Highest Bidder? No Problem, this is Cook County.
Filed under: Budget, Corruption, Reform, Spending, Todd Stroger
by Tony Peraica
The process of competitive bidding is supposed to result in the county providing contracts to bidders who come in with the best quality at the lowest cost.
That is, unless we’re talking about Cook County.
The Daily Herald today features a story about one proposed county contract that would go to the highest bidder for a project … a bidder that (surprise, surprise) is also a major contributor to the campaign funds of Todd Stroger and other county officials.
The board will consider awarding $284,000 to Infrastructure Engineering for “parking and entrance control” at the county’s Hawthorne Warehouse on Chicago’s West Side, even though two competitors came in with significantly lower bids on the original parking-lot paving project - a detail that twice led the plan to be scrapped.
The proposal originally came up two years ago, but when the Daily Herald reported that Infrastructure Engineering had donated almost $5,000 to President Todd Stroger and more than $40,000 to other county officials, and Schneider came out against it, it was abruptly dropped at the next county board meeting.
This will be one of the many important issues discussed at Tuesday’s county board meeting related directly to questionable spending of your tax dollars. Also on tap is another push for the hiring freeze we voted to place on the Stroger Administration — but which Todd Stroger vetoed last week.
The ridiculous spending must stop. I will do everything in my power to make sure it does.
Tribune: Stroger “Sullying” His Own Name
In our previous post, we wrote that Todd Stroger was acting in defiance of the county board and the taxpayers.
But the Chicago Tribune editorial board has gone even further, writing that Todd “seems intent on sullying” his own name “and that of his Democratic cronies.”
We wholeheartedly agree. That same Trib editorial continues:
How else to explain that Stroger has hired six top-level employees at high salaries since his defeat in the February primary? How else to explain Stroger’s awarding of pay raises without board approval — including a $54,000 bump, to $230,000, for Chief Financial Officer Jaye Williams? How else to explain Stroger’s reinstatement of Carla Oglesby, his deputy chief of staff — after telling reporters just last week that she would be suspended without pay pending an investigation of how she was hired and why her communications firm then received a county contract? (No, that county inspector general’s probe isn’t yet concluded.) How else to explain Stroger’s veto Monday of a proposed ordinance to place a freeze on most hirings and raises — an ordinance the board passed 16-1 because of Stroger’s reckless stunts at taxpayer expense?
Again, we agree, and will work to override Todd’s veto of the hiring freeze to end his rampant disregard for your hard-earned tax dollars.
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:
Voters, Spending and Taxes
Filed under: Budget, Corruption, Reform, Spending, Taxes
Last week, Rasmussen Reports released a poll showing that 77% of Americans see government officials’ unwillingness to cut government spending as a bigger problem than voters’ resistance to tax hikes:
For nearly four-out-of-five U.S. voters, the problem is not their unwillingness to pay taxes. It’s their elected representatives’ refusal to cut the size of government.
Those poll numbers are music to our ears … but will these numbers actually translate at the ballot box?
After all, for years, the issue of political “pork” has made headlines. And polls regularly show that Americans disapprove of this political spending of taxpayer dollars.
But year after year … voters actually reward politicians who bring home the bacon.
It’s most likely an issue of voters disliking politicians who bring pork to other districts … but reward those who bring these pork-barrel projects to their own district. After all, one man’s pork project is another citizen’s paved road or sewer project, right?
It’s an ongoing problem — especially since, here in Illinois, the root of our corruption and budgetary problems is the spending process. Pork is exactly what has bred our notorious pay-to-play and budget deficits.
But corruption has been here for years — and so have the deficits. Yet the voters have continued to reward the same Democrat politicians who have brought this upon us.
Will 2010 be different? Let’s hope so — and let’s hope the poll results released last week will translate at the ballot boxes.
Defending the Indefensible Stroger Budget/Tax Increase
Filed under: Budget, Corruption, Reform, Spending, Taxes, Todd Stroger
So, Todd Stroger went before the Chicago Tribune editorial board to defend his massive back-door tax increase proposal.
Yes, the same proposal that was assailed by the Civic Federation.
Yes, the same proposal that Tony Peraica and Forrest Claypool have shown to be unnecessary and irresponsible.
Reports the Tribune’s Hal Dardick in the “Clout Street” blog:
Cook County Board President Todd Stroger stood firm Monday on his effort to issue $740 million in bonds, saying every penny was needed to pay for big projects while maintaining services at the county’s massive public safety and health care systems.
Stroger was defending his proposed 2009 budget before the Tribune editorial board, a harsh critic of his financial policies. The budget calls for nearly flat spending and no new taxes—a year after Stroger pushed through a much maligned percentage-point increase in the county sales tax.
The problem here is that Hal reports the Stroger proposal includes “no new taxes.” The fact is, Stroger’s entire proposal is one big tax increase. It’s putting almost a billion dollars on the credit card in a time of economic uncertainty when the core economic problem was caused by …. a credit crunch.
As Peraica told attendees at a recent Westchester Town Hall meeting:
“The wrong thing in my opinion is to go out and borrow more money and take on more debt … There is no free lunch … Sooner or later someone has to pay for what one consumes.”
You don’t make our county’s employers and workers more competitive by sacking them with increased debt. As Tony has written before, you make them competitive by allowing them to keep more of their heard-earned money.
And you work to streamline and better manage the 25,000-plus county workforce - and reduce the waste, fraud and abuse that is regularly uncovered by Tony and the local media.
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