In Case You Missed It: Tribune Whacks Endorsers of Stroger, Berrios
Filed under: Blagojevich, Budget, Corruption, Elections, Mayor Daley, Reform, Taxes, Todd Stroger
We meant to post this earlier today, because it’s just a wonderful editorial by the Chicago Tribune.
Not only does the Tribune take a nice whack at all those Democrat politicians who endorsed Todd Stroger for County Board President in 2006 — they whack many of those same politicians for endorsing Cook County Board of Review Commissioner/Cook Democratic Party Chair Joe Berrios in 2010:
The list of pols who endorsed Stroger survives online, and for that we’re supremely grateful. His endorsers remain stakeholders in his broken promises, his patronage-larded budgets, and his notorious Friends and Family Hiring Plan.
Much as they might wish voters would forget their Stroger legacy, he’s all theirs:
Mayor Richard M. Daley is on the list, as are Durbin and now-President Obama. So are U.S. Reps. Bobby Rush, Jesse Jackson Jr., Dan Lipinski, Danny Davis, Jan Schakowsky and current White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
Five statewide officeholders — Rod Blagojevich, Pat Quinn, Lisa Madigan, Dan Hynes and Jesse White — also urged the rest of us to elect Todd Stroger.
And here’s the piece about Berrios:
What’s especially galling is that many of those who endorsed Stroger now have endorsed his crony Joe Berrios, a lobbyist, member of the county tax appeal board and candidate for the influential office of county assessor. When not in Springfield lobbying Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (a Stroger endorser) and Senate President John Cullerton (a Berrios endorser), Berrios passes judgment on … tax appeals for clients of Madigan’s and Cullerton’s law firms. That conflict is grotesque.
Good for the Chicago Tribune.
We’re somewhat surprised they didn’t mention the fact that their competitor, the Sun-Times, also endorsed Todd in 2006.
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 |
Update from today’s County Board meeting
Filed under: Blagojevich, Corruption, Elections, Mayor Daley, Reform, Spending, Todd Stroger
Hypocritical.
That’s what we call the county board’s vote today to boycott Arizona businesses that do business with Cook County — while jumping through hoops to exempt an Arizona-based company that handles red light traffic cameras.
As you can read in this story, Commissioner Peraica voted against the “boycott Arizona” measure, and provided this response to Commissioner Edwin Reyes, who criticized Tony for his vote:
“I take offense at a personal attack like that because to me, as an attorney and an officer of the court, as one who has received the benefits of everything that’s the best the United States has to offer, I feel I have an obligation not to stomp on the Constitution, but to support this Constitution, even when it’s not convenient. Even when it doesn’t please my personal agenda.”
In other news — the county board once again failed to override Todd Stroger’s veto of our hiring freeze. Tony supported this hiring freeze to rein in the abuse of the Stroger administration. Unfortunately, Stroger’s allies on the board were able to block the majority vote.
The Stroger Six, Our Newly-Proposed Ethics Reforms, and Another Stroger Investigation
Filed under: Blagojevich, Corruption, Elections, Mayor Daley, Reform, Spending, Todd Stroger
by Tony Peraica
It was quite a day here in Cook County.
First, the Cook County Board failed to protect the taxpayers by coming up short in a vote to override Todd Stroger’s veto of our hiring freeze.
More to the point — six county commissioners failed the taxpayers by voting against the veto override. The Chicago Tribune editorial board calls out these “Stroger Six”:
The tally, 9-6 to override, fell short of the necessary 11 “yes” votes. The Stroger Six: William Beavers, Jerry Butler, Earlean Collins, Joan Patricia Murphy, Deborah Sims and Robert Steele. Steele and a seventh commissioner who gutlessly voted present, Edwin Reyes, had been co-sponsors of the original measure to tighten controls on Stroger.
Also during today’s county board meeting, I introduced new amendments to the county ethics ordinance to help curb ethical abuses by some county politicians.
Please watch my brief video explaining this ordinance.
ABC 7 Chicago, The Prairie Stater, Illinois Review and Publius Forum have also reported on our new ethics measures.
Finally — yet another investigation into questionable spending by the Stroger Administration. This one involves dubious spending on U.S. Census contracts. The Chicago Tribune’s Hal Dardick reports:
Two top aides to Cook County Board President Todd Stroger sidestepped the need for commissioners’ approval in doling out nearly $150,000 in census outreach work to people they knew. The eight contracts are among those being investigated by the county inspector general’s office…
Another day, another investigation.
As the politicians continue to abuse your tax dollars — we will continue our battle to rein them in and protect the taxpayers.
Does Todd Stroger admit an illegal act?
Filed under: Blagojevich, Corruption, Elections, Mayor Daley, Spending, Todd Stroger
Please watch the video below of a Fox Chicago Sunday segment set to air tomorrow: at about the 2:55 mark, does Todd Stroger admit an illegal act related to the expenditure of federal funds? The U.S. Attorney needs to investigate.
Tony Addresses County Board on Possible Illegalities of Stroger Spending Abuses
Filed under: Blagojevich, Elections, Spending, Todd Stroger
This ABC 7 Chicago story provides more on the recent abuses of the Stroger Administration. Tony is quoted in the story — addressing the County Board on possible illegalities of the Stroger spending abuses:
Illinois schools out of money? We know where $13 million went …
Filed under: Blagojevich, Corruption, Spending, Taxes
The next time Governor Quinn or Mayor Daley tell you there’s simply no money left for Illinois schools (as part of their sales pitch for higher taxes), please remember this story from today’s Sun-Times.
If you don’t have time to read the story, we’ll sum it up: politicians pass new law to require vision testing in schools; optical business gives big money to Illinois politicians; optical business wins contract; taxpayers lose.
This story focuses on Chicago-based eyeglass business, Tropical Optical, which is run by Daniel Arce, who also runs the Mexican American Political Action Committee. As the Sun-Times reports, Arce’s business and the PAC have “given more than $590,000 in political contributions” to a number of local politicians, including Rod Blagojevich.
And, not surprisingly:
Since 2000, Arce’s company has gotten more than $13 million in taxpayer money to provide eye exams and glasses for more than 60,000 uninsured students from Chicago’s public schools, as well as providing vision tests for his rapidly growing Medicaid business, which has become one of the biggest in the state.
Please click here to read the full story.
And the next time a local politician cries poor, claims the government coffers are dry, and asks you to pay more in taxes — remember this one, small story of how your taxpayer money is really being spent to benefit not students, but a politically-connected businessman.
The Successful Reign of Todd Stroger
Filed under: Blagojevich, Budget, Corruption, Crime, Elections, Reform, Spending, Taxes, Todd Stroger
At first, we though this story was a satire — ripped out of the pages of The Onion newspaper.
But we then remembered that this is Cook County, where suspension of disbelief is the norm and failure is rewarded on a regular basis.
We’re not sure exactly how Micah Maidenberg defines success, but apparently Todd Stroger fits into that definition, as evidenced by this quote attributed to Stroger himself:
“There’s plenty of people who feel I’m doing a good job, and then there’s plenty of people who read the newspapers and don’t know what’s going on in the county, because they don’t report what the county does,” Stroger said during a recent interview at his downtown office with Austin Weekly News staff. “When we have a story about what is happening with the county dollar today, we can’t get that in the paper so people don’t know what’s going on.”
If success is defined as a bloated budget, a worsening jobs climate, and rampant corruption — then this story is right on track.
Maidenberg throws in this little jab at those who have dared hold Todd accountable:
His critics on the board have decried Stroger’s successful push for a 1-percent increase in the county share of local sales taxes. They’ve also condemned his hiring decisions and questioned his leadership.
Actually, it’s not just the critics on the board who have raised those issues. It’s the major newspapers. It’s the taxpayers. It’s the voters in border towns who have supported (successfully) ballot measures to secede from the county. It’s the employers, who continue to flee Cook County.
And, in terms of hiring decisions, perhaps it’s not fair to criticize his hiring of a busboy with a troubled record to a highly-paid position in the highway department. Even when that busboy-turned-county employee ended up in jail and the circumstances led to the firing of Stroger’s cousin from the position of county Chief Financial Officer.
Just as Todd did when he tried to tie me to George Bush in 2006 — he attempts to avoid accountability and criticism by personally attacking those on the board who oppose him (a bipartisan contingent, we might add, that now even includes John Daley.)
By any reasonable measure of effective government, Todd Stroger has failed.
And, if newspapers like the Austin Weekly News can sell more papers by celebrating this failure — then more power to them.
But shame on them.
Bye, Bye Paul…
Illinois Review tonight cites a Daily Herald report that says Republican-turned-Democrat State Rep. Paul Froehlich will not seek re-election.
That’s the same Froelich who’s facing tough questions following some solid Illinois Review investigative reporting and the below Fox Chicago News report about his possible abuse of the tax appeals process.
Sun-Times: Todd ‘Shoots an Air Ball’
Filed under: Blagojevich, Budget, Reform, Spending, Todd Stroger
Here’s a fun one from this morning’s headlines…
Former University of Georgia basketball player Tony Cole — a convicted felon who also was once charged in a rape case — scored a patronage job in October with Cook County President Todd Stroger’s administration.
Another day, another story of patronage.
And Todd Stroger still hasn’t found that wasteful spending in the budget yet?
For those of you who haven’t watched, we urge you to view this funny video:
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