Stroger's whereabouts unknown to campaign manager during candidate forum

Yesterday, a coalition of Democratic groups hosted a forum for the Democratic candidates for President of the Cook County Board at DePaul University.

Todd Stroger failed to attend.

Sun-Times (Lisa Donovan):

Stroger's campaign manager, Vincent Williams, reached by phone after Sunday's political forum, didn't know why he missed the event: "I haven't spoken to the president today, so I don't have an answer."

Missing a major candidate forum without an explanation is not normal. Having the campaign manager clueless makes it hard for normal people to have confidence in the candidate's competence.

ABC7 is on the case.

After initially saying he was not actually confirmed to attend the debate, Stroger's campaign said Monday they knew of the debate, and pulled out after a Sun-Times report appeared in the paper Sunday alleging a conspiracy in the board race.

In the article Stroger attacks Dorothy Brown. I'm not really sure why Brown getting busted doing something underhanded (according to Sun-Times (Tim Novak) Brown's nominating petitions were in some cases circulated by the same people who circulated Terry O'Brien's) would keep Stroger from appearing.

Why do you think Stroger failed to attend?

Stroger fires Commissioner Robert Steele's brother

Cook Count Commissioner Robert Steele voted to repeal the Todd Stroger tax increase multiple times.

Last week Steele's brother Byron Steele was fired. See Sun-Times (Carol Marin and Lisa Donovan).

Called in by his boss, James D'Amico, Byron Steele said he was told, "This is a decision from the president, it comes from on high."

There's a scene in Apollo 13 where James Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) tells Ken Mattingly (played by Gary Sinise) that he's not going to be part of the mission because he's been exposed to German Measles.

Mattingly (Sinise) asks to appeal the decision of the flight surgeon. Lovell (Hanks) says it's his call and there's no appeal.

Of course, in the previous scene Lovell (Hanks) was arguing the flight surgeon on behalf of Mattingly.

Everyone knows Lovell is lying. Lovell knows it. Mattingly knows it. And the audience knows it.

But he is preserving the notion that as the commander/boss when he makes a call, it's his call.

In a professional organization, D'Amico wouldn't blame Stroger for the firing. But--here's the rub--in a professional organization Stroger wouldn't be tinkering with hiring and firing decisions except for his immediate lieutenants.

If Stroger knew what he was doing, he'd spend his time and mental energy managing the big picture and leave the hiring and firing decisions to the actual supervisors.

Further commentary: if Stroger felt strong, he'd wait until after the February 2 election to fire people. Once he's the Democratic nominee, he can fire his enemies' friends, relatives and allies with impunity. (This is also true if he loses to another candidate.)

By firing Steele now Stroger is threatening county employees. He's telling them to support Stroger's re-election or expect to be terminated.

Thompson not guilty of homicide by reason of insanity

Rather than being convicted of homicide, DuPage County Judge Peter Dockery ruled Hubert Thompson, formerly known as "Boo Boo", was legally insane (paranoid) when he killed James Malone. See Sun-Times (Dan Rozek).

Thompson was a star athlete at Proviso West. He played football at Michigan State University.

Personal accounts described him as being a particularly nice guy in high school. Looking back there were probably signs of his mental deterioration at MSU. In his brief time with the New Orleans Saints he got into a fight with another player over an exercise bicycle.

It would have been better for Thompson and Malone if Thompson got either effective mental health treatment or was placed in a supervised setting before he became so imbalanced that throwing his friend and neighbor off the balcony made sense to him.

Berrios, Houlihan, Cook County Assessor and Sun-Times self-righteousness

I saw this tut-tutting by the Sun-Times about Joe Berrios, currently chair of the Cook County Democratic Party and one of the three members of the Board of Review.

I'm not enamored with Berrios as Cook County Assessor, but the Board of Review is set-up for pay-to-play politics. The Board has the power to directly save money for property owners appealing their assessments. And Board members can ask for campaign contributions.

I have a hard time imagining a scenario where Berrios dismantles information systems installed by current Assessor James Houlihan.

I suppose it's possible Berrios could alter assessments within the process (it's supposed to rely on a super secret formula), but all the assessments are public. And assessments that are out-of-whack can be detected. If Berrios gets contributions that seem too large, it's possible to learn what properties that person owns and then look at the assessments for his/her properties.

It's harder to check this kind of mischief if Berrios gets the money from attorneys and then the attorneys' clients receive the benefits.

But Berrios already has this power on the Board of Review. So, I'm not getting the outrage about him going to an office where it will be harder to work the pay-to-play angle than in his current office.

(I think nominating Berrios could conceivably hurt other Democratic Party candidates by tainting the party, but that's a partisan argument against Berrios getting the nomination, not an ethical argument.)

IMO, Houlihan deserves more scorn than he's getting. Houlihan knew Berrios wanted the job. Russ Stewart:

Quite succinctly, [the Assessor's] looming problem is that property values are plummeting while government spending is increasing. Therefore, property taxes will not decrease.

"Try explaining that to property owners," observed one Northwest Side Democratic politician. "That's why Houlihan quit. Berrios was going to challenge him in the primary and blast him for not reducing property taxes. (Houlihan) would have lost. In 2014 Joe will have the same problem."

So, if Houlihan knew Berrios was going to run and Houlihan didn't want Berrios to get the job, shouldn't Houlihan have recruited a candidate to run against Berrios?

Anthony Bruno indicted

Anthony Bruno has been indicted for tax fraud. See Sun-Times (Frank Main and Carol Marin).

While the charges are relatively minor, Bruno has been paid to work on a number of projects in Proviso, including in Bellwood and Forest Park. The Forest Park Review coverage of the Forest Park work suggested at least some of it was suspicious. When then-Commissioner Theresa Steinback asked about a $3,000 per month payment going to Bruno's company the payment was stopped.

Chicago Tribune (Ray Gibson):

Bruno was disbarred for creating phony court documents purporting to show he had successfully litigated cases for clients when in some cases he had never filed a lawsuit, records show.

Paul Esparza, formerly a political operator in Proviso Township, claims he was one of the clients deceived by Bruno.

Sun-Times pulling plug on Proviso Herald

Chicago Public Radio (Ammad Omar) reports that the Proviso Herald will cease to exist as of January 15. The Sun-Times Media Group is cutting costs.

h/t Capitol Fax Blog (Mike Murray)

My opinion is that Forest Park Review does a better job with the stories it does cover, but the Proviso Herald is more comprehensive. It aspires to be the paper of record for the local communities. Forest Park Review focuses on Forest Park.

Riverside/Brookfield Landmark (like Forest Park Review, owned by Wedneday Journal, Inc.) is also good, but while Brookfield is half in Proviso Township, the Landmark doesn't cover Proviso issues normally.

The other print outlets (Suburban Life, West Suburban Journal, Neighbors and the various village propaganda outlets) sometimes write a good story, but they have shown no ability or inclination to fill the void that will be created by the demise of the Proviso Herald.

Democracy needs effective journalism to work. And losing Proviso Herald is a big blow. (Remember, Proviso also lost "Viewpoints From the Other Side" when Arnie Bryant died.)

Ideas for what comes next in Proviso journalism?

Stroger tax increase proposal

President of the Cook County Board Todd Stroger says it's essential to raise taxes... big time... to prevent cuts in vital county services.

Chicago Tribune (Mickey Ciokajlo):

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger wants to triple the sales tax and double the gas and parking taxes to pay for 1,130 new county jobs and cover rising costs.

Stroger's critics are skeptical. They point out that in the past Stroger preferred to cut essential services for the poor, rather than jobs for his cronies.

A Sun-Times editorial expressed significant skepticism.

Ah, but look what happens in 2009, when the county gets a full calendar year of those new taxes. It collects a staggering $981 million in extra money -- which Stroger admits is way more than the county will need. But don't worry, he says. He'll simply find a way to put the extra money back in taxpayers' pockets. He says he'd cut the parking tax and the gas tax, maybe even the real estate tax, which amounts to $720 million a year. He's not sure.

"We'll repeal the other taxes and the 2 percent will keep us going," he told the Sun-Times editorial board.

In other words, Stroger wants us to trust him.

Mary Mitchell (Sun-Times) gives a defense of Stroger's tax increase proposal.

If you want to weigh-in on the Forest Preserve portion of the tax increase there will be a hearing at the Maybrook Courthouse on Thursday at 6 PM. See Sun-Times (Steve Patterson).

Nazareth in playoffs

Sun-Times:

La Steven McKinney and his Nazareth teammates roared into the state playoffs by cruising past St. Viator 43-0 Saturday in La Grange Park.

It's the first appearance in the playoffs for the Roadrunners (5-3, 4-3) since 2001 and their first as a member of the East Suburban Catholic. They previously qualified as members of the Private School League.

Todd Stroger wants you to pay more sales tax

Raising Cook County sales taxes by two percent seems like a big deal.

Yesterday Cook County Board President Todd Stroger wanted to increase sales taxes in Cook County by two percent, but narrowly failed to get the votes to act. See Sun-Times (Steve Patterson).

The proposal is not dead and will likely be voted upon October 16.

Giglio & Del Galdo getting rich in Cicero

Giglio & Del Galdo are in the news for the law firms exorbitant bills in the village of Cicero. See Sun-Times (Leonard N. Fleming, Carol Marin and Don Moseley). h/t to a Proviso Probe contributor for bringing the Sun-Times article to my attention.

Giglio & Del Galdo is the law firm that has given extensively to political committees controlled by Melrose Park Village President Ron Serpico.

The firm has also been expanding its clients in Proviso Township. Mayor Anthony Calderone attempted to bring the firm to Forest Park to condemn residents homes to turn them into parking lots.

Also, Proviso Township High Schools (District 209) dumped Odelson & Sterk in favor of Giglio & Del Galdo.

Law firms serve as money laundering operations in local politics. The law firms run-up big bills. The politicians don't challenge the bills. The politicians don't object to the bills because they know they will derive some benefit from the money down the road. The politicians are "banking favors".

The system is very because legal work is not required to be bid out. And the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission doesn't see this behavior as violating the rules against attorneys mixing their financial interests with their clients.

Allegations of this kind of corruption are hard to investigate because the conspirators can claim attorney-client privilege, as the Village of Cicero has done in the Sun-Times article.

why is Peraica running for State's Attorney?

Stephen Covey wrote The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. You can read all seven habits. I'd like to concentrate on habit #2: begin with the end in mind.

As I've mentioned before, Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica's campaign for State's Attorney seem to involve an awful lot of insulting other Republicans.

Here's my question for Peraica, why are you running for Cook County State's Attorney?

a. To fulfill some need for attention and approval;
b. To prove to God that you are on the right side of the issues in a wicked world;
c. Because the people around you expected you to run and you couldn't say “no”;
d. To get a platform from which to push for reforming the Cook County Republicans;
e. To get elected State's Attorney;
f. To get elected State's Attorney and use the power to reduce corruption in Cook County

I'd like to believe the answer is “f”.

Even if you assume Commissioner Liz Gorman, chair of the Cook County GOP, did maliciously push the story about Fred Ichniowski (see Sun-Times (Steve Patterson)), what's the best way to respond?

If Peraica's larger goal is to get elected State's Attorney, what's the smaller goal in how he handles the Ichniowski story?

I would think the goal is to get past the story while minimizing the damage.

How did Peraica respond? He attacked Gorman. See Peraica's campaign blog.

The record of Liz Gorman speaks for itself. She has proven herself to be a committed ally of the Democrats - a close associate of indicted political insider Ed Vrdolyak and the disgraced Shaw brothers.

Gorman also has been a staunch ally of Todd Stroger - recruiting Stroger's former spokesperson, Sean Howard (who was arrested last year for harassing a woman) to join her public relations team at the Cook County GOP. She supported Todd Stroger's disastrous budget. She has supported the Stroger position against numerous and even bi-partisan reform efforts. She has gone out of her way to oust good Republicans from Cook County GOP committeeman positions - in favor of Democrat shills that will toe her "party line."

Liz Gorman's motives are clear: she is smearing me now to provide herself a reason to slate a primary opponent against me for State's Attorney. Rest assured that any Liz Gorman-backed candidate will be an enemy of reform, and a friend of the corrupt, Democratic machine.

There is a long road ahead before Election Day in November of 2008. The Democrats and Gorman allies will spend the next 13-plus months slinging mud at us ... because they fear us. And fear us they should - because our campaign for honest reform will win and put them out of business.

By attacking Gorman, Peraica kept the story alive. He also undermined his claims he didn't encourage his supporters to do anything inappropriate. And he reinforced the impression he doesn't play well with others.

Peraica is a highly driven, highly successful person. He's charismatic and he can turn a mildly hostile crowd into a sympathetic audience in a relatively short amount of time.

However, Peraica is running in a majority Democratic--overwhelmingly Democratic--county. He might be good enough to beat the Democrats in an election year that's probably going to be brutal to the GOP. But he's got to play his situation about perfectly.

When Peraica was running against Todd Stroger for President of the County Board, there were plenty of Democratic committeemen willing to let Stroger lose because they felt the Eighth Ward was hogging the jobs and contracts. So, the Democrats weren't so united behind Stroger.

However, if Peraica runs promising to prosecute political corruption, the Democratic committeemen with juice are going to feel threatened. The Democratic Machine is going to be more unified in keeping Peraica out of the State's Attorney's office than they were when he ran against Stroger.

Peraica can't be fighting with the chair of the Cook County Republicans and "corrupt" GOP committeemen in the media and still win the election.

I want see more focus on getting elected State's Attorney and less intra-GOP bickering.

National Merit Scholar semifinalists

Sun-Times has a list of National Merit Scholarship Program semifinalists.
How did Proviso high schools do?

Nazareth Academy-1
Proviso East-0
Proviso West-0
St. Joe's-0
Walther Lutheran-1

PMSA doesn't have students who would normally be taking the test, right?

Other area schools:

Elmwood Park-0
Fenwick-9
Leyden-0
Morton East-0
Morton West-0
OPRF-21
York-8

This makes me sad. I rail against Proviso Township High Schools not living up to their potential because people in power are subverting them for political and personal agendas.

But the distribution pattern suggests that if one wants to provide a quality education for one's child, there are two public schools in the area worth considering and maybe three private schools. If you combine Cicero, Berwyn, Proviso and Leyden there isn't one student attending public school who would score in the top twenty at OPRF. Realize that there may be another 20 or more OPRF students who didn't qualify as National Merit Scholar semifinalists who still outscore all the public school students in Proviso, Cicero, Berwyn and Leyden.

[UPDATE: Lyons Township High School has 22 National Merit Scholar semifinalists. I apologize for overlooking LT.]

money, politics and the county health care system

Many taxpayers don't know what the county uses their money for.

Chicago Tribune (Andrew Schroedter):

Malcolm Holec knows that he pays a portion of his property taxes to fund Cook County government, but he said he wasn't sure what he was getting for his money....

"I don't see what comes back from that money," said Holec, 70, of Mt. Prospect. "I'm spending the money, but what am I getting?"

A large portion of the county's money--probably the largest portion--goes to providing medical services.

People are starting to question the wisdom of letting the Eighth Ward administer health care for poor people in Cook County.
Crain's (Mike Colias):

A committee backed by U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin is preparing to recommend that direct oversight of Cook County's embattled health system be taken out of the hands of President Todd Stroger and the board of commissioners, according to people with knowledge of the panel's work....

It would be the latest in a drumbeat of calls from outside groups urging greater expertise for the Cook County Bureau of Health Services, which is among the few public hospital systems in the nation controlled directly by politicians. But this proposal carries added weight because of Mr. Durbin, a fellow Democrat who's made clear that Mr. Stroger must take steps to fix the system before Illinois' congressional delegation works to secure more federal money (Crain's, May 14). Federal funding accounts for more than half of the system's patient revenue.

Do you think the county health care system will be reformed with health care professionals hired instead of political hacks? Or do you think county government will make some moves and some noise but protect the political class as much as possible?

On a related note, Chris Miller wrote that he saw similarities between the death of Orlando Jones (see Sun-Times (Chris Fusco, Steve Patterson, Tim Novak and Natasha Korecki)) and the movie, Casino. The Las Vegas public health system was being investigated for questionable consulting contracts to the politically connected. Jones was at least someone asked to provide documents in that investigation, if not a target.

Obama's family tree examined

Sun-Times (Scott Fornek) scoured Sen. Barack Obama's family tree and found he's related to an interesting cast of characters.

Obama definitely has presidential timber in his family tree: He's distantly related to three U.S. presidents -- Harry S Truman, George W. Bush and George Herbert Walker Bush -- as well as to Vice President Dick Cheney.

I don't know how significant most of this stuff is, but it's news because it's interesting and about someone important.

Maywood honors Fred Hampton Saturday

There will be a Fred Hampton monument dedication and street naming ceremony Saturday, September 8, 2007 at 4 PM at 300 Oak, Maywood, IL, aka Fred Hampton Family Aquatic Center.

[UPDATE: Sun-Times (Monifa Thomas) covered the event.]

Dem committeemen endorse Eugene Moore for re-election

Sun-Times (Abdon M. Pallasch):

Ald. Ed Smith took an odd approach in his attempt to oust incumbent Eugene Moore as Cook County recorder of deeds. Smith left town to represent Chicago at a National League of Cities event, leaving a surrogate to argue his case to the committeemen. They endorsed Moore for re-election.

No candidate got the nod for State's Attorney.

Comments?

school uniforms in Melrose Park

Mannheim Middle School (District 83) adopted a school uniform. See Sun-Times (Rosalind Rossi). The usual arguments for and against are included.

Metra train kills woman

Sunday, a woman was killed by a Metra train in Maywood. See Sun-Times.

CeaseFire accounting and effectiveness questioned

CeaseFire is coming under criticism for poor accounting and because research is questioning its effectiveness as a violence reduction tool. See Sun-Times (David McKinney & Frank Main) or Chicago Tribune (Angela Rozas & Rex W. Huppke).

The primary way I've noticed CeaseFire is the demonstrations after homicides. I suspect there is limited potential for reducing homicide through candlelight vigils after killings.

In social sciences there's a phenomenon called the Hawthorne effect. It's named after the Hawthorne Works in Cicero.

If researchers tinker with a social system and then observe the results of the tinkering there will be a temporary improvement that is caused by the increased observation, not the changes in the social system.

I suspect CeaseFire vigils--at best--could produce a temporary and modest reduction in firearm violence and homicide.

I don't know about CeaseFire's other programs, but the research seems to indicate any benefits are difficult to detect.

new buyers intend to renovate Winston Plaza

Sun-Times (David Roeder):

California-based NewMark Merrill Cos. and Chicago-based GMX Real Estate Group LLC bought the 375,000-square-foot Winston Plaza Shopping Center at the southwest corner of North and Ninth in Melrose Park. The buyers plan a renovation. . . .