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When you read about the latest stupefying incident at the Cook County Forest Preserve you have to wonder: Who is minding the store? Why is it that every few months we learn about more corruption, more nepotism, more outrageous practices at the preserve and little attention is paid to the follies and felonies that go on there? Someone needs to go in there with a broom and sweep out the dirt. An investigation by Sun Times reporter Steve Patterson revealed there is a long list of Forest Preserve District workers who are driving around on the job without legitimate driver's licenses. Some lost their licenses for DUI convictions; others never seem to have applied for licenses in the first place. Patterson noted that until he began to ask questions, "no one in charge at the district was checking to see if the employees had valid licenses." His questions led to the suspension of 13 workers for 29 days without pay. Once again, the district board seems to have been asleep at the switch. The disclosure about workers who don't have driver's licenses is just the latest in a litany of questionable practices within the forest preserve administration. In July 2003, the Sun-Times reported about the physical mess the preserves were in: the beer bottles and trash littering the woods, the vandalized picnic shelters and the gang graffiti. All because of financial mismanagement at the district which led to county officials laying off low-level workers -- the ones who maintain the grounds -- rather than those from the bloated management ranks. Then there were the stories about Forest Preserve police officers who were bilking their own union or doctoring overtime records to get extra money. But the coup de grace -- until this latest revelation about the driver's licenses -- was the tale about the cheap rents paid by 65 staffers who live in houses bordering forest preserve lands. Some paid as low as $225 monthly for a lovely three-bedroom house near the woods. Others paid $450 a month for enormous residences that could have easily rented for $2,000 a month on the open market. Who could pass up a deal like that? Every time a new fact emerges about misdeeds at the forest preserve, Cook County Board president John Stroger (who also heads the Forest Preserve District) begins to duck and weave rather than tackling the problems head on. He made hollow excuses for the house renters and he has never shied from hiring cronies. Stroger either isn't paying attention to what is going on under his nose or he chooses not to. And he says he wants to increase our taxes. To pay salaries for miscreants and favorites? We're willing to spend our money to protect the preserves, to keep them clean and properly tended and to maintain their legacy for our children, not to abet illegal doings, nepotism and mismanagement.