South Cook News

Palos Park Commissioner G. Darryl Reed made faces and yelled at mayoral candidate Ronette McCarthy during a Feb. 27 council meeting.

McCarthy questioned Reed’s behavior in the meeting.

“Mr. Reed, did I say something wrong?” McCarthy asked Reed as she approached the podium.

“There's just been a number of times, I have to say, I heard what John said earlier, and then the first thing I'd come up and introduce myself and Mr. Reed shaking his head. I don't know what he meant by that. Hopefully, it wasn't anything directed at me.”

Reed directly responded to McCarthy’s comments on his behavior.

“When a black man makes a facial expression and someone has the audacity in a public forum to ask him to explain himself. No, no, it ain't that. It ain't that kind of party, people. It's not. And the children and the children are still talking out of turn. When you don't have anything important to say, then you make noise,” Reed told McCarthy.

He later called out his opponents.

“There are children in the audience that clearly don't know how to behave themselves. I would ask that maybe you put your big boy or big girl britches on and just shut the hell up while we are talking,” Reed said. McCarthy, who is on the April 4 ballot, did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.  

Chicago’s Morning Answer radio host Dan Proft played the clip on his radio show.

“He's a race hustler. That's what's wrong with him,” Proft said.

McCarthy thanked Chicago’s Morning Answer for giving attention to the matter.

“Thank you to Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson for recognizing what’s really happening in our village! Dan calls out ‘race hustler’ and abusive ‘identitarian’ tactics at play in Palos Park Village Council election,” McCarthy said on Facebook.

Reed’s poor behavior came during a discussion on expanding the parking lot for Japanese steakhouse Wu's House Palos Park.

Nicholas Baker, who ran for mayor in 2019, endorsed McCarthy in early March. He noted McCarthy has been suffering the same attacks he received.

“I believe that Ronette has the dedication and passion to lead our town forward,” Baker said.

“One of the main criticisms I faced during my own campaign was my lack of experience. It was an argument that I took seriously and worked hard to address by gaining knowledge and insight into the workings of the village government,”

“Ronette’s opponents are now using that same tired line of attack against her. Let me tell you — experience does matter, and Ronette has it in abundance. In addition to her professional experience as a municipal attorney, she has served our community in dozens of capacities throughout the years.”

Reed was profiled in Southwest Regional Publishing's The Reporter Newspaper for having a terminal health condition.

In 2021 he said he would not rerun as a commissioner but changed his mind after McCarthy’s mayoral opponent Commissioner Nicole Milovich-Walters announced her run for mayor.

“I had no doubt in my mind that I wasn’t going to run, and I publicly made that proclamation a number of times,” Reed said. “I was dead set on that. I wanted a few years to try to get well.”

“All of a sudden, once I got word that Nicole was thinking about running for mayor. She reached out to me and said ‘Darryl, I need you. Just give it whatever you got.’ "

Reed said he is all in for Milovich-Walters.

“Nicole asked for help and here I am,” Reed said.