The Renaissance Letter: Harvey’s new city collector plead guilty to theft and forgery in 2015

Sign up for the Renaissance Letter, our free weekly email newsletter to stay up-to-date on the Harvey stories that matter. This newsletter edition was sent to subscribers on September 30, 2024, and has been updated for website publication.

Correction, 10/02/2024: An earlier version incorrectly indicated Shaw’s plea was entered in Jacksonville, Florida. This article has been reflected to show it was Jacksonville, Illinois.

5. Harvey updates city website

The city’s premier digital destination for community needs got a serious upgrade this month. Access the new site, which houses much of the same departmental information but with more organization in its drop-down menus, here.

4. Cook County Assessor hosts town hall on homeownership in the Latino community

The panel, titled “Advancing Latino Homeownership,” is a first in a series highlighting housing issues facing the region’s Latino community. Issues discussed included rising property values and rental costs in rapidly gentrifying communities, multigenerational households, and language barriers that limit access to homeownership.

But panelists, including policymakers, researchers, and community organizers, also highlighted positive trends in the Latino community. According to Sen. Norma Hernandez (IL-77), the “farther out of the Chicago region that Latinos are moving to, the more likely they are to be homeowners.” Watch the video playback on YouTube here.

3. Some city officials don’t endorse floor questions because it would make meetings longer

Mayor Chris Clark and Ald. Shirley Drewinski (1st) told the Daily Southtown that allowing questions during City Council meetings, largely banned in Harvey, would make meetings longer. This comes as residents complain that Harvey’s council meetings are structurally designed to keep residents in the dark about city business and police are leveraged to intimidate critics into silence.

Since this spring, the mayor has required alders to email his staff directly one week before a meetings with questions about city business. That’s supposed to give his office time to respond. But the mayor’s de facto rules–and council support on the issue—do just as much to prevent the public’s access to crucial information about what alders are voting on and how it impacts them.

In August 2023, the HWH reported that residents were incensed that meetings were actually too short because alders don’t ask floor questions. That, and because the alders meeting packets, which contain the items they’re voting on, aren’t provided to the public prior to a session. Other municipalities allow the public packet access prior to a meeting.

Clark and Drewinski are allies and both served as alders between 2015 and 2019, working with others to contest former mayor Eric J. Kellogg.

Between January and April of this year, Clark didn’t attend public comment. Instead, Drewinski, who’s mayor pro temp–only reserved in case Clark physically can’t because of an emergency–presided over public comment while Clark sat in his office. That shift coincided with intense criticism of the mayor. And it’s only intensified all year long, with no signs of letting up as residents demand greater transparency, particularly of Harvey’s finances.

2. Police and mayor’s office block release of police report and witness statements accusing city admin of assault and battery

This month, the HWH filed public records requests for various police records surrounding an alleged assault City Administrator Corean Davis committed against Ald. Colby Chapman (2nd) at City Hall. All requests except for one were denied.

The HWH sought a copy of a police report Chapman filed at Harvey Police Department headquarters on August 14; Chapman’s arrest report on August 21, which came after officers arrested her for allegedly assaulting Davis; and video footage from the City Hall lobby vestibule from the night of August 14. The city provided the HWH with Chapman’s arrest report, with redactions. Chapman’s police report and the video footage were denied, with the police department citing an “ongoing investigation.” The HWH is considering litigation.

Days after the HWH questioned Mayor Chris Clark, Davis, and city spokesperson Glenn Harston II about the arrest, officers arrested Chapman. Then, Harston II released a statement, indicating video footage showed Chapman assaulting Davis. To date, city officials have not responded to the HWH’s requests for comment on details surrounding that night. Specifically, the HWH explicitly asked whether officials were framing a council critic. 

Chapman’s report, her contestation with Clark and his staffers, and witness statements, and the city’s reluctance to release critical documents pertaining to the case cast doubt on city officials’ claims that the freshman alder initiated the assault. It also sounds the alarm that the mayor’s office and police department possibly co-conspired to frame someone for a crime they didn’t commit. It wouldn’t be the first time Harvey police have participated in such an act.

In 2023, a federal jury awarded Ezra Hill $3 million after it decided Harvey police framed him for his own son’s murder. The City Council approved the settlement funds last month. Illinois bears the reputation as the nation’s wrongful conviction capital, according to data from the National Registry of Exonerations, with most of those cases occurring in Cook County.

1. Harvey’s new city collector plead guilty to theft and forgery at Illinois bank in 2015

In the August 2024 edition of the city’s print newsletter “Harvey Pulse,” the city announced Adonnis Shaw is now serving as city collector. In these roles, city collectors generally help municipalities receive and process outstanding payments. 

But in 2015, Shaw was convicted for forgery and theft in Jacksonville, Illinois. Shaw, who held no prior criminal history at the time, was a City Councilmember, elected in 2012, the State-Journal Register reported. He plead guilty to stealing $6,500 from customers at Woodforest National Bank, where he worked.

According to Shaw’s LinkedIn, he previously served as a Program Integrity Auditor for the Illinois State Department of Transportation, beginning in 2020. He holds education credentials in public administration and auditing.

Shaw paid $650 in restitution, served two years probation, and had to attend a substance abuse program, in which alcohol was believed to influence Shaw’s behavior, the MyJournalCourier reported. Shaw was allowed to file an expungement after completing his treatment program. He then moved to Chicago.

Even with atonement, given Harvey’s history of financial crimes, it’s possible the hire could still concern residents.