Urbana Council Picks Insider William Colbrook to Replace Dean Hazen

CU-Underground recently posted an article which showed that resigning Urbana City Council Member Dean Hazen was attempting to transfer his seat to his “good friend” William Colbrook. In an email dated January 28^th, 2020, Hazen assures Mayor Diane Marlin that if she would cooperate with this, “I will continue to support you from behind the scenes.”

It is not clear what “support” Hazen was offering to Marlin in exchange for transferring the seat to Colbrook. 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.

In any case, it appears to have worked. On March 9^th, 2020, Marlin and the Urbana City Council unanimously chose Colbrook as Hazen’s replacement. It seems the other four applicants likely never had a chance. Colbrook had already been “tapped” a week before Marlin sent her letter seeking Ward 6 applicants.

William Colbrook is the Chief of Police for Parkland College, and was already involved in local policing issues, working closely at times with the Urbana and Champaign Police Chiefs. Colbrook listed retired Urbana Police office Dean Hazen and acting Urbana Police Lieutenant Joel Sanders as references. Clearly Colbrook has connections, but as an insider, he almost certainly symbolizes less diversity in the City Council.

The other candidates who applied were:

• Thomas Hebert, manager and teaching professional at Just Fore Fun Golf Center
• Andrew Miller, software engineer at the University of Illinois
• Joseph Smith, retired city of Urbana civil engineer
• Darius White, executive director of the Urbana Business Association

It should be noted that Urbana City Attorney James Simon was strangely obtuse and refused to answer questions about Dean Hazen’s replacement.

Ninety pages of documents showing the Dean Hazen replacement process can be seen here.