Transparency

Your window into Cook County government. That’s right, it’s blank.

Tax Sale

This just came in over the transom.

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PRESIDENT TODD H. STROGER’S STATEMENT CONCERNING THE SALES TAX

For Immediate Release
James Ramos, Press Secretary
Attention: News Assignment
312-603-0365
jaramos@cookcountygov.com

The government of Cook County is mandated by the state of Illinois to provide an array of services to its citizens. Governments throughout the nation, and in the state of Illinois, have imposed taxes to combat the rise in costs and cuts made by the federal government. The state of Illinois just recently raised its sales tax a quarter (1/4) of a percent to meet transportation costs.

The federal government’s cuts in Medicaid and Medicare will result in the Cook County Bureau of Health losing over 500 million dollars over the next five years.

Cook County offers other essential services that must be provided as mandated by the state of Illinois. These services include, but are not limited to, the Recorder of Deeds; State’s Attorney’s office; Sheriff’s office; Assessors office; the Circuit Court of Cook County; Board of Elections; Public Defender’s office; Animal Control; Board of Review; Treasurer’s office; the Medical examiner’s office; the Chief Judge’s office; the County Clerk’s office, and the Public Guardian’s office.

In the passing of the FY2008 Budget, the Cook County Board of Commissioners made a fiscally sound decision by increasing revenue to ensure that these services would not be interrupted.

This new revenue increases the sales tax by 1 percent, or “one penny on a dollar.” This tax is the only new tax increase passed by the board in the FY2008. This tax does NOT affect Real Estate Property Taxes – or anything attached with a TITLE. It is important to remember that this sales tax does NOT apply to goods, particularly groceries items such as food, milk and meats, prescription drugs, medicines and medical supplies.

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Also, the new tax will fund more press releases like this one.

Tax Foundation

The Tribune editorial page today reminds readers of the “Stroger-Daley Tax” that goes into effect on Tuesday.

(Why not the Daley-Stroger Tax? Without Daley, the tax doesn’t happen; without Stroger, it does.)

The paper includes a graphic comparing our new 10.25 percent sales tax burden to other area communities.

What the Trib didn’t do was break down the sales tax and show what our money will be funding. Fortunately, the Division Street accounting department had some free time this morning and crunched the numbers. Here’s what they found:

* Richard M. Daley Defense Fund: 3 percent

* Diversion of funds to Richard M. Daley campaign fund: 1 percent

* John Daley insurance fees: 1 percent

* Michael Daley legal fees: 1 percent

* Bill Daley sympathy fund for being the smart one: 2 percent

* Todd Stroger Friends & Family Plan: .5 percent

* Walkaround money: .5 percent

* Raise to David Axelrod: .5 percent

* Cook County Democratic Party Swiss bank account: .5 percent

* Funds to tear down the Swallow Cliff toboggan slide: .25 percent

Bizarro Stroger

How do you know when Todd Stroger is making a fool of himself? When his mouth moves.

“As you may recall, in the summer and fall of 2006, I campaigned for the office of Cook County board president and promised to create an independent governance structure for the county’s health care system, to place the county’s juvenile temporary detention center under the authority of the chief judge and to reform and empower the office of the inspector general,” Stroger said on Thursday.

Daily Herald writer Rob Olmstead writes: “Well, one out of three ain’t bad. Stroger never promised the first two. In fact, in a Daily Herald campaign questionnaire dated September 2006, Stroger was asked point blank about his willingness to turn over the health care system to an independent board.

“‘I believe that the county board and its president should maintain control over the Bureau of Health,’ he wrote.

“Additionally, Stroger never promised to turn over the juvenile detention center either. On his own campaign Web page, he wrote in 2006, ‘I am not ready to give up on the JTDC,’ and instead advocated ‘owning up to our own mistakes and fixing them ourselves.’

“Confronted with the discrepancy, Stroger spokesmen insisted the president was correct, even asserting there was documentation to prove it. By the end of the day, though, they reversed course.

“The president misspoke today,” a spokesman said.

Just like every other day.

Rod’s Revolution

“Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been interviewed multiple times by federal investigators looking into allegations that he and key members of his administration offered contracts and state work in exchange for campaign fundraising help, according to documents unsealed Thursday,” the Tribune reports.

“Blagojevich made no mention of the newly unsealed revelations at his fundraiser Thursday night, but in a speech to donors he did allude to critical coverage of him by the media and sarcastically gave that as a reason why he needed to keep raising campaign funds.

“’We can’t just rely on all this good press we’ve been getting these days,’ Blagojevich said while an audience of several hundred chuckled.”

He’s declaring independence from the system.

Programming Note

Please bear with me, dear readers, I have to take my laptop to the local Genius Bar this morning to get my Wi-Fi working properly. I also will be flying out very early to L.A. on Friday morning to help teach a session at SPJ’s Citizen Journalism Academy. So posting will be light to sporadic if at all today, though I hope to resume tomorrow and through the weekend from sunny California. Apparently they have a cool new subway system and I might just check it out.

Kook Kounty Kars

“My two greatest passions combined,” Dan Sprehe, chief investigator for the BGA, writes to Division Street. “The only thing that would have exceeded it would have been a screen shot of Chief Wiggum or Mayor Quimby.”

From the BGA’s press release:

“A Better Government Association (BGA) investigation, in partnership with Fox-Chicago, shows Cook County has failed to live up to its own laws for tracking and managing its large fleet of vehicles. The bills for those vehicles, their maintenance, and their expensive gasoline are paid by Cook County taxpayers, already struggling to fill their own gas tanks.”

From the Fox Chicago report “Cook County Loses Track of County Cars and Who’s Driving Them“:

“We’re just days away from the new Cook County sales tax going into effect and new questions are being raised about the county’s ability to manage its budget. A Fox News investigation with the Better Government Association found the county can’t tell us how many cars it owns or who’s driving them. It’s been three years since the county last accounted for. As Dane Placko reports, the county isn’t following its own legal requirements.”

Bike Psych

“Mayor Daley says the Paris-style bike rental program he’s been pushing for nearly a year has not started rolling because of questions about who would be left holding the bag if somebody gets hurt,” the Sun-Times reported on Tuesday.

“It’s all about lawyers. That’s the only hang-up,” Daley told the paper. “Who takes the legal liability – is it the biker, is it the company or the city? The city has deep pockets. That’s what you worry about. That’s what the hang-up is.”

That might sound like a pretty lame hang-up, but Paris is re-examining is program after a series of cyclist deaths.

“The third death this year of a cyclist using Paris’s self-service bike service Vélib’ has raised safety concerns over the popular scheme, with motorists complaining of reckless behaviour by locals and tourists,” the London Telegraph reports.

“Without real cycle lanes, they should stop Vélib’,” the father of one of the dead cyclists told Le Parisien. Bus and lorry drivers complain that bikers have dropped their guard since the scheme was introduced almost a year ago.

“They don’t know how to ride. Parisians are in a hurry and go through red lights. The others, the tourists ride with their head in the air without knowing where they are going,” said one driver.

Maybe flooding downtown Chicago and the lakefront with tourists on bikes isn’t such a great idea after all.

Fair Warning

“Look, this really is a pro-Obama bumper sticker,” writes Eric at The Edge of the American West. “It’s just a realistic, not to say jaded, pro-Obama bumper sticker. And maybe it’s more than a little whiny. You really think you can win the presidency without courting or crafting constituencies that Good People don’t like? I don’t.”

Proceeds will be donated to the Obama campaign.

* Thanks to the passionate but good-humored Obama supporter who sent this to me.

Gov. Daley

According to Fran Spielman and Rich Miller, Bill Daley is once again considering a run for governor.

I wonder what a Bill Daley Administration would look like.

* Jim Thompson heads transition team.
* Treasurer’s Office outsourced to J.P. Morgan.
* Duffs get Illinois State Fair contract.
* Legislators get pay raises in exchange for no longer showing up to work.
* Statewide Hired Trucks!
* Capitol dome becomes rooftop garden.
* State flower becomes the dollar bill.