Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Chicago Tribune
by The Associated Press

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger has lost his elevator.

It hasn't gone missing—but it's now open to the public, just a few weeks after it was set aside for Stroger's private use.
When staff members commandeered the elevator closest to Stroger's fifth-floor office at the County Building last month, they said it was needed to keep the chatty official on schedule.

"It's really for expediting his schedule so we can get him places and get everything completed," spokesman Bill Figel said at the time. "It's one of many features to modernize county operations, but it also speaks to his inclination to stop and talk to everybody."

But spokesman Steve Mayberry now says that the elevator "simply isn't seen as necessary and was stopped not long after it was put in place."

"The president takes whatever elevator comes first," Mayberry said.