Chicago Daily Observer

Check out the handy reminder at the Tribune of the people responsible for Cook County sales tax, the highest sales tax in the country.

Just to refresh, these 10 County Board Members voted in the highest tax in the country:

William Beavers

Jerry “Iceman” Butler

Earlean Collins

John Daley

Roberto Maldonado

Joseph Mario Moreno

Joan Patricia Murphy

Deborah Sims

Robert Steele

Larry Suffredin

llinois should go to a military strongman form of government.

Instead of the pretense of representative democracy, we should submit to one of those charismatic, totalitarian dictators with the Captain Kangaroo get-up who makes people disappear.

After all, isn’t that what the “Chicago 9” are doing?

The Chicago 9 are the nine Chicago Democrats who live within about five squares miles of one another and who control more than $70 billion worth of government and more than 125,000 public sector jobs in Illinois.

[The 9: Daley, Blagojevich, (Lisa) Madigan, White, Hynes, Giannoulias, Jones, (Mike) Madigan, Stroger]

It was reported last week that the Chicago 9 had made more than 6,000 private sector jobs in Illinois disappear between May and June. Only four states in the nation lost more jobs during that period.

The Chicago 9 have Illinois’ unemployment rate at a robust 6.8%, nearly 25% higher than the national average ... Read More...

While on the county payroll, a top urologist at Cook County Hospital solicited nearly $1 million from drug companies over the last decade for his private foundation.

Dr. Paul S. Ray’s pitch was that the money would go toward medical research and education.

But most of the money hasn’t gone to health care at all. Instead, Ray invested it—mostly in Tony Rezko.

When Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin was running for Cook County State’s Attorney, he told me that he opposed the tax increase package being rammed through by President Todd Stroger.

But once he lost the Democratic primary to Anita Alvarez, he changed his tune and became one of the most vocal proponents of supporting Stroger’s repressive 1 percent increase in the county wide sales tax.

This week, Republican County Commissioner Tony Peraica, who has been consistently speaking out against unnecessary tax increases and urging trimming waste and the county’s bloated budget, sought to push commissioners to repeal the punitive Stroger Sales Tax.

And who do you think stood up to lead the personal attacks against Peraica?

Opening a Thursday news conference, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger boasted that after just 18 months on the job, he had successfully fulfilled his three main campaign promises:

• Turning over control of the juvenile center to the chief judge;

• Giving the hospital system to an independent board;

• And creating an independent inspector general’s office.

Trouble is, Stroger didn’t make most of the promises.

For decades, the Cook County hospital system has been crippled by politics—doctors, administrators, funding and programs have long needed the approval of political overseers before becoming part of the structure.

But in a matter of weeks, the troubled health care operation will be taken over by a group of nine outsiders, described by many as independent and non-political.

Campaign finance records show that the 20 candidates to fill those nine slots have contributed more than $200,000 to various Illinois politicians in the last nine years. Of that, they’ve delivered more than $25,000 to Cook County officials—half donated to campaign committees supporting County Board President Todd Stroger and various members of the County Board.

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger has two weeks to name directors to a new, independent board to oversee the county’s vast Bureau of Health Services, which critics contend is a patronage-laden fiefdom controlled by 8th Ward Democrats….....Here’s the list:

*Dr. David Ansell, vice president and chief medical officer at Rush University Medical Center

*Fernando Grillo, former secretary of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation

*Warren Batts, retired Premark International CEO

*Dr. Carl Bell, president and CEO of Community Mental Health Council & Foundation Inc.

*Norman Bobins, chairman emeritus of LaSalle Bank Corp.

*Daniel Cantrell, who is on the staff of U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.)

*David Carvalho, deputy director of the Illinois Dept. of Public Health

*Margaret Davis, executive director of the Healthcare Consortium of Illinois

*Dr. Joseph Flaherty, dean of the College of Medicine at University of Illinois-Chicago

*Quin Golden, former chief of staff ... Read More...

Cook County Public Defender Ed Burnett is facing a “catch 22” and it’s time to let the public know about it.

For more than a year Burnett has been trying to get County Board President Todd Stroger to supply the funding his office needs to hire more public defenders. Instead, for more than a year, the Public Defender has seen his budget cut, Attorneys and support staff slashed to nearly half the level they were at five years ago. Burnett has been forced by Stroger to watch his staff cut to bare bones while the public’s need for more public defenders rose.

Besides cutting the Public Defender’s budget, Stroger’s office suggested that the public defenders only work three days a week – which is hard to do when an attorney is working on a capital case and a defendant’s life is at stake. After that suggestion failed, Stroger ordered the ... Read More...

Why didn’t someone tell us sooner that we could free ourselves from the clutches of Cook County?

Yes, it’s legally possible, but practically impossible, for suburban townships to secede from the county and its oppressive taxes, bloated payrolls, insider dealings and pathetic leadership. Still, it might be worth the effort. After all, if you can’t beat them, leave them.

Several Palatine government officials, pushed to the limit by the county’s recent sales tax increase, which may send shoppers scooting across the county line into adjacent Lake County, are discussing secession as something more than a stunt. Lost business and lost sales tax revenues are the price that the village and its businesses may pay for Cook County’s budgetary dereliction and other mischief.

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger appears to have enough votes to pass a series of tax increases today.

But it remains unclear whether he is willing to make the concessions needed to close the deal.

County budget deal ready if Stroger agrees

Commissioners and labor union leaders say Stroger will get the votes if he:

• • Scales back his plan to increase spending 7 percent and add 1,100 new employees to the payroll.

Remember Tony Peraica?

He’s the Republican nominee for state’s attorney who waited about four seconds after first-time candidate Anita Alvarez won the Democratic primary before he began attacking her, charging that she’s a product of the Machine and a big reason the county’s criminal justice system has been “turning a blind eye to corruption and putting politics over public safety.”

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is laying the groundwork to turn to taxpayers for more money to help in his struggling public relations efforts.

In a proposal to the County Board, Stroger’s hospital chief asks for $120,000 for a five-month contract with a clout-heavy PR firm to spread the good word about the hospital and its services.

Finger pointed and voice raised, Ald. Ed Smith fired what he believed was an impassioned insult at Cook County Recorder Gene Moore.

“Todd Stroger endorsed him!” Smith said of Moore during a debate before last week’s Democratic race for recorder. “Tell them! Todd Stroger endorsed you!”

The Cook County Board president’s name wasn’t anywhere to be found on countywide ballots, but his name repeatedly came up throughout the campaigns for recorder, state’s attorney and the Board of Review.

Cook County’s hospitals and clinics would be turned over to a seven-member board of health professionals who would have taxing authority but whose budgets would still be ultimately approved by the Cook County board, under a proposal made public this week.

At the peril of veering from constant criticism of the Chicago Media, our editors have found reasons to cheer on our local publications on a variety of issues.

Here are 5 top examples of good reporting that made it through to publication, and even had follow-ups in some cases.

1) The CTA is in financial trouble. We not only know about it from 1st hand experience, all of the major media outlets carried stories about financial problems in our mass transit systems, an even considered a variety of proposals (including-gasp-higher fares) to fix the issue. Abstenteeism, lack of riders, muddy minded management, poorly planned capital projects all received at least a scrutinizing glance.

2) TIF District Mania. Ben Joravsky at the Chicago Reader has been accused of being obsessed with TIF districts: good for Ben. In Ben Joravsky and the Chicago Reader there is finally some oversight ... Read More...

Well, it may be a new year, but Cook County government has some nagging old business left to settle. There’s the not so trivial matter of passing a budget for the fiscal year that began on December 1, 2007. Being over a month into the new fiscal year without a budget is problematic, even more worrisome is the fact that negotiations appear to be at a standstill. The holdup is over how to fill a $288 million deficit—almost 10 percent of the County’s $2.9 billion operating budget.

Some critics will say so what, deriding Cook County as nothing more than a retirement home for precinct captains. Now, there’s certainly more than a little truth in that accusation. That said, the media fixation with the “friends and family” approach to patronage at the County completely obfuscates the essential services County delivers, including such basics as the criminal justice system. Then there’s ... Read More...

In the midst of its epic mismanagement of
Cook County government, the Todd Stroger
administration was caught in an embarrassing lie last
week when one of his political hires attempted to get
cute with a radio talk show host.

But Andre Garner’s feeble effort at deceit isn’t close
to being the biggest lie by the Stroger camp. The
biggest fallacy Stroger is trying to foist on the
public is that county commissioners Forrest Claypool
and Tony Peraica want to trim ten percent from the
2008 county budget.

What the two commissioners actually have proposed is a
modest two percent cut of the 2007 budget, and no
increase in the 2008 budget, which Stroger wants hiked
by eight percent. In other words, Stroger & Company
are complaining about “cuts” to a proposed budget not
yet approved by ... Read More...

County commissioner’s TIF tiff with Daley in the spotlight

Mayor Daley’s record $108 million property tax hike was bad news in a lot of quarters, but it could actually turn out to be good news for Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley.

Finally, maybe somebody will start listening to him.

“I don’t think the city has any more right to raise property taxes than does the county,” Quigley said Wednesday, and if you’re wondering why anybody should care what a county commissioner has to say about it, hear him out.

Isn’t there some way for fed-up citizens of Illinois, Cook County and Chicago to force their governments into receivership?

After all, when a corporation is as stunningly incompetent as are Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, legislative leaders, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and his toady City Council, creditors can force it into bankruptcy in which a court-appointed trustee straightens out the mess or, if necessary, shuts it down to preserve the remains.

CHICAGO BRIEFING
September 2007

Cook County’s struggling health-care system; death of a lobbyist; hybrid cars for Chicago, and more…