Friday, March 07, 2008
Chicago Sun-Times
by STEVE PATTERSON

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger spent Thursday lecturing the press about how a recent federal court report -- accusing his administration of continuing patronage hiring practices -- was full of lies and half-truths.

"If you read the report, you'll find out that is the case," he said. Turns out, Stroger admitted he hadn't even read it himself.

Yet that federal report -- filed Monday -- provided a launching point for counterattacks by Stroger's most loyal County Board members, who voted Thursday to delay any payments to the federal hiring monitor's office until her report "can be put in the proper perspective," Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno said.

Commissioner Jerry Butler said the monitor, former Judge Julia Nowicki, should "tell us why she wrote the report she wrote," and she "can wait" to be paid for the work she has already done.

Commissioner Mike Quigley called it "humorous" to delay payments "for reports we don't like," and the effort failed.

County taxpayers have now paid almost $1 million to Nowicki, with another nearly $1 million due in expenses, as she and a staff of investigators and attorneys comb through hundreds of patronage claims from 2004-2006.

And while her report says Stroger has done little to change the "status quo," his staffers rattled off a list of changes and accomplishments -- adding that Nowicki's staff has personally supervised the recent hiring for more than 200 positions.

Stroger's allies ripped the media for getting it wrong on details of the report, but Stroger said he'd learned what he has of the report from reading the newspaper.

"I can read the newspaper," he said defiantly. "I got a good education."