A feud between two Calumet City elected officials has shifted to the courtroom with City Clerk Nyota Figgs suing Mayor Thaddeus Jones for allegedly stripping her of official duties and the city suing the clerk for allegedly destroying public records.
Meanwhile, the city library has reopened amid concerns the mayor is politicizing the public asset to exert influence over hiring and contracts.
A curious line from the city’s complaint against Figgs caught my attention. The city filed the lawsuit Oct. 29 in Cook County Circuit Court. The introduction notes that voters elected Jones in April.
“The city’s voters also reelected incumbent city clerk Nyota Figgs, who was a holdover from the past administration,” according to the lawsuit. Figgs has been clerk since 2011.
Jones publicly clashed with his predecessor, Michelle Markiewicz Qualkinbush, whom he defeated in the February Democratic primary to boot her from the mayor’s job after 18 years.
Jones, a former alderman, disliked how Markiewicz Qualkinbush and her allies tried to render him ineligible to run for city office by persuading voters to approve a referendum that banned city officials from also being state lawmakers. The Illinois Supreme Court, however, ruled Jones was eligible to hold both posts.
Jones is a double-dipper who has been a state representative since 2011. Collecting a state legislator’s $67,836 annual salary is all well and good, but lawmakers have little power over jobs and contracts the way mayors, township supervisors and other elected officials do.
The Southland’s many small municipalities can be havens for patronage, with elected officials appointing administrators in charge of hiring and firing workers who feed at the public trough. As long as a few competent public servants keep the ship afloat, departments can pad payrolls with friends and loyal supporters of the political boss.
Such context is helpful for understanding the dynamic in Calumet City. One may be tempted to think government is like the private sector, where new bosses can push workers out the door and bring in their own people. But government does not operate like an episode of “The Apprentice.”
Voters elected Figgs in April, just as they elected her in 2017 and 2013. She received more votes than the mayor in April. Perhaps Jones views her popularity as a political threat. That’s what makes the line about Figgs being a holdover from the previous administration so curious.
She’s a fellow elected official, not a subordinate. Calumet City voters can “fire” her, but the mayor can’t. The complaint, however, sounds like Jones is doing all he can to make life miserable for Figgs and smear her reputation in the eyes of voters.
In the lawsuit Figgs filed against Jones Oct. 13, she accused the mayor of stripping her of statutorily directed duties. Figgs in July publicly accused the mayor of bullying and creating a hostile workplace. The 34-page complaint described how Jones allegedly has tried to block Figgs from doing her job.
“By late June, Mayor Jones’ behavior toward me was so hostile that I felt I could not work in my office, and I had to start working in the park across the street to fulfill my duties,” Figgs said in an affidavit submitted as part of the lawsuit.
According to the complaint, Jones began giving Figgs grief in June when the clerk notified the mayor that he allegedly was improperly assembling the city council for special meetings without the 48-hour public notice required by the Illinois Open Meetings Act.
Jones allegedly did not take the criticism well, according to the complaint. He responded by transferring the task of creating and posting meeting agendas to the mayor’s office from the clerk’s.
Jones lacked authority to make the change because the Calumet City Municipal Code empowers the clerk to handle the task, and the code may only be amended only by a majority vote of the city council, which has not occurred, according to the complaint.
The conflict escalated, according to the lawsuit. Jones allegedly retaliated against Figgs’ protests by taking away her statutory duties to issue business licenses, animal licenses and residential parking permits.
Figgs asserted that state and local laws gave her authority to keep public records and she balked when Jones sought unfettered access to files in her office, according to the complaint.
Figgs eventually lost ability to manage her office employees when the mayor appointed Dolton Park Board member Cleo Jones to a $60,000-a-year job as manager of the city clerk’s office, according to the complaint.
The mayor’s actions prevented Figgs from fulfilling official duties such as maintaining records, managing her office’s budget and securing money paid for permits and licenses to the clerk, who also serves as city collector, according to the complaint.
“On Sept. 3, 2021, I discovered that money was being spent out of my budget without my approval,” Figgs said in the affidavit. “I believe I may remain liable for all outstanding bills as the city clerk.”
Figgs retained her own attorney and is covering legal costs at her own expense, but Calumet City taxpayers are footing the bill for attorneys in the city’s suit against Figgs for alleged destruction of public records.
The city’s suit claims Figgs was directed to preserve city records in June when the city hired auditor Alyssia Benford to conduct a forensic audit. Benford, of Bolingbrook, is a former DuPage Township trustee who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican in 2018 against state Rep. Natalie Manley, D-Joliet.
The city claims Figgs violated the directive Aug. 10-11 when she ordered a contractor to shred two truckloads’ worth of city records.
“This action was undertaken to destroy evidence of wrongdoing by the previous administration,” the city claimed in its lawsuit. The contractor billed the city $1,400 for the service, according to the lawsuit.
Since becoming mayor, Jones has tried to present himself as someone who is rooting out waste and corruption from city government. Critics say he’s simply giving jobs to cronies, such as a $5,000 monthly consulting fee awarded to state Rep. Rita Mayfield, D-Gurnee.
Jones faced criticism for abruptly shuttering the city’s public library Oct. 8. Jones alleged employees were misusing funds, but a former library trustee said he saw no evidence of financial mismanagement.
Jones did not like when I asked him about the library in front of U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Matteson, when she visited Calumet City to announce a grant for the city’s fire department.
“Don’t you ever ask a question like that again,” Jones told me at the time.
I figured Jones is someone who respects political power and might respond to a person of higher authority. Kelly chairs the Democratic Party of Illinois. After our chat that day I received a copy of a letter that a library employee sent to Kelly expressing concerns about how Jones allegedly exerted influence over library operations. The employee requested confidentiality out of fear of reprisals at work.
Most of the concerns expressed have already been reported, including how Jones named new members to the library board, how the director resigned and how the allegations of financial wrongdoing were bunk.
“Jones’ accusations of library workers stealing money and using computers as personal devices are entirely false,” according to the letter.
I asked Kelly for reaction to the letter, but through a spokesperson she declined to comment.
The library reopened Oct. 28, 20 days after it closed. It is now open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. The letter writer told Kelly underpaid employees were running ragged trying to maintain services while understaffed.
The writer said library employees had to sit for an interview before they could return to work. The person conducting the interview was Saprina Jones, wife of the mayor and chair of two of his three campaign funds, the writer claimed.
Through a spokesman, Jones said his wife volunteered her services and professional expertise to help out with library staffing. Saprina Jones earned a master’s degree in human resources management and formerly worked as a vice president for training at a major bank.
Her career background was included in a biographical profile published on a website for the Jones Foundation, a charity where she was board member. Her husband abruptly announced in 2017 that he was stepping down as head of the charity.
Jones made the announcement days after the Daily Southtown detailed the charity’s inconsistent filing of financial documents, borrowing from Jones’ political campaign committee and unpermitted solicitation of donations.
Ted Slowik is a columnist at the Daily Southtown.