Dolick to be Prospect Heights' acting mayor, but probably only for a year
Prospect Heights city council members Monday voted to make 5th Ward colleague Matthew Dolick acting mayor through the remaining 14 months of the term of Nick Helmer, who died Jan. 26.
But Dolick said afterward that he intends to retain his 5th Ward seat in the meantime and run for it again - not for mayor - in April 2023.
"Right now I don't have plans for running for mayor in the next election," Dolick said Monday night.
He intends to keep his seat as 5th Ward council member while acting mayor because it will allow him to vote on every decision, even though it would deny him the veto power Helmer had as mayor.
Dolick said Helmer told him once in conversation that he had voted on council decisions only twice during his ultimately 11-year tenure as mayor, and he exercised his veto authority only once.
To resign his seat as 5th Ward council member would be to create another vacancy in which only four members would vote on issues until an appointment could be made, Dolick said.
Appointed to fill a vacancy in the 5th Ward himself in June 2016 and then elected to a term of his own in 2019, Dolick is currently the senior member of the council.
The other four council members - Michelle Cameron, Kathleen Quinn, Wendy Morgan-Adams and Danielle Dash - gave their consent to a resolution making Dolick acting mayor while Dolick himself abstained from the vote.
"I appreciate everyone's support, and I fully recognize the responsibilities of this position," he said.
Dolick began serving Prospect Heights as a volunteer in a customer service role with the police department. He met Helmer while in that capacity and later applied for the appointment to represent the 5th Ward when David Derwin resigned to move to Des Plaines.
The new acting mayor also is a pilot, like his predecessor, and worked for ATA Airlines. He graduated from St. Louis University with an economics degree and has worked as a salesman for an extermination company.
Helmer died from complications from a fall he suffered during an ice storm last month. Some council members, including Dolick, praised Helmer during the meeting as both a mentor and the person who'd encouraged them to increase their service to the community in the first place.