It seems as though Cook County Board President Todd Stroger wakes up every morning with one goal mind: Making me angry.
And he’s accomplished this just about every day this week. In fact, Stroger has made a career out of annoying me.
Let’s start with the obscene manner in which Stroger got his job. His father, the late John Stroger, was seeking re-election as president of the County Board and was being challenged by County Board Commissioner Forrest Claypool for the Democratic nomination in the 2006 primary.
But John Stroger suffered a stroke a week before the election, and the Cook County Democratic Machine went into high gear. Family members and party bosses insisted that Stroger was up to the job and intended to serve his new term if elected. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley even appeared in a commercial while Stroger was in the hospital to endorse his candidacy.
But all of that was a lie. John Stroger was incapacitated at that point and never fully recovered (he died last year at the age of 78). He was in no condition to serve as a public official, and he should have withdrawn his name from the race immediately.
But the party bosses didn’t like the prospect of Claypool winning the Democratic primary, so these opportunistic vultures gruesomely propped up John Stroger to win the sympathy vote in the primary and then yanked him in favor of Todd Stroger in the general election. It was truly macabre; they cared nothing about this man’s condition, only to holding on to their power.
Sadly, Todd Stroger defeated County Board Commissioner Tony Peraica of Riverside in the general election that year. And he has since done nothing to improve the sorry shape of county government.
Last year Stroger ushered through the 1 percentage point sales tax increase, which has infuriated county residents. I’ve heard from some of them and have read comments on news media Web sites about how many are going out of their way to shop in either DuPage or Will counties to avoid the sales tax.
Last week, the County Board lured some disenchanted Democrats and voted 12-3 to repeal the sales tax increase. Stroger said repealing the entire sales tax increase would devastate county government — a claim that Peraica recently told me is a crock. But Stroger went ahead and vetoed the repeal Monday, insisting government needs every penny it can get.
Except if the money is coming from him, that is. This morning I heard a report on the radio that the IRS has placed a lien on his home in seeking the $12,000 in income taxes that Stroger apparently didn’t pay in 2005.
Corruption, hypocrisy, incompetence — I can’t make up my mind which is Stroger’s greatest contribution to the County Board. Whatever it is, he needs to go. I’d love to hear from any Cook County folks out there who’d be willing to take up my Impeach Todd Stroger campaign. The 2010 elections can’t come fast enough for me.
The more presssing need, however, is to convince County Board members to override Stroger’s veto. Of the 17 board members, 14 would need to vote to sustain the sales tax increase repeal.
Here are the County Board members and their office numbers (I got this idea from the Chicago Tribune, which this week listed a few of these numbers — I’m giving you all of them). Please let them know you want the sales tax increase to be repealed:
Earleen Collins, 1st District, (312) 603-4566
Robert Steele, 2nd District, (312) 603-3019 (main office), (773) 722-0140 (district office)
Jerry Butler, 3rd District, (312) 603-6391
William Beavers, 4th District, (312) 603-2065 (main office), (773) 731-1515 (district office)
Deborah Sims, 5th District, (312) 603-6381
Joan Murphy, 6th District, (312) 603-4216 (main office), (708) 389-2125 (district office)
Joseph Moreno, 7th District, (312) 603-5443 (main office), (773) 927-715 (district office)
Roberto Maldonaldo, 8th District, (312) 603-6386; chief of staff Kathleen Oskandy, (312) 603-6410
Peter Silvestri, 9th District, (312) 603-4393 (main office), (773) 774-8554 (district office)
Bridget Gainer, 10th District, (312) 603-4210
John Daley, 11th District, (312) 603-4400
Forrest Claypool, 12th District, (312) 603-6380 (main office), (773) 832-4642 (district office)
Larry Suffredin, 13th District, (312) 603-6383 (main office), (847) 864-1209 (district office)
Gregg Goslin, 14th District, (312) 603-4932 (main office), (847) 729-9300 (district office)
Timothy Schneider, 15th District, (312) 603-6388 (main office), (847) 640-1632 (district office)
Tony Peraica, 16th District, (312) 603-6384 (main office), (708) 345-5808 (district office)
Elizabeth Gorman, 17th District, (312) 603-4215 (main office), (847) 871-1717 and (708) 349-1336 (district offices)
Stumble It!
5 Comments
May 13, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Let’s get Cook County moving forward …
Good idea. And while we are at it.
Wanna’ run for Chicago’s mayor in 2011?
Let’s get going.
Go to ChicagoNLA2011 at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChicagoNLA2011
Time’s running out.
Joe lake Chicago, (Bucktown)
May 13, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Joe:
You flatter me with offering me the Chicago mayoral job! But I bet you say that to all political bloggers, eh? Seriously, thanks for chiming in on this issue. So let’s rally the troops and get something going. Ciao.
— Jerry Moore
May 13, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Inquiring minds want to know!
Jerry Moore:
Do you live in the City of Chicago?
Or if not, would you move into the City of Chicago?
Joe Lake, Chicago (Bucktown)
May 22, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Jerry,
As I watch the miserable Cook County politics, I wonder why anyone in DuPage County would want to vote Democrats into office in DuPage County. I certainly don’t want their kind of government. It’s bad enough having it in Cook County and in the State Legislature. The State Legislature won’t even give anything up to have good ethics in government! What does that tell you?
October 4, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Solution: Green Party