It’s not often that elected county officials visit the West Ridge and Rogers Park backwater, but visit they did, arriving with an entourage of TV news cameras and a prominent TV newscaster to a Democratic candidates’ forum for the Cook County Board President’s seat.
Sunday’s forum was organized by a new neighborhood group called the Rogers Park Organization, whose mission is to support and elect candidates who will represent the interests of Rogers Park and West Ridge residents. One of the organization’s goals is to organize candidates forums so that voters can ask questions and get candidates’ opinions on issues directly affecting them.
More than 100 residents filled the pews at Temple Menorah, 7360 N. California Ave., on Sunday afternoon to watch incumbent Todd Stroger defend his beleaguered term as Cook County Board President against challengers Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) and Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown.
West Ridge resident and Metropolitan Water Reclamation District President Terry O’Brien, who is also challenging Stroger, arrived 45 minutes into the forum, apologizing profusely to his neighbors saying he had been held up at another campaign event.
Chicago Sun-Times political columnist, WTTW “Chicago Tonight” co-host and Channel 5 political editor Carol Marin moderated the forum, feeding audience questions to the candidates on topics ranging from property taxes, the county health care system, stabilizing the county budget, and patronage.
“People here in Rogers Park feel they don’t see too many Cook County elected officials in this part of their world,” Marin said. “What exactly does the county government do for them and how does it impact their lives in ways they may not see?”
Stroger, Preckwinkle and Brown each spoke of how county residents pay sales and property taxes, and use other services, including the county health care and criminal justice systems, and small business administration.
“Then there are many services like the Botanic Garden and Brookfield Zoo,” Brown said. “Even though they’re not here, you can go to them. The forest preserves are available as well. There are a lot of things that Cook County government can do for you and of course, you have to pay the various taxes in order to make those happen.”
Preckwinkle said the county government has two main missions, health care and the fair and equitable operation of the criminal justice system.
“About one-third of our felony resources and one-third of our budget goes to the health care system,” Preckwinkle said. “Our public health system is the safety net that provides for people who are uninsured or underinsured. The other big portion of the county’s budget and its focus is criminal justice. Likewise, it’s in all of our interest that the criminal justice system operates well and fairly to all who come in contact with it.”
Stroger spoke of the Cook County Sheriff’s Department’s interaction with Chicago police and other municipal police departments on drug, gang and bomb squad missions. He also mentioned the county’s vital records and highways departments, and help for small businesses.
“What people don’t think about is the highways,” Stroger said. “The county goes out and repairs the road and gives it back to the city and the city will take care of its maintenance … We’re planning a $200 million bond program where you’re giving money back to small businesses.”
Other audience questions were ripped right out of recent news headlines. Marin tossed a question to Stroger, asking how many of his relatives were on the county payroll and what jobs and salaries were they receiving.
“I believe my sister works for the chief judge. I never asked her what she makes and she doesn’t offer it up so I can’t really tell you,” Stroger said. “My brother-in-law works in facilities management. I suspect both have been there somewhere between 16 and 20 years. There you go.”
Preckwinkle was queried about the $40,000 in campaign contributions she received from convicted felon Tony Rezko in exchange for bringing business to the city’s 4th Ward, where Preckwinkle has been alderman since 1991.
The alderman explained how her relationship with Rezko dissolved in the late 1990s, when she confronted him about affordable housing properties that he owned in the 4th Ward after receiving complaints from the community and her staff about substandard conditions and criminal activity.
“Tony Rezko hasn’t given me a dime in decade since I called him,” Preckwinkle said.
Brown was asked how a supervisor could objectively receive cash gifts from employees or charge them to wear jeans to work. Brown said receiving and giving cash gifts to or from county employees was legally allowed, according to the Cook County ethics ordinance.
“The thing we do at the clerk of the court, we’re like a family. I give gifts and they give gifts. There’s been a lot of misreporting,” Brown said.
Regarding the infamous “jeans days,” in which circuit employees pay $2 to wear jeans to work on certain days which goes into coffers to be later given to charity or used for employee morale boosting events, Brown said the practice was started by her predecessor. She mentioned other county departments, such as the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, as well as various city agencies that had instituted “jeans days.”
“My employees wanted to continue because they wanted to be able to give to charitable causes …” Brown said. “The [Chicago] Department of Revenue just issued a memo they’re going to do jeans day every Thursday for Haiti. Some employees said to give $2 to wear jeans and have fun yet give to a good cause is a good thing for them.”
All of the candidates, including O’Brien, who by then had showed up to the forum, said they would lobby the Illinois General Assembly to extend the 7 percent property tax cap. Preckwinkle said the county needed to be more proactive on home foreclosures, adding that she would institute a mandatory foreclosure mediation process in the county’s circuit courts that would allow more homeowners to save their homes.
O’Brien supported seeking federal grants to reduce the county’s dependence on property taxes. Stroger said the county has not raised its portion of property taxes in 13 years, and that the county government saved 25,000 homes from foreclosure under his watch by helping homeowners readjust their mortgages.
Candidates were also asked whether they thought the county had a patronage or corruption problem. All of the candidates, with the exception of Stroger, agreed that county government had padded its payroll with patronage jobs.
Stroger said that unless patronage was going on “behind my back,” new hires made by the county during his term were made with a Shakman monitor in the room.
“I signed the Shakman decree before I came in … I talk to the Shakman monitor about every quarter,” Stroger added. “There is not one of us up here who doesn’t have a patronage employee. That’s the person you trust to look at your paperwork to make sure it gets done. That is part of being an elected official and I don’t think there is an office of any size that doesn’t have what they call patronage reports.”
Regarding budget cuts each candidate would make to stabilize the county budget, Brown said she would lobby the Illinois General Assembly for an early retirement program for county employees to bring in new hires at lower salaries.
Stroger supported a program that would allow retired county judges to review non-violent offenders eligible for electronic monitoring and home confinement to relieve the financial burden of housing prisoners in the county jail.
Preckwinkle said she would immediately take a 10-percent salary reduction.
O’Brien’s first order of business would be to eliminate one of the boards of elections.
“There’s two, the city and the county; it’s just duplication that’s not needed,” O’Brien said. “The second thing would be to consolidate all the purchasing aspects of the county. Why does every department need a purchasing department, when it should be just falling under one umbrella in which all the departments can feed from that one department.”
O’Brien added he was glad to hear the alderman’s offer of accepting a 10-percent salary cut if elected county board president, “considering that the alderman has voted four times to increase her own pay.”
“That’s true,” Preckwinkle replied.
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