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| 1/13/2010 10:00:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Our endorsements for county board
In an astonishingly barren season of political choices, we offer two enthusiastic endorsements. We're backing Toni Preckwinkle for Cook County board president. And for 1st District Cook County Commissioner we offer our support to Austin businessman Ade Onayemi.
Toni Preckwinkle for county board president
Ald. Toni Preckwinkle is smart, progressive, independent and cool in that sort of Obama like way they must be bottling down in Hyde Park. A teacher for a decade, an independent alderman for two decades, Preckwinkle is just now hitting her stride as a candidate. She has held back on personal attacks or over promising. She has just doggedly made the points - this government costs too much, favors the few, and doesn't work in delivering health care efficiently or adequately. Toni Preckwinkle has detailed plans. She has political acumen. She understands, in her understated way, that this government must be taken apart and put back together on an entirely new model. She deserves your vote.
Ade Onayemi for 1st District seat
 | We have known and admired Ade Onayemi's work in Oak Park and in Austin for many years. A native of Nigeria and a political person whose outlook was shaped by the dysfunction of that country's history, he understands that Cook County has failed in ways both big and small. He grasps the waste and the corruption, the systems failure in providing health care to the poor and uninsured, the debacle at the juvenile detention center and in the county jail. He has a public career as an elected school board member and board president in Oak Park, as an education activist on the West Side. He has a private career as an architect with offices in Austin. Those public and private efforts integrate into a life spent listening well, building coalitions, solving problems, making difficult choices. We offer him our strongest endorsement.
A word concerning Earlean Collins, who has been a county commissioner for 14 years: she is both apologetic and defiant about her years of invisibility in this district. Talking to the press, meeting voters was never her priority, she said, because she always took a more global view of the job and was off in Springfield and in Washington doing important work. Collins actually is more impressive than anticipated. She has more facts and more perspective on the range of many woes enveloping this bloated bureaucracy. But here's the damning quote as she made the case for more time, one more election: "County government is different. The people in power aren't running it," she said of elected officials doing battle with a legion of patronage hires, entrenched bureaucrats and assorted hangers-on. There then is the argument. No more tinkering around the edges. No more room for swing votes or compromises. This government is rotten; it is out of the control of the people we elect. In hard times it sucks up far too much
money without any expectation of accountability, and it fails to serve those in need.
Collins is sincere. And we will accept that she is hard-working. But she should have taken her own advice and retired before this election. She had her opportunity and now it is time for wholesale change.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, January 22, 2010
Article comment by:
MRS. DIANE M. PHILLIPS
How dare you endorse anyone other than the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook, Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County for the past nine years. You speak about the Commander-in-Chief, President of the USA, the Honorable Barack Obama as being like Alderwoman Toni Preckwrinkle but your characteration is simply wrong. The Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook is more like President Barack Obama than all of the Candidates combined. Specifically, like President Barack Obama, the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook is licensed to practice law in the great State of Illinois. Whereas the other Candidates are generic politicians who do not care about the devastation that occurs every day in the Austin community. For example, most of the residents who live, work and pray on the west side of Chicago who are American born Black people, live below the poverty line, are ex-offenders, suffer severe medical and psychiatric problems, engage in domestic violence by beating and murdering their wifes and girlfriends are facing foreclosure of their homes and poor educational and vocational outcomes for their children. The Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook is the only Candidate that has actually worked tireless to effectuate real change not only for the residents of the west side of Chicago but for all persons who live, work and pray within the County of Cook and through out the great State of Illinois. For example, the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook is the only independent political leader in this state that holds Annual Expungement Summits where your readers come 10,000 strong to clear their criminal records. Also, the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook is the only proven political leader that has served with integrity and has managed a county budget that is void of waste because the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook has over thirty-five years as a fiscal executive experience in government and in private industry. Also, the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook is the only political leader who has attempted to fix the Juvenile Justice system in Cook County by recommending pragmatic measures to teach children and youth to strive for greatness instead of delinquent behavior that causes death and incarseration in the state prison system. Also, the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook is the only political leader that speaks out about the educational disparities that plague the City of Chicago at the Chicago Public Schools. The other Candidates simply do not care about the children who are compelled to attend sub-standard elementary and high schools located in the Austin community and through out the City of Chicago. Also, the other Candidates do not care about abused and neglected children and youth who are exploited every day on the west side of Chicago, through out the County of Cook and in every county within the great State of Illinois. While the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook serves on legislatively created committees to effectuate solutions to assist abused, neglected, exploited children and youth. Also, the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook is the only political leader who seeks to fix the poorly run public hospital system whereas the other Candidates give lip service about improving the fiscal operations at the Cook County Hospital System. The Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook is the only political leader that works to eradicate domestic violence whereas the other Candidates simply suggest that domestic violence is a private matter that does not require governmental resources to keep domestic violence programs operating within the County of Cook and through out the State of Illinois. Also, the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook is the only independent political leader who seeks to end corruption within the County of Cook whereas the other Candidates are part of the Mayor Richard J. Daley political machine that continues to hurt the residents of Austin as well as all residents of Chicago who are not White and come from privilage. Finally, it would be advisable for the the Editorial Board of the Austin Weekly to follow the lead of the Honorable Danny K. Davis, U. S. House of Representative for the 7th Congressional District and endorse the Honorable Dorothy Ann Brown Cook as the next President of the Cook County Board of Commissioner because she is the only Candidate who can stop corruption, find money on the federal level to fix the insurmountable problems that your readers deal with every day!
Respectfully Submitted By: Mrs. Diane M. Phillips, DA BGS MSHSA MJ DBA/Ph.D./JD or EJD pending
President & CEO, ELITE HUMAN SERVICE SYSTEMS, INC.
Posted: Thursday, January 21, 2010
Article comment by:
Willie Richardson
I am also disappointed with Austin Weekly's endorsement,but for a different reason. Toni Precwinkle has neither the executive management nor financial background to effectively do this job. I love teachers and history, but I do not believe they have the skill set necessary to manage county government. Dorothy Brown, on the other hand, has her CPA, MBA, and law degrees. She has also effectively managed the largest unified court system in the country. Finally, she avoided raising taxes and brought in $180 million dollars in new revenue for the county.
Posted: Friday, January 15, 2010
Article comment by:
Philip Steele Krone
I couldn't agree with you more that while other candidates have certain virtues, over all, Toni Presckwinkle is the best person at this time to lead county government.
Posted: Thursday, January 14, 2010
Article comment by:
Giino Betts Senior
I'm extremely disappointed in your choice of endorsement for cook county board president, your reason given for endorsing Preckwinkle are the same qualifications that President Stroger has displayed as president he has managed to offer health care for the uninsured(keeping suburban hospitals/clinics open), keeping county employees furlough free(unlike city and state)without going over budget(unlike city, state or any other county department)in other words if it ain't broke don't fix it. Pres. Stroger is a victim of political propagandas being villifyed through the media while Preckwinkle is a will and deal politician that plays to the fatcats and other politicians who has done nothing for the masses(underclass) and if you do some nonpartisan research on Pres. Stroger I'm sure you'll reconsider your endorsement. PEACE!
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