Word: cooking
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...takes a lot to shock or digust the voters of Chicago, where nepotism and corruption have long been such an ingrained part of municipal government. But this week Cook County, Illinois, which covers the Windy City and its surrounding suburbs, may have found that its already low bar for ethical government is actually scraping the dirt...
...Indeed, the facts would be hard to fathom in just about any place outside Chicago. The government of Cook County, with a population of 5.5 million, has an operating budget over $3 billion, the prospect of a $100 million budget deficit and unanswered questions about possible tax increases and service cuts. But since Cook County Board President John Stroger, 77, suffered a stroke on March 14, a week before easily winning the primary election, he hasn't been seen in public since. For all practical purposes, no one has been running the county for the past three months...
...Still, Stroger has refused to step down nor turn over his duties to anyone else. In a clear sign of the robust health of the county's political machine, few of Stroger's colleagues on the Cook County Board of Commissioners will even dare to publicly hint that he should resign. Stroger's office says that the president's chief of staff is making day-to-day decisions after receiving guidance from the ailing President, who's been in and out of the hospital since the stroke. Stroger was first elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners...
...week's end that he'll endorse his son Todd, a 43-year-old Chicago alderman, to replace him on the November ballot for the presidency, while recommending a close friend William Beavers, who also serves on the Chicago city council, to run for his seat on the Cook County Board. Currently, Stroger holds both positions himself, but under county rules, they may be occupied by two separate officeholders. "Todd Stroger has never been any kind of major player in the city council," noted Stewart. "It is essentially feudal law. The primogeniture system is alive and well here," he said...
...With all the attention on succession issues, it's easy to forget that there's other business at hand. Cook County's government overseas the largest unified criminal and civil justice system in the country, and operates the nation's largest jail. It runs three hospitals, numerous health clinics and is responsible for maintaining 1,474 miles of pavement. But none of these responsibilities, nor the county's faltering fiscal health, is apparently enough to keep Stroger from finishing his term and anointing his successor...