* Cook County Board President Todd Stroger has paid off a big debt - to himself.
Stroger’s latest fundraising report showed he cashed in three certificates of deposit worth over $526,000 and paid himself $350,000.
President Stroger loaned his campaign $500,000 during his first countywide race. His D2 report is a bit of a mess (no surprise). The report claims he still owes $115,000 in debt to others, including Senate Majority Leader James Clayborne. But it looks like the total is more like $181K $131K to others and $150K to himself.
Stroger reported raising about $180,000 in the first six months of the year, but drilling into the report you find that $48,000 of that was transferred in from a now defunct Stroger campaign committee.
* Stroger’s D2 isn’t the only mess. He’s now looking at having to veto a tax hike rollback…
Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is vowing to veto the latest plan to cut back on the penny-on-a-dollar sales-tax hike that he pushed through a year ago. But a key opponent says he may have the votes for an override.
The veto threat, confirmed by Mr. Stroger’s office, came after Commissioners John Daley and Lawrence Suffredin met with Mr. Stroger last week and asked him to halve the tax hike by early 2010.
And then there’s this…
Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s office now plans to release cellphone records as soon as later today of the four people at the center of a hiring scandal in his administration: Stroger himself, his chief communications officer Gene Mullins and ousted county employees Donna Dunnings and Tony Cole.
That’s according to the Better Government Association, which sued Stroger for failing to turn over those cellphone records between Nov. 30, 2008, to April 30, 2009.
Stroger is hiring a new campaign manager soon, but to say he faces an uphill climb is an insult to hills.
* Potential Stroger challenger Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown loaned her campaign fund $70,000 and raised another $160,000, which is more than Stroger, believe it or not. Unsurprisingly, quite a few of those contributions came from Cook County employees.
* One of the more formidable challengers in the contest, Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, raised about $365,000 net for two different committees. Treasure Island Foods was her biggest contributor, giving $15,000. She also transferred in $25,000 from her aldermanic campaign fund.
* Congressman Danny Davis could be the big dog in this contest. Davis’ local campaign fund pulled in $67K, spent it all and had $20K left. His federal committee, which he could use for the local race, had about $580K on hand at the end of the last quarter. [Notice change. That’s ten times more than I first wrote. Wow.]
* MWRD President Terrence O’Brien raised no money, but had about $147K stashed in two committees.
* Sheriff Tom Dart says he’s not interested in a run, but he did raise $101K and had $216 in the bank.
* Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin has been talking about running, but he raised no money other than a $30,000 loan to himself. He had just $9100 on hand.