Join us this Sunday for our Annual Picnic!
You are invited to join us this Sunday, June 27 from Noon to 4 p.m. for our annual 16th District/Republican Organization of Lyons Township 4th of July Picnic!
This picnic will take place at the Cermak Park, 7600 W. Ogden Avenue, Lyons, IL (just south of the Cermak Pool.)
This is a free event! Please bring out your friends and family for a day of fun.
Soft drinks and food are provided.
The Curious Case of the Composting Rapper
Todd Stroger and his allies claim they’ve cut the budget “to the bone.”
They’ve justified their tax hikes by saying the county is in dire budget straights and they need more of your hard-earned tax dollars to keep government providing frontline services.
So then why did they provide a $24,795 contract to a rap music promoter as part of a “composting awareness” effort?
That’s right, as you can see from the Fox Chicago News segment below, a rap promoter named Terrell “Shorty Capone” Harris received his contract as part of a $10 million federal grant to promote environmental awareness. So, not only is Cook County wasting local tax dollars — taxpayers across the country can rest assured that Cook County is wasting theirs, as well.
Todd Serves Up Another Tasty Double-Dip
Filed under: Corruption, Reform, Spending, Taxes, Todd Stroger
The Cook County Board failed to override Todd Stroger’s veto of the board’s hiring freeze. So it appears Todd is going to continue to thumb his nose at the taxpayers by hiring cronies to sweetheart, taxpayer-funded county jobs.
The latest is Todd’s friend, State Rep. Art Turner. You see, he makes more than $87,000 per year as a state legislator.
But now, thanks to Todd Stroger, Turner will also make a $110,575 salary as the director of the county’s President’s Office of Employment and Training (POET) .
Two salaries. Both paid for by the taxpayers. A tasty double-dip.
And Turner will be overseeing a department that has already been the source of much controversy. As the Sun-Times reports:
(POET) has been besieged by by criticism of mismanagement of grant funds, most recently by the presidents of several south and southwest suburban colleges.
“POET’s inability to properly administer … grant funds has cost our Dislocated Worker, Adult and Youth Programs significantly in the past five years,” George Dammer, President of South Suburban College wrote in a letter to Cook County Commissioners.
In a Monday e-mail, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity confirms that POET had to return $8.4 million in grant money between 2003 and 2008 — dollars that could have helped a County whose unemployment rate has hovered between 10 and 11 percent
The job-training program, serving 16- to 24-year-olds in the south and west suburbs, has also been the target of criminal investigations.
Its former financial manager was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing more than $100,000 from the program.
And in 2008, three former POET employees were charged with conspiring with two ministers to siphon more than $2 million from banks and taxpayers for sham training, prosecutors said.
Turner will be on the job for six months, until Stroger’s term expires and a new County Board President takes office. Can he turn around this beleagured program before then?
Perhaps. But we know for certain he’ll cash in at your expense during that time period.
And Todd Stroger can dutifully claim he created good-paying jobs …. among his friends and relatives, that is.
Ethics Lapse in Cook County Government? We’re shocked!
Fox News Chicago reports:
A new Cook County public service campaign surprised some county commissioners and led to an ethics investigation.
Page 36 of Wednesday’s Chicago Sun-Times had a full-page ad promoting the county’s flood relief grant program.
It showed photos of four Cook County commissioners, including Peter Silvestri, who said he had no idea the ad was made.
The problem was the ad violated an ethics law Silvestri helped write, which prohibited the use of names and photos of elected officials in county-sponsored public service campaigns when the politicians have filed for re-election.
You can watch the full video of the news report below:
Time to make reform a reality
by Tony Peraica
Thank you to UIC Professor Dick Simpson, who highlights our recent reform proposals in this commentary piece in Chicago Journal.
Professor Simpson writes:
In May, Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica introduced a series of amendments to help curb unethical and corrupt practices.
The amendments would prohibit Cook County government employees from serving as a lobbyist for any entity other than Cook County. The best known conflict here is Cook County Board of Appeals member Joe Berrios, who has lobbied for the video gaming industry in Springfield while hearing — and granting — tax appeals for the clients of House Speaker Mike Madigan.
Peraica’s legislation would also prohibit former Cook County elected officials or firms in which they have a financial interest from receiving business from the county for a period of two years after they leave county employment, and tighten limits on campaign contributions.
Getting these reform amendments passed will be an uphill battle due to the large number of elected and appointed officials who are lobbying Cook County government … including some of my fellow commissioners.
But uphill reform battles are nothing new to us. I urge you to click here to find and contact your county commissioner to urge him or her to support this resolution.
Corruption and waste in Cook County has reached a fever pitch. It is no longer a Republican or a Democrat issue. Let’s all join together and make reform a reality.
Local Governments Lobbying Other Governments … At Your Expense
Filed under: Blagojevich, Budget, Reform, Spending, Taxes
The Sun-Times brings us this disturbing look at the lobbyists who are making money at taxpayers expense.
Your local and state governmental bodies are claiming their out of cash (usually as justification for raising your taxes) — yet they are hiring high-paid lobbyists to lobby other governmental organizations.
Yes, you heard that right. Governmental bodies are lobbying other governmental bodies. And they’re hiring private lobbyists at your expense to do it.
According to the Sun-Times, here are five of the “clout heavy” lobbyists and the amount of taxpayer funds used to pay them to lobby other government agencies:
| Langdon Neal chairman of the Chicago Board of Elections |
$508,000 |
| William O. Lipinski former Democratic congressman from Chicago |
$339,459 |
| William Luking longtime lobbyist for City Hall, Chicago schools |
$183,443 |
| Vince Williams former campaign manager for Cook County Board Pres. Todd Stroger |
$182,000 |
Will you join me on the Chicago’s lakefront this Wednesday?
Here Come the Hawks…the Mighty Blackhawks!
Congratulations to the 2010 Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks! It’s been too long — a great victory for the team and all of Chicagoland!
Wasteful spending detracts from good work of law enforcement professionals
This morning’s Sun-Times reports on the Cook County Forest Preserve District’s conversion of a Westchester home into a new Forest Preserve District police station. That project has come in at 3 times over budget — and now there may be plans in the works to dissolve the Forest Preserve District police department.
Commissioner Peraica is quoted in this story, noting that the County Board was not fully consulted on the rising costs of this project:
Commissioner Tony Peraica (R-Riverside), whose district includes the police station, says that’s because forest preserve officials buried the project in budget paperwork. He says he had no idea it was under way until last December, when district officials sent commissioners a letter stating they’d made a $66,800 “emergency purchase” for a new roof.
“The board should have been consulted,” Peraica says. “This would have been one of those projects that would have gotten a major looking at, had they come to us for advice and consent.”
Burying the true costs of boondoggles is something at which the Stroger Administration and county insiders have become very adept. Commissioner Peraica’s track record of exposing these boondoggles to protect the county taxpayers is well known. But, as this Sun-Times piece shows, the problem is prevalent.
That is why Commissioner Peraica will remain diligent in his efforts to expose these abuses and protect the taxpayers.
The law enforcement officers of Cook County — whether they are federal, local police, Sheriff’s Department, or Forest Preserve District — serve our communities with distinction, and they should be commended. But cost overruns and wasteful spending detract from their ability to serve us. These frontline law enforcement professionals should be outraged by this waste of taxpayer dollars that should be going to help them to their jobs — instead of on cost overruns for roof repairs.
Todd Just Keeps On Keepin’ On
Filed under: Corruption, Reform, Spending, Taxes, Todd Stroger
The county board has repeatedly failed to override Todd Stroger’s veto of the hiring freeze passed by the commissioners — and so it looks like Todd has just kept on doing what he does best: abusing your tax dollars.
As this latest Fox News Chicago report shows, more questionable sweetheart contracts have come to light:
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