A former McHenry Township trustee is asking Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to look deeper into claims that state Sen. Napoleon Harris does not live in Thornton Township, where he is supervisor.
Bob Anderson, 89, says he is passionate about restoring people’s faith in their leaders through ethics reform, after working for nearly 60 years as a barber in Wonder Lake. He said working taxation and representation into conversations with his clients, he heard that many of them felt powerless to stop the corruption they believed to be rampant within many levels of government.
“I started talking to people, and they’d be so frustrated,” he said. “It takes a lot of time and effort, and it takes guts to do this.”
Anderson said he recently learned about challenges to Harris’ candidacy for Thornton Township supervisor and township committeeperson brought last year by allies of former Supervisor Tiffany Henyard, Keith Price and Michael Smith.
Harris won the party seat for Thornton Township supervisor during a caucus he presided over last year in his role as the township’s Democratic committeeman, beating out Henyard. Smith and Price stated Harris lived at an address in Flossmoor within Bloom Township, which is listed as Harris’ address on the Illinois State Board of Elections’ website, rather than in Harvey, as Harris has claimed.
They brought the same objection again when Harris faced former Thornton Township Trustee Stephanie Wiedeman in a race for Democratic committeeman, along with another claim that Harris’ nominating petition for the March 17, 2026, primary included eight pages of duplicate signatures.
Wiedeman says she split with Harris politically after he pulled levers at the state level to continue collecting a $202,000 salary as supervisor, despite an ordinance meant to reset the salary to $57,000. She said Smith and Price ultimately dropped their objections after feeling “the decision was already made” by county officials, but she supports any efforts to continue looking into Harris’ residency.
“I’m happy that somebody is pursuing this,” Wiedeman said. “I don’t think it’s fair that our tax money is taken and spent elsewhere. I think we deserve better than that.”
The former trustee expressed frustrations that other township trustees, along with those at the county and state level, have in her mind turned a blind eye to concerns about Harris’ salary and residency.
“Everybody’s hands is dirty, so nobody wants to say anything because the fingers are going to point back at them at some point,” Wiedeman said.
“These are people I believed in. I supported them, I walked for them, I campaigned for them, I made phone calls for them,” she said. “I gave up time away from my family for these people. So when things like this come up and they’re not willing to stand up for what’s right, it is really disappointing.”
State Rep. Suzanne Ness, D-East Dundee, expressed similar concerns that legislation she introduced to prevent elected officials from holding more than one office at once was “a nonstarter” in Springfield.
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The legislation would directly affect Harris and many other south suburban leaders, such as Thaddeus Jones, who is both a state representative and mayor of Calumet City. Anderson said he was passionate about the measure as well to prevent officials from “double dipping.”
“The practice of holding two elected positions at the same time, especially the ones that receive salaries, I think it just erodes public trust and is just not a good thing for us to do,” Ness said.
She said she gave up her seat on the McHenry County Board after being elected as representative in 2020.
“People were like, ‘oh, are you going to keep your seat?’ I was like, well no, why would I do that?”
Anderson sent certified letters asking for Harris’ removal as township supervisor to the Cook County state’s attorney and Illinois governor’s offices, among others.
“It’s inconceivable that a public official would file, what appears to be, incorrect residency information; one more reason for the public to have mistrust of their elected officials and government,” the letter states.
A spokesperson for Harris did not respond to requests for comment.