Dolton trustee announces men-only mental-health outreach, invites local therapist to speak

Trustee Edward Steve said he is launching a men-focused outreach effort in Dolton to engage residents outside of election cycles and to address mental-health needs.

Steve told attendees that traditional outreach—‘we call on your phone…We in your mailbox’—often happens only near elections and that he wants to do more year-round. “I told myself this term it gotta be more. I gotta see people not at election time,” he said, describing a decision to meet people in community settings rather than only during campaigns.

The move followed a blunt assessment Steve attributed to a local pastor. He said he called Pastor Fleschkin to check in and that the pastor responded, “I don't see nothing,” which Steve described as a catalyst for action. Steve said organizers want elected officials, police and community members to work together to make the community more livable.

Citing a recent men's-only meeting at a mosque, Steve said, “we need to do something in Dalton,” and framed the new sessions as community-led and self-sufficient: “We don't have to depend on nobody else but ourself.”

Steve introduced Renee Stockton, identified in the transcript as “my therapist,” and asked her to speak briefly at the meeting about “the importance of mental health.” He also said he planned to ask Pastor Fleschkin to close the event with “a good word of inspiration.”

No formal vote or ordinance was proposed at this meeting; Steve presented the initiative as a community action and invitation to local partners. The next step indicated in the discussion was for Stockton to speak at the session and for organizers to proceed with the planned event.