.
The district announced the vote in a news release Wednesday, and Tillman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tillman is not up for reelection April 6, but was soliciting contributions for a group of candidates, according to the district, which serves students from Calumet City and Dolton.
The Feb. 19 letter from Tillman to district vendors, a copy of which was provided to the Daily Southtown, states that he has made accomplishments during his time on the board, but that “I cannot continue the work that I have set out to do without your help.”
He asks that vendors make checks payable to “Friends & Resi
dents of 149 and be sent to a post office box number in Calumet City.
A Facebook page for Friends & Residents of 149 is promoting the candidacies of Mercedes Francisco, Teresa Jemine and Timothy Meakens for the school board.
They are vying for seats against incumbents Lolita Crisler-Liggons, Pamela Eldridge and Bertha Jolly.
At a special board meeting March 8, members had voted to hire a law firm, Montana & Welch, to investigate, and the firm determined Tillman had violated district policy, according to the district.
The investigation found that Tillman had “violated the policy of prohibiting the use or direction of district resources and personnel for the purposes of political campaign activity,” Ormsby said.