Quintina Brown runs the Markham Park District outside Chicago – the one with broken equipment scattered across every property.
Now an invoice is sitting on the city attorney's desk, and it has a park district credit card number on it.
What Brown spent that money on will make your blood boil.
She Wrote Herself a Permission Slip and Landed a Prom Helicopter on a Playground
On May 8, a helicopter descended "alarmingly" low over the basketball courts and playground at Roesner Park in Markham, Illinois.
Kids ran.
When Markham police arrived, they found Quintina Brown's 17-year-old daughter Quamyra posing in a purple prom dress in front of the grounded chopper.
Brown had approved the landing herself – in a letter she wrote on park district letterhead, dated April 13, authorizing the shoot.
No police authorization. No city sign-off. No park board approval.
Brown wrote herself a permission slip on your dime and called it official.
Both Brown and the helicopter pilot were cited for disorderly conduct and unauthorized landing on public property.
The Taxpayer Credit Card That Keeps Raising Questions
The invoice handed to city attorney Kelly Krauchun told the rest of the story.
It listed "Markham Parks" as the customer, used the park district fieldhouse address, and carried a credit card number linked to Brown.
Krauchun confirmed the deposit was charged to a park district credit card funded by taxpayers.
"They told me that the deposit was charged to the card," Krauchun said, "and they have not been successful in getting the remaining $800 off the card, for whatever reason."
The helicopter sat grounded for at least three hours – at $80 for every additional six minutes over the booked hour.
When the city filed that evidence in court, Brown paid the helicopter company in cash.
Mayor Roger Agpawa didn't mince words: "This is what happens when you have no oversight, no governance."
"You're not answering to the public as you should."
Brown insists she paid with her own card and did nothing wrong.
"There was no misuse of funds at all," she told NBC 5.
The invoice suggests otherwise.
Broken Swings, Unpaid Bills and a Helicopter for Prom Photos
The helicopter wasn't the opening act.
Markham city officials started questioning Brown's management of the park district in the fall of 2025 – part of a pattern playing out in publicly funded agencies from coast to coast, where no one's watching and the people in charge know it.
A city lawsuit filed last October accuses the park board of mismanaging funds and violating a 2012 intergovernmental agreement that put the city in charge of financial decisions.
Leaders alleged she and the board were not paying bills – and had left most parks in "deplorable" condition, with broken equipment scattered across the system.
The city filed a temporary restraining order in May to stop further spending.
As a condition of settling the restraining order fight, the park district agreed to one rule: no more unauthorized helicopter landings.
That is the bar Quintina Brown needed a court order to meet.
While the swings sat broken and the bills went unpaid, Brown was signing permission slips for prom shoots on taxpayer property and booking a helicopter on a taxpayer card.
"They've been landing helicopters in different ways over there," Agpawa said.
He wasn't talking about aviation.
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2056935143982453188“>https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2056935143982453188
DOGE Stopped at the Federal Level and Quintina Brown Knows It
Brown didn't sneak around.
She wrote the authorization on official letterhead. She used a card tied to the park district office address.
The boldness is the point.
When you run a public agency with zero accountability and zero oversight, you stop asking permission – because no one has ever made you answer for anything.
Brown told WGN-TV she didn't regret it – only that it went viral.
"I'm glad she was happy and she was able to do her photo shoot despite the unexpected turn of events that unfortunately went viral."
She thinks the problem was the camera.
Taxpayers in Markham were paying for parks their kids couldn't use because the equipment was broken.
Quintina Brown was using that same budget line to book a helicopter entrance for prom photos.
DOGE cleaned up $186 billion in improper federal payments last year.
The suburbs of Chicago are still waiting.
Sources:
- Adam Silverstein, "Illinois park boss accused of using taxpayer-funded credit card for daughter's helicopter prom photoshoot," New York Post, May 20, 2026.
- Jermont Terry, "Illinois park district director used taxpayer credit card for daughter's prom helicopter, invoice shows," CBS News Chicago, May 17, 2026.
- "Not just the helicopter: Markham Park District chief Quintina Brown was previously accused of financial mismanagement," South Cook News, May 19, 2026.
- Jasmine Minor and Evelyn Holmes, "City of Markham files lawsuit against Park District Executive Director Quintina Brown over prom photo helicopter landing," ABC7 Chicago, May 13, 2026.
- "Prom stunt with helicopter causes a stir in Markham," WGN-TV, May 12, 2026.
