How Northwestern kept its grip on Cook County traffic school
Chicago Sun-Times
March 1, 2010
BY TIM NOVAK AND CHRIS FUSCO Staff Reporters, with the BETTER GOVERNMENT ASSN.
Drivers caught speeding or rolling through stop signs in Cook County have a way to keep their driving record clean -- and their car insurance from going up.
Just pay $40 and take a four-hour traffic-safety class. Strapped for time? Pay $60, and do the class online.
It's a small price for drivers. But it adds up -- to millions of dollars a year -- for whoever runs traffic school.
For nearly two decades, that was Northwestern University, which ran the Cook County court system's traffic school in partnership with the National Safety Council.
John J. Cullerton: state Senate president and a lobbyist, too
Chicago Sun-Times
March 1, 2010
SUN-TIMES STAFF
Illinois Senate President John J. Cullerton is the most powerful elected official in the state who also works as a lobbyist, trying to help clients land government deals -- not with the state, he points out, but with Chicago City Hall and Cook County.
GOP hopefuls want to break political cycle
SouthtownStar
January 24, 2010
BY AMY LEE
Two Republicans pin their campaigns for Cook County Board president on the hope that voters are ready to end 44 years of Democratic control of the board's top job.
For Cook County Board president, Republican: Keats
Daily Herald Editorial Board
Published: 1/20/2010 12:02 AM
Roger Keats, who had retired from a period of 16 years in the state legislature and then a career in the financial services industry, entered the race for president of the Cook County Board race because of the disarray he saw in county government. He, like others, calls for full repeal of the sales tax increase, wants to fight corruption and waste and speaks knowledgeably about what it will take to improve economic opportunity and restore sanity to the management of county resources.
West Suburban independent GOP group endorses Hughes and Andrzejewski
Illinois Review
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The independent Republican Assembly of West Suburban Cook County, a group chaired by Brookfield businessman Earl Gough, announced Sunday their picks for the February 2, 2010 Republican primary:
9 CANDIDATES BATTLE FOR $1,060/HOUR MWRD JOB
ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART|Russ@russstewart.com
Posted here December 30, 2009
There are tolerable part-time jobs. There are superlative part-time jobs.
And there is the crème de la crème: Commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD), where the nine incumbents get paid $70,000 per year for a minimum of 66 hours’ work, 22 days a year – or $1,060 per hour.
GOP candidates for County Board president are counting on help from Rod Blagojevich trial
Chicago Tribune
December 27, 2009
By hdardick@tribune.com | rxbecker@tribune.com
John Garrido and Roger Keats competing for Republican nomination
Facing historically outsized odds of winning the office of Cook County Board president, the two candidates seeking the Republican nomination are pinning their hopes for success in part on indicted Democrat Rod Blagojevich.
John Garrido and Roger Keats, who face each other in the Feb. 2 primary, hope Blagojevich's corruption trial, scheduled for mid-year, will drive voters to the Republican camp.
Threats on Cook Co. candidate Dorothy Brown?
Chicago Sun-Times
December 20, 2009
BY MICHAEL SNEED Sun-Times Columnist
Sneed has learned that a Cook County grand jury is probing allegations that state public aid recipients were forced to circulate Cook County Board presidential candidate Dorothy Brown's nominating petitions under threat of losing their welfare benefits.
County Board votes to cut sales tax
Chicago Current
November 17, 2009 @ 12:51 PM
By Alex Parker
Cook County commissioners today voted to repeal the county’s controversial sales tax by one-half percent, and President Todd Stroger immediately vowed to veto the measure, though he would not say when a veto would come.
Commissioners voted 12 to five to cut the tax, and shot down an amendment that would repeal the entire one-percent tax. If sustained, the rollback would go into effect next July.
Study shows suburban Cook businesses take hit over sales tax
Daily Herald
Published: 11/6/2009 12:03 AM
By Ted Cox | Daily Herald Staff
A new study shows that businesses in suburban Cook, especially along the county line, continue to suffer under the burden of the increased sales tax.
The study, from DePaul University's Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development, shows that sales are down across the Chicago region in the tough economy, but most of all in suburban Cook County.
Illinois Races: Roger Keats for Cook County Board President
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Keats spent 28+ years in the U.S. Army
NBC Chicago
Updated 2:31 PM CST, Tue, Nov 3, 2009
Roger Keats, the retired 16-year State Senator, is the GOP endorsed candidate for 2010 Cook County Board President. He was first elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1976 and then to the Illinois Senate in 1978, serving until 1993.
Chicagoans taxes up 9 percent, Obama's taxes up 1 percent
Obama's bill barely edges up--but he still pays more than $22,000
October 30, 2009
BY TIM NOVAK Staff Reporter/tnovak@suntimes.com
Many Chicago homeowners will see their property taxes rise sharply in the tax bills going out this week. But not President Obama. His taxes on his Kenwood mansion are up just 1 percent, records show. Obama owes $22,456.43 in real estate taxes this year on his Kenwood mansion -- $223.09 more than he paid last year, when he was running for president.
President Obama paid $1.65 million for the Kenwood mansion he and his family moved into in 2005. His real estate tax bill this year is $22,456.43 -- a 1 percent increase from last year. The median tax bill for city homeowners is up 9.6 percent. That's largely because the 7 percent exemption given to homeowners is being phased out.
But the president didn't take that exemption during the last two years. So he's not experiencing the pain of losing it, like most other Chicago homeowners.
Cook County GOP comes out roaring
DAILY HERALD
9/26/2009 12:01 AM
By Ted Cox | Daily Herald Staff
For anyone who expected Cook County Republicans to be sacrificial lambs in seeking countywide office, they sounded more like hungry lions at the opening of their two-day convention in Rosemont Friday.
"We are soldiers," said Roger Keats, slated as the party's endorsed candidate for County Board president. "We are taking on what has been an army that has controlled this state for a decade now and controlled this county for almost a half-century."
GOP Southlanders look to make move
September 2, 2009
By Fran Eaton | featon@illinoisreview.com
Republicans at state and national levels are excitedly whispering among themselves about recent polling results identical to 1993's, a year before the stunning 1994 Republican sweep that made Newt Gingrich speaker of the U.S. House and Lee Daniels speaker of the Illinois House for a brief two years.