Galesburg Ward One council member Bradley Hix is no longer on the United Way of Knox County board of directors due to a campaign brochure that also drew ire from Mayor Peter Schwartzman.
Hix is running for a second term on the council and is facing challenger Steven “Champ” Coleman in Tuesday’s election.
The campaign brochure, paid for by the Bradley A. Hix Campaign Committee, lists the arrest history for Hix’s opponent under the header “Champ Coleman Scroll of Shame.”
Coleman was not convicted of the crimes.
Last year, Coleman was awarded a $180,000 settlement as the result of a federal lawsuit filed in 2019 against the city of Galesburg and four police officers.
There was no admission of liability by the city, per the settlement agreement.
“Demeaning a person based on arrests (especially an African-American man) is despicable, especially when the man in question has never been convicted of any offense,” Schwartzman said in a Thursday morning Facebook post.
The mayor wrote that one of the arrests listed in the campaign brochure was part of what led to that settlement, and printing it in the brochure “unnecessarily drags the city’s dirty laundry out in the public again.”
'A mutual understanding'
The campaign brochure noted Hix’s involvement with United Way of Knox County as a board member.
That organization announced the departure of a board member Thursday afternoon in a Facebook post, but did not name Hix.
“It has been brought to our attention that a former board member included our organization on a recent campaign brochure that highlighted their opponent’s history,” the Facebook post reads. “The brochure does not reflect the views of United Way of Knox County and we were not consulted prior to being included on the mailing.”
A United Way representative told TSPR the departure was “a mutual understanding.”
The post also notes United Way of Knox County “avoids involvement with politics to ensure that we can support the entirety of the community.”
Hix joined the United Way of Knox County’s board of directors in 2018.
The campaign brochure also states Hix is a Galesburg Public Schools Foundation board member.
'Hateful' and 'upsetting'
Coleman was alerted to the campaign brochure by his teenage children after it was mailed to their home.
He told TSPR he found the brochure “hateful” and “upsetting.”
“What was the purpose of this, especially when a lot of this was pertaining to a lawsuit and the harassment that I had been going through?” Coleman said. “I can’t speak about it and the city is not supposed to be able to speak about it. Then you have a city official talk about it.”
Coleman said he appreciated Schwartzman’s statement, but he did not issue his own statement on the campaign brochure.
He said he has tried to run a clean campaign.
“Because that’s the person I am,” he said. “Everybody’s got skeletons in their closet.”
TSPR asked Hix for comment on the mayor’s reaction to the campaign brochure, the United Way situation, and a current ethics complaint against him as a real estate professional being investigated by the Illinois Realtors trade association.
The complaint filed by PFLAG Galesburg and United Against Hate is related to Hix's social media activityand has advanced to the organization's professional standards committee.
Hix has not responded.
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