CHICAGO | A week after releasing an error-riddled 2009 budget, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger chided critics Wednesday and sought to spread responsibility for the county's decisions.
Stroger has been widely criticized by commissioners and the media for proposing to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to pay county operating expenses after raising the county's sales tax to the highest in the nation.
"The local papers like to say, 'President Stroger this and President Stroger that' -- no, we have to get nine votes to do anything," Stroger said. "You as commissioners ought to be telling people what's going on."
His comments came just a day after he got into an on-air shouting match with Commissioner Forrest Claypool, who was a guest on "The Erich 'Mancow' Muller Show" on WLS-AM 890 radio. A fellow Democrat, Claypool has been among Stroger's most vocal critics and is said to be considering challenging him for board president again in 2010.
Stroger, immediately after gaveling Wednesday's board meeting to order, picked up where the two had left off and reiterated that he was not asking for new money, but instead for a bond issue.
"There is no extra money that will be run around," Stroger told the board. "I won't get to hire my friends, as some people like to say. This money will be used by you, because you vote on everything."
Claypool said later, when asked about Stroger's comment, "I guess he's implying that borrowed money isn't real money."
Commissioner Mike Quigley, D-Chicago, agreed, saying Stroger was denying financial realities.
"Cook County sometimes suspends belief that the outside market affects us," Quigley says. "By borrowing money, you're just putting off problems."
But Commissioner William Beavers, D-Chicago, a Stroger ally, applauded the president's tough talk.
"Mr. President, if you think that these people here are going to support you, you got another thought coming," Beavers said. "What you're doing -- just like you (fought) Claypool yesterday -- you going to have to fight them all."
Last week, Stroger presented his proposed 2009 budget, but officials said hard copies were not made available because so many errors had been discovered that the clerk's office was correcting and reprinting the entire batch.
In addition to the $2.9 billion budget, Stroger has offered three bond proposals worth a total of $740 million, including a $104 million bond to fund pensions, a $260 million self-insurance bond and a $375 million bond for capital improvements.
Much of the opposition's reluctance to support the bonds has to do with confusion over why more money is needed after the board raised the sales tax over the summer.
The board meets again Monday to consider the proposed spending plan.
