Three people were denied entry to Lyons Mayor Chris Getty’s congressional campaign meet and greet event at Irish Times on Tuesday, Oct. 6.
The three individuals — Ferrai Pickett, who works as a nanny and hosts anti-discrimination events in the area, Brookfield resident Steven Lifka and Lyons Public Library Trustee Richard O’Brien — told the Landmark they were targeted for their past behavior confronting Lyons administration about what they described as a pattern of bigoted, misogynistic behavior by Lyons Public Library Director Dan Hilker, who is also a village trustee. They also cited indifference by Getty when the issue was raised to him.
Getty and his team hosted the meet and greet to reach voters as the Lyons mayor campaigns for election as an independent candidate in Illinois’ fourth congressional district. The district is now represented by outgoing Democrat Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García.
Lifka, Pickett and O’Brien told the Landmark they planned to attend the event together to raise the issue of Hilker and Getty’s conduct. Lifka said he arrived first and was allowed into the event for a short time before private security staff, whom O’Brien identified as Lyons police officers, asked him to leave.
“I was a little disappointed. Chris Getty is running in the fourth district, which is the district I live in,” he said. “I wanted to hear what his promises were going to be, if any.”
In an emailed statement, Getty campaign spokesperson Kevin Thomas said the three had “engaged in disruptive and confrontational behavior at public meetings” and were declined entry based on “concerns about further disruptions.”
Pickett said she and O’Brien were denied entry outright when they arrived after Lifka. She said she’s become a target of Lyons administration since last summer, when she first brought concerns about Hilker’s conduct to Getty. She said he did not address the concerns and later blocked her over email and Facebook.
Pickett said she first became embroiled in Lyons after she felt she, her own children and area children she nannies, were excluded and “ostracized” from events while visiting the Lyons Public Library.
“I go over to the director, Dan, and I say, ‘This is the library. How can we bridge the gap?’ He basically tells me in so many words, ‘If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. These are my friends. These are my people. I don’t care to change anything about it, but you can leave.’”
Pickett said she had also overheard Hilker berating library employees who were teenage girls. She said she brought her concerns to the Lyons Board of Trustees repeatedly in the spring and summer of this year without any action being taken.
O’Brien, a trustee on the Lyons library board, reported racist and sexist behavior by Hilker that he witnessed personally or heard about from others who did.
O’Brien described an instance where a Spanish-speaking couple arrived at the library and he was trying to help translate with his limited Spanish knowledge, as he happened to be at the library and a Spanish-speaking staff member was on break.
“I just happened to be there making copies. Dan Hilker, our library director, he finally gets frustrated,” O’Brien said. “He says, ‘Just get the f%#k out of here. Why don’t you go back to the country you came from and come back when you learn the language?’ … I don’t know if that’s the exact words, but it’s really close.”
O’Brien said he had also spoken to a teenage staffer who quit after her first week at the library due to Hilker making comments about her body.
“On the second day, Dan approached her and said, ‘You got big bosoms and a great body. You should start wearing tighter clothes,’” he said. “In Lyons, everybody thinks that’s OK, and that’snot OK. You don’t talk that way to employees.”
O’Brien said he raised the issues directly to Getty, whom he had previously supported, but Getty and, later, members of the village board declined to take action against Hilker.
“They were doing whatever Mayor Getty says. That’s what they do, and they swept it under the rug. Just told me like it never even happened,” O’Brien said. “From that day on, I was really looking at Chris differently. He’s not a leader. If there’s any friction, he doesn’t want no part of it.”
O’Brien said he was later detained by Lyons police on the Fourth of July for speaking badly about Getty in public and wasn’t released for half an hour. He said police and village staffers told him video footage of the arrest didn’t exist in response to his public records requests, but he alleges Getty and other Lyons administrators later tried to blackmail him into silence by threatening to release the footage.
He said Lyons police later failed to act for more than a month after someone made death threats to him at his home. Pickett said she had also received death threats after she began speaking publicly about the behavior she had witnessed. Lifka later joined the pair when he gave Pickett his three minutes of public comment at a Lyons board meeting after she had used her time up.
The Lyons village board has not held a public meeting since Aug. 18. The meetings scheduled for Sept. 1, Sept. 15, Oct. 6 and Oct. 20 were all canceled ahead of time. Pickett said she believed the cancellations were, in part, meant to silence her and other critics of Getty and Hilker by removing their ability to give public comment at the meetings.
In the emailed statement, Thomas said the Getty campaign team “strongly dispute[s] the false allegations these individuals have made about Chris. Disagreement is part of public life, but personal accusations should be supported by facts.” He said Getty “has never shied away from tough questions or criticism.”
The Lyons Public Library did not respond to a request for comment on the allegations against Hilker by the time of publication.
