Even in Cicero, where peculiar politics is the norm, Larry Dominick is something of an improbable reformer.
Once appointed to a top police post with the blessing of imprisoned former Town President Betty Loren-Maltese, Dominick has acknowledged ties to some of Cicero’s most notorious characters.
He was a pallbearer at the 1993 funeral of Loren-Maltese’s husband, Frank Maltese, a former Cicero assessor and mob bookmaker, and Dominick has shrugged off criticism that he’s spoken with such figures as reputed former Cicero mob boss Michael Spano.
But after upsetting Town President Ramiro Gonzalez in Tuesday’s election, Dominick is pledging to end a culture of secrecy and cronyism that has characterized Town Hall for decades.
“There will be many skeptics out there, but that’s OK,” Dominick told campaign supporters after his victory. “People didn’t think we’d win this election.”
It was a close one, with only 157 votes separating him and Gonzalez. But election officials and a Gonzalez spokesman said on Wednesday that there aren’t enough uncounted provisional or overseas absentee ballots for Gonzalez to have a chance to overcome the margin.
That means Gonzalez would have to challenge the results in court. Gonzalez will seek a discovery recount, the first step in pursuing a legal challenge, spokesman Omar Duque said Wednesday.
“When it’s this close, it’s worth going back and making sure that what the voters said is accurate,” Duque said. “If the results come back and say that the people of Cicero voted for Larry Dominick, that’s something [Gonzalez] is prepared to honor and respect.”
A discovery recount would allow attorneys for Gonzalez to review voting records from one-quarter of the town’s 53 precincts. If they identify improper registrations or voting irregularities, the case could go to Circuit Court.
Duque said a lawsuit is a possibility.
“There are different things that you can do, and that’s what the lawyers are looking at,” he said.
But Dominick, 56, who was not available to reporters Wednesday, is preparing to take over as town president. As a first step, he’s promising to take a pay cut.
The town president’s salary is scheduled to climb about $30,000, to approximately $165,000, later this year. Dominick maintains that’s excessive, but he hasn’t offered specifics as to what he thinks is fair.
Cicero, a blue-collar town known as Al Capone’s old headquarters, and once made up of mainly Italians and Eastern Europeans, now is home to a Hispanic majority. That evolution would have seemed to work perfectly for Gonzalez, who became the town’s first Hispanic president when he was handpicked by Loren-Maltese to succeed her.
But Gonzalez appears to have never gotten sufficient support from the Hispanic community, Town Hall or the old guard.
A fixture in town
While Cicero changed, Dominick, a big, burly man of Italian descent who sports a Cubs tattoo and is comfortable putting back a few Old Style beers while talking baseball, has been a fixture in town for a while. He moved there at age 12 and went to work for the town as a garbage man in his early 20s. He later served as superintendent of streets and alleys.
In 1984 he became a police officer and was a deputy superintendent of police from 1999 until he retired in 2004. He was endorsed by the police union by a vote of 88-4.
Dominick volunteered for almost 20 years with the West Cicero-Berwyn Little League as a coach and administrator, and more recently served on the Morton High School District 201 board.
A ballfield in nearby Stickney is named for Dominick, and many of his former players helped with his campaign.
But for all his friends, Dominick is not without his troubles or his detractors.
He finds himself the president-elect of a town that is suing him for back pay and benefits. A lawsuit filed last month alleges that while he was employed as a police official, Dominick hid his ownership in a Cicero bar. Local and state laws prohibit law-enforcement officials from owning bars or restaurants with liquor licenses in their communities.
It is unclear what will happen to the suit, which Dominick supporters have denounced as an election-year stunt.Dominick also is being sued by the woman who bought the bar, D’s Dugout, allegedly from him and two other investors in December 2003. She claims that despite promises from Dominick and his partners, she was never able to obtain a liquor license for the bar.
“The idea that he’s going to be a reformer? It’s complete fiction,” said David Boyle, a private attorney in Cicero and community activist who considers Dominick a link to Cicero’s old guard. “Those appointments that he makes in the first 90 days are indicative of what he’s going to do.”
Dominick has pledged to fire Police Supt. and Inspector General Wayne Johnson, a former Chicago Crime Commission investigator who was appointed by Gonzalez two years ago.
“He don’t like me, and I don’t like him,” Dominick once said of Johnson.
He has not said who will replace Johnson, but many longtime town residents consider Anthony Iniquez, a former deputy police superintendent, to be a front-runner.
Dominick also promises to dismiss longtime Cicero legal adviser Edward Vrdolyak, a former Chicago alderman who is the town’s main legal counsel and considered by many to be its chief power broker. Vrdolyak remains a close adviser to Loren-Maltese, who was convicted of corruption in 2002 and is serving an 8-year sentence in federal prison.
Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica, a Riverside Republican and private attorney, vigorously campaigned for Dominick and is in line for town legal work, Boyle said. On election night, Peraica was among the first well-wishers to congratulate Dominick.
Need for coalition-building
Dominick likely will be able to oust Johnson and Vrdolyak unilaterally, given Cicero’s traditionally strong town presidency and because neither has an employment contract with the town.
But even Dominick’s closest advisers concede that governing with a board dominated by Gonzalez allies will be a challenge.
“There’s going to need to be coalition-building,” said Dan Proft, a Dominick spokesman. “This is not a dictatorship. This is not a one-man operation.”
If he does reach out publicly to board members, it would be a marked departure from Gonzalez’s style. During his 2 1/2 years as town president, Gonzalez, 37, has sought only token input from the seven-member Cicero board, four of whom he appointed.
Trustee Maria Punzo-Arias, 36, a Gonzalez ally who was re-elected Tuesday, said she is open to working cooperatively with Dominick.
“We’ve just got to stay focused on the needs of the Cicero residents, regardless of who the winner is,” she said.
Town Collector Fran Reitz, 43, who also was appointed to her position by Gonzalez, said she too is willing to work with Dominick, especially on an ambitious $600 million proposed redevelopment of the former Sportsman’s Park racetrack into a shopping center and hotel.
“When I spoke to my three kids and told them last night what happened with Ramiro losing, they were saddened to hear that, and the second word out of their mouths was, `What about Sportsman’s Park?'” Reitz said.
In a victory speech that he capped with a heartfelt rendition of “God Bless America,” Dominick said his top priorities include inviting federal authorities into Cicero for a financial audit, fighting gang crime and tackling the town’s rat problem.
“We’ve put it out there. Now we live up to those commitments or we don’t,” Proft said. “So it’s going to be very simple.”
