CU-Underground is in receipt of some concerning emails between Urbana City Council Member Dean Hazen and Mayor Diane Marlin. In the correspondence, Hazen attempts to directly transfer his own elected Council seat to William Colbrook, a fellow law-enforcement officer, an action which is a clear violation of Illinois State law.
Hazen was elected in 2017 to a four-year term, representing Ward 6, which covers much of southeast Urbana. A former Urbana police officer, Hazen is resigning his seat to focus on his full-time job as chief of public safety at Richland Community College in Decatur, a position he’s held since February 2018. Since the beginning of his term on Council, Hazen has been very quiet, rarely giving input on agenda items. “Honestly, I feel like I’ve gotten more out of this than I’ve given,” he said.
In an email dated January 28th, 2020, Hazen tells Mayor Marlin that “I learned that a good friend, William (Bill) Colbrook wants the seat.” Hazen then writes “I would truly appreciate your cooperation in transferring my elected seat to Bill and I will continue to support you from behind the scenes.”
It is not clear what “support” Hazen is offering to Marlin in exchange for transferring the seat to the person of Hazen’s choosing. Such an arrangement flirts dangerously with violating Illinois state law, which indicates that the replacement must be chosen by the Mayor and the City Council, not by the resignee. Hazen is granted no power to choose his replacement, as he appears to be doing.
The citizen who forwarded these documents to CU-Underground was also bold enough to ask Urbana City Attorney James Simon about the legal process that the City was following to replace Hazen. Instead of citing the statute, Simon gave a snide response telling the citizen to go hire his own lawyer. It seems that Marlin’s staff find this issue very sensitive and do not wish to discuss it.
Ninety pages of documents showing the Dean Hazen replacement process can be seen here.
UPDATE: Urbana Council Picks Insider William Colbrook to Replace Dean Hazen