Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Chicago Sun-Times
by Lisa Donovan

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle was “appalled” about the allegations of county forest preserve staffers stealing, having sex and boozing while on the clock at a west suburban pool.

“Well I’m angry, too,” Preckwinkle said Tuesday in her first public comments since the Cook County Inspector General released a report Friday with detailing the questionable acts last summer at the county forest preserve-run Cermak Aquatic Center in Lyons. “My first response about this was to be appalled. People have the right to expect good performance and honesty and appropriate behavior by adults in their treatment of minors. … That wasn’t true in this instance, and it’s deplorable.”

Cameras in a pool office captured staff stealing entrance fees, having sex with one another and, in some cases, adult staff providing alcohol to underage staff.

In his Friday report, Inspector General Patrick Blanchard wrote that he recommended a range of discipline — from suspensions to firing — of 17 seasonal and full-time staffers and that the probe ballooned into an investigation of over-time abuse, to the tune of $167,000, at all three forest preserve pools.

Preckwinkle said seasonal employees involved are on a do-not-hire list, while others have been fired or suspended and still others have quit over the investigation. More details will be released next week, she said.

In the meantime, the results of the probe — including theft allegations — have been referred to the Cook County State’s Attorney. Already, the forest preserve police ticketed six employees for drinking on forest preserve property, and one of those staffers was charged with a misdemeanor count of providing alcohol to minors, Forest Preserve Police Chief Richard Waszak told the Sun-Times last week.

Preckwinkle was not in office at the time of the alleged fraud but said since she was sworn in Dec. 6th, she’s received reports almost weekly from the inspector general about incompetent or even loafing government employees.

“I have had the dubious pleasure since I came in to office of getting an inspector general’s report about activity that pre-dates my swearing-in every week or so for the county side or the forest preserve side,” Preckwinkle said after a press conference with Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel to announce a new study on streamlining city and county services.

“I anticipate that there will continue to be reports of bad activities that occurred before we got there,” Preckwinkle said. “We’re trying to put new people in place and new procedures in place so that the bad activity is minimized going forward from December. When you have a workforce of 24,000 people, frankly, there are always going to be some people who screw up but you try to put procedures in place and good management in place so that that number is modest rather than large.”

She said that the forest preserve investigation revealed some of the more serious problems she’s seen to date.

“There was sexual activity on county time,” she said, listing one of several problems found in the report. “I think there were real issues in management at the forest preserve which is why when we walked in the door, we changed the leadership there.”

Weeks after she took office, she hired Arnold Randall as the new superintendent and Mary Laraia as his deputy.