Cook County still don't want nobody that Nobody sent. The Cook County Forest Preserve District is offering jobs to new high school graduates between the ages of 18 to 21. The pay is $9/hour.
The kicker: You have to get your CCFPD aka County Commissioner to nominate you.
The punchline: The program is named after Mr. Patronage himself, John H. Stroger, Jr.
We've been given fair warning. If Deborah Sims is re-elected, she will vote to raise our taxes (again) here in Cook County. "I think that penny -- we need to figure out how to get it back," she told the League of Women Voters candidate forum in Flossmoor on Wednesday night. "We've got to get that penny back." Despite the observation from Sims' opponent, Sheila Chalmers-Currin, that we "pay the highest sales tax in America," the current County Commissioner for the 5th district was completely unmoved. The increase of the penny sales tax was justified, and Sims made it very clear where she stood.
There's a lot of talk in the news about how certain elections across the country show, or don't show, how Obama is doing and whether the Democratic Party is losing ground. Here in Cook County, we have some other data we can parse to see if there are signs of change.
The filings for Cook County Committeemen positions in the three parties that appear on Illinois ballots show some interesting things about the stability and robustness of the parties. I started looking into this when I noticed that not all the seats were filled, meaning that some of these committeeman positions will almost certainly not be filled through upcoming elections.
Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica (R-Riverside) has created a website that includes salary, job title and department of all Cook County employees, CookEmployees.com.
Cook County taxpayers fund 25,000+ employees... lots good, some bad, to be sure.
Cook County has long had problems with illegal hiring and patronage. In fact, the county is currently spending millions to fund three federal compliance officers to monitor county hiring practices ... and yet the county has still failed to come into compliance with the law.
The website provides transparency, which will act as a counterveiling force to corruption in some cases. However, without knowing how people are connected, the data doesn't tell the full story.
At approximately 8 AM today a person or persons not yet identified or apprehended fired seven shots into a home in Riverside. The police have told the media they believe the shooter intended to target the house next door where Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica lives. See Riverside/Brookfield Landmark (Bob Uphues).
Two days ago, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted 12-3 to repeal the 1% sales tax increase implemented at the request of Cook County Board President Todd Stroger. See Chicago Public Radio (Tony Arnold). While Stroger does have the option of vetoing the repeal of the sales tax increase, he has publicly considered cutting Cook County health services by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Peraica has harped on the sales tax increase aggressively since it was passed. He contends it is unnecessary and that it's purpose was to expand the number of political workers loyal to Stroger and the Democratic Party on county payroll.
It is a political campaign maxim, particularly for non-incumbents, that campaigns must jealously focus on their own race to win - and that any 'distraction' from their campaign comes at great or even unbearable cost. While examples may exist, how often have you heard of an underdog congressional campaign taking their volunteers to canvass for a neighboring congressional candidate? Perhaps more uncommon, how often have you heard of a congressional candidate taking their volunteers out of state to canvass for a presidential candidate in a party primary? It may be unconventional strategy, but 13th Congressional District Democrat Scott Harper has taken campaign volunteers to support neighboring 14th District Congressman Bill Foster in his historic win, and just last weekend was canvassing for Barack Obama in Lafayette, Indiana with his volunteers.
yesterday, dorothy brown (clerk of the circuit court of cook county) held a GOTV rally for all the democratic candidates in cook county at the teamsters auditorium in chicago. mrs bored got a letter from the friends of dorothy brown (because she's on the ballot as a delegate for bill richardson), although an announcement of the rally is prominantly featured on her website.
after the rally, i had the opportunity to talk to dorothy, about democratic prospects in the fall, bush's reckless invasion of iraq and the candidates that she's endorsed. actually, i just started. dorothy pretty much took it from there.
Note: I have posted something similar at www.blogforamerica.com.
"Start planning now for 2010" was the message of Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin at our Thursday, June 7th, Edgewater/Rogers Park DFA meeting (http://www.dfalink.c...). That is when Board President Todd Stroger, and all 17 commissioners, will be up for re-election, and when we can try again to bring some reform to Cook County government. To the disappointment of many in the room, Comm. Suffredin stated that there is no legal way to remove Todd Stroger from office until that election. The Cook County Board does not operate under a parliamentary system, so votes of "no confidence" are meaningless, and there is no provision here for impeachment or for recall elections. In other words, we are stuck with Todd's less-than-adequate leadership until 2010.
And though 2010 seems like a long time away, it really isn't. A February primary means that the majority of the campaign will happen in 2009, which means candidates will start fundraising and forming their committees as early as fall of 2008,which is just a little over a year away.
Below is a more detailed write-up of Comm. Suffredin's comments, which were excellent and really eye opening. My message to folks who live in Cook County who have non-reform commissioners: start organizing and start recruiting candidates now.
From Phil Huckelberry, phone: 309-268-9974, email: phil.huckelberry@gmail.com: It turns out that Carol Larson is not only running unopposed for Oak Lawn-Hometown School Board, she's actually one of two candidates on the ballot for three seats. That third seat I'm calling an "empty election".
The care provided for those without insurance is terrible. The proposed Cook County budget cuts will move the situation to horrible. I use those words consciously. They describe an indescribable situation. When we say the cuts will make things worse we can forget that things have been being made worse for a long time now.
I attended the hearing on the proposed budget cuts last night in Skokie. There must have been close to 1000 people in the room and over 120 people came to testify. Several of the commissioners were there but Todd Stroger was notably absent.
As you know there is a call to cut 17% across the board in Cook County because we are faced with a $500 million budget deficit. These cuts will affect the poorest of the poor the most directly. As one woman testified imagine if your child woke you in the middle of the night with a tooth ache and you see that his/her face is swollen from an abscess but you have no money what do you do? Where do you go?
(I found the title of this to be jumping the gun a bit, considering that Cook County hasn't actually done anything yet. So I modified the title to reflect a possibility rather than something that has already occurred. - promoted by bridgetdooley)
Despite Todd Stroger's politically advertised need to cut the County budget for '07, particularly after Bobbie Steele's baldfaced looting of that budget during her brief tenure as interim Board president, the proposed "solution" to the budget crisis in the public defender's office will involve spending more money.
post-election analysis is one of the most important elements of the campaign season that republicans undertake. the genesis of the voter vault actually began after three cycles of intensive electoral analysis, where the incisive questions emerged that led to this comprehensive database.
during the course of these open threads (i will do one on each race that had followers here), i will try to expose readers to another way of looking at electoral outcomes. basically, these are the "fundamentals" of campaigns & elections, and have been found to have been determinative to outcomes. the point is not to frame the discussion for each particular race to be analyzed -- i've found that people tend prefer one over the others, the one that makes the most sense (is most intuitive) to them.
i'm not expecting people to post within that framework. i expect people to think, bored, that's interesting, but here's what i think! this is as much about data collection (anecdotes, etc) as analysis. analysis is only made better by specific examples that are probably unknown to others.
And not just any memorial service. Seymour Simon's service! If you don't know who Seymour Simon is, follow the wiki link and read up. Use the Google and do some research. He's a bit of a legend in Chicago. The service was several weeks ago, but this little revelation was just dropped on me by a very close source.
"The Deed Is Done" Democratic leaders all but hand over the Cook County reins from father to son, unless voters have another idea. These words appeared on the Chicago Tribune's front page today, July 19, 2006.
As I see it, the people of Cook County have two options: (1) To draft Forrest Claypool as a write-in candidate. Everyone knows how Claypool narrowly lost in the primary elections to John Stroger. There are some who suspect foul-play on the part of the Stroger Camp. Without a doubt, Claypool is the most qualified man for this important slot.Claypool is a respected lawyer and a fine family man. Before being elected a Cook County commissioner, Claypoor successfully served as President of the Chicago Parks System. He is the only one with the intelligence, integrity and experience to become Cook County President.
(2) If you are an unintrenchable Republican, by all means make sure you get out the heaviest vote you can for Tony Peraica who is on the ballot. Peraica doesn't have any of Claypool's qualifications but is far and away my choice over Tod Stroger.
Cook County voters now have an unbelievable opportunity to make some crucial changes in Cook County politics. Changes that will benefit them and their families. Most decent people felt a real sense of loss by Forrest Claypool's defeat in the primaries. Cook County voters are being given a rare second chance to make-up for Claypool's loss, and finally break-away from John Stroger's brand of politics. For the record, Cook County is one of the largest counties and amongst the wealthiest and most influential counties in the Nation. Cook County people are hard working, well-educated and civic-minded citizens. Family earnings in Cook County rank among the highest in the Nation. Cook County people take great pride in their communities and in their homes. It's no secret that Cook County residents pay a great deal in taxes. They quietly go about their business, usually never complaining. If they ever gripe, and rightfully so, it's only if they see their hard-earned dollars wasted by indulgent politicians and their inept, poor management. These hardworking people and their families deserve better than another self-styled power broker of the Stroger line!
I thought this press release from the venerable IVI-IPO (on whose State Board I sit as a Delegate) was worth front-paging because it expresses how most Cook County progressives feel:
For Immediate Release on Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Contact: Aviva Patt 312-939-5105
IVI-IPO CALLS FOR OPEN PROCESS
IN BOARD PRESIDENT NOMINATION
(Chicago) The Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO) has called upon the Cook County Democratic Committee to open the nomination process for John Stroger’s replacement to public input and scrutiny.
The Green Party is already planning to field candidates for statewide office.
Since there are no Democrats in close races that have close relationships with the activist grassroots, I expect the Greens will have more volunteers than four years ago.
I would like to see the Greens field candidates for a few more races. I would like to see the Greens field candidates for county wide offices in Cook County and for two Congressional seats: IL-03 (Lipinski) and IL-05 (Emanuel).
