Pulse: A half century on the job
January 20, 2013 8:50PM
Beverly Richardson
Article Extras
Updated: February 22, 2013 6:07AM
Last week the Will County Board honored employee Beverly Richardson for a whopping 49.5 years of service. Richardson, who retired on Friday, started in June 1963 in the state’s attorney’s office. For the past 12 years she worked as a bailiff in the bond courtroom presided over by her son, Judge Marzell Richardson, who retired in December.
Republican Caucus Chairman Jim Moustis, R-Frankfort Township, said he saw what a tight ship Beverly ran when he visited once to see how video arraignments were going.
“Let me tell you, if you didn’t come in appropriately dressed, she would send you out,” Moustis said.
She would tell courtroom visitors if their blouses needed to be buttoned or their skirts were too short, Moustis said.
County Board Speaker Herb Brooks, D-Joliet, said he visited the courthouse once and he got into all courtrooms, “except for one — and that was Beverly Richardson’s.”
Brooks said he went to then Chief Judge Gerald Kinney for help.
“And he said, ‘Mr. Brooks, we’d rather get rid of you and keep her.’”
Getting on the ballot
David Piekosz, candidate for Joliet City Council in the April 9 election, retained his spot on the ballot last week when the city’s electoral board ruled against a challenge to the signatures on his nominating petitions.
Getting those signatures wasn’t easy on some days, said Piekosz.
“The first day I went out I went almost to the end of my block before I got the first signature,” he said. “People weren’t home, or they weren’t registered voters.”
Evergreen Terrace update
Waiting on a verdict in the Evergreen Terrace trial? It will be a long wait.
“We have months to go,” Joliet City Attorney Jeff Plyman said last week.
The city’s condemnation trial against the private owners of the Evergreen Terrace apartments started in late September with some hope it would end before 2013. Plyman said the case was interrupted by a criminal trial before the same judge in federal court, and the Evergreen Terrace owners have just started to present their case.
Office space
New state Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, D-Shorewood, has set up her 49th District office at 15300 S. Route 59 in Plainfield in a renovated house called the Newkirk Building.
U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Western Springs, will have a ribbon cutting at 11 a.m. Friday for a new Lockport office in Central Square, 222 E. Ninth St.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, is taking a more fluid approach. He announced recently that he would roll out a mobile office in the 11th District. But he does plan to have permanent offices in Joliet and Aurora “soon.”
Cindy Wojdyla Cain and Bob Okon contributed to Pulse.
