Streator appoints new council member

Streator resident Jacob Darby is a father of five children and instead of “sitting on his hands complaining,” he said he’s going to try his hand at being part of the city’s decision making.

Darby applied for the vacant Streator City Council position and Mayor Tara Bedei announced Tuesday he will be sworn in at the Wednesday, Feb. 16, meeting.

Darby will fill the vacant seat opened when Bedei was appointed mayor last month after the late Jimmie Lansford resigned Dec. 31.

Darby said recently appointed council member Timothy Geary encouraged him to apply for the vacancy.

“I’m always the type that’s saying, ‘I wish this would happen, or I wish that could happen,’ " he said. “Now I’m going to do what I can do to help.”

Darby, 37, said he’s lived in Streator for eight years and he works as a manager at Streator Eagle 6 theater.

He said he has several ideas, and one of them revolves around bringing more activities for the city’s youth.

“I think it’d be great if we could look into some sort of recreational center, especially my two kids go to Northlawn and they cross the street and go to McDonald’s with their time,” Darby said. “I’d like to work on something that can benefit our kids, and be something that doesn’t cost a large amount of money.”

He has not served on a board in his career and he acknowledged he will have a learning curve ahead of him.

Darby will serve on the council until the next municipal election, which is in April of 2023. At that time, his seat will be up for election. Darby becomes Streator’s third new member of the council since the April 2021 election, when Matt McMullen was elected to the seat once held by Ed Brozak, who did not run for re-election. Joe Scarbeary then resigned from the council to accept a position in the city’s building code department and Geary was appointed to fill that seat.