Country Club Hills City Council gives mayor no-confidence vote
By Casey Toner ctoner@southtownstar.com July 24, 2012 9:00PM
Updated: August 26, 2012 6:21AM
One day after the Country Club Hills City Council gave Mayor Dwight Welch a no-confidence vote, he returned the sentiment.
“I have no confidence in them,” Welch said. “They don’t know what they’re doing. It’s all political retaliation. That’s all it is.”
Welch claims the symbolic vote — which has no legal authority — was passed during Monday night’s meeting because he started a petition drive to cut the city’s number of alderman from 10 to five. Country Club Hills has five wards served by two aldermen each.
The cost-cutting stroke would shave about $200,000 in salaries and expenses from the city’s budget each year. Welch said he aims to put the measure on the ballot in November.
Ald. Leon Williams (2nd) said the city council gave Welch a no-confidence vote because of his stewardship of Cook County funds among other issues.
The city borrowed $6.6 million via a short-term loan from Chase Bank in 2010 because Cook County was late in distributing the city’s share of property tax revenue.
The county repaid the bank loan in October 2011 with the tax money due to the city, but erred in also giving Country Club Hills $7.2 million in property tax revenue — failing to subtract the $6.6 million used to pay off the bank loan.
Country Club Hills no longer had the money and proposed a five-year repayment plan. The county rejected that plan and on July 3 sued the city in Cook County Circuit Court seeking immediate repayment of the full amount.
Williams claimed that Welch ignored the county’s earlier demands for repayment, which eventually led to the lawsuit.
“He’s created this monster so he should be man enough to take the heat from it,” Williams said.
