By law, TIFs are intended to promote economic development in blighted areas, and this is just another example of the widespread disregard of the law regarding TIF development. Can anyone call the Loop, the center of business in downtown Chicago, “blighted?” Not likely.

Why are taxpayers on the hook for subsidizing such developments, all under the guise of TIF? Cook County collected $875 million from taxpayers in TIF money in 2008. How much of this went to economic development in blighted areas?

Check out Cook County Clerk David Orr’s TIF reports, and you’ll see development after development in the least of blighted areas, like the Loop and Lincoln Park.

Taxpayers, do you live in a TIF district? Is it blighted? Take these questions to your elected officials and ask them why your property tax dollars are being funneled into a TIF instead of your schools, parks or libraries. Only when the public starts taking action on the TIF issue will any true reform occur.

The site, at cookcountyclerk.com, lists all 188 registered lobbyists in the county, what they’re lobbying about, who they’re contacting, and what they’re being paid.

Cook County Clerk David Orr said the site makes the lobbying registration process easier and more useful because it’s paperless, available to the public 24 hours a day, requires reporting within 48 hours, and discloses a previously unavailable database that can be searched by keyword, lobbyist or official.

According to the Cook County Clerk’s website, the database is the result of the Lobbyist Sunshine Initiative, a package of amendments proposed by Orr and Bridget Gainer (D-10^th district) that was unanimously adopted by the County Board on October 6^th, 2009. Cook County Clerk David Orr said, “We’re now getting information already that we didn’t get before…We believe it’s quite successful in trying to shed light on who’s trying to influence government.”

The website is a step in the right direction in making Cook County government more transparent. As Rep. Gainer said, the new database “gives taxpayers the upper hand.”

To read the whole Daily Herald article, click here.

Stroger’s staff has lowered minimum job qualifications, pretended not to know job applicants when they did, tried to invoke emergency hiring powers and fed job test answers to applicants with political sponsors.

“The goal is to hire certain people, and they will take whatever steps are needed to get to that goals,” monitor Mary Robinson said in an interview. That attitude has worsened in some quarters since Stroger finished last in a four-way Democratic primary in February, even as improvements were made in other areas, she said.

Eugene Mullins, Stroger’s spokesman, responded to the charges saying all of the firings were from failure to live up to expectations and all those hired were qualified for the work they were doing. One person specifically mentioned in the report was Carla Oglesby, Stroger’s former campaign spokeswoman. Oglesby was given a $120,000-a-year chief of staff post but was suspended when it was discovered that she authorized a $25,000 contract to her own public relations firm. “But Stroger quickly put her back on the payroll, even as an inspector general’s investigation into contracts she authorized continues.”

The findings in this report show what transparency can reveal when it comes to corrupt and inefficient hiring. Unfortunately, it took a court-ordered FBI probe for this information to become public. Instead, Cook County should aim to be transparent so such hiring and firing are never even considered.

To read the whole article, click here.

Some who have observed the stockpile “insist the actual number is far greater. They say the stacks of carts run 25-deep for at least a block at a warehouse at 900 E. 103rd St., shared by several city departments.” Alderman Joe Moore of the 49th ward “called the stash ‘ embarrassing and a colossal waste of money.’”

Alderman Tom Allen (38th) had a different take on it: “Nobody saw this perfect storm of economic meltdown coming…Having the carts is the cheap part of the equation. The real sore point is that we are treating citizens in different regions of the city unequally. We have to find a way to get this done. If we can’t, we should just repeal the program and go back to do-it-yourself recycling.”

To read the whole article, click here.

According to the report, ACE sells coffee, cups, lids, sports drinks, water, tea and snacks and also has contracts with the Illinois Tollway Authority, Community Consolidated School District 54 (Schaumburg), the Oak Park Township Senior Services Nutrition Program, the University of Illinois and the Illinois State Board of Education.

In addition, ACE is an active political contributor, giving “almost $30,000 to local politicians and political committees since 2000,” with a majority of contributions ($20,250) going to “political committees affiliated with longtime 14th Ward Alderman and Democratic Committeeman Edward M. Burke.”

This game of connect the dots brings up some questions, and The Prairie Stater’s article demonstrates why government transparency is so important, allowing the public and media to find these connections between spending and political relationships. For more details, check out the full story here.

Check out its check register here and see where your tax dollars are going.

ABC 7′s I-Team found some interesting expenses of note, such as $6,243.75 to CROE TV (which stands for Coalition for the remembrance of the honorable Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam for more than 40 years) for “Consulting Services” in January 2010; $2,000 for new portraits of most commissioners; and, tens of thousands went to landscaping around county buildings and the jail.

What will you find?

Read ABC’s report and check out their revealing video as well.

This is a great step in the right direction for Cook County.

Now, with this transparency provided, the people, media and elected officials need to use the information and start figuring out where spending is necessary and working well, and where it is unnecessary and should be cut.

Transparency is just the first step in making government more efficient and cost-effective, now the hard work of looking into the spending and doing something about waste is required.

According to Cook County, its Open County Initiative website “provides easy access to areas of information, records and data transparency throughout the county and “additional information will be included as it is made available online.”

Check it out and see what you think.

Check it out out here!

It’s interesting to note the Illinois Policy Institute received a Transparency Pledge from Stroger last May, but we could not post him in our list of pledge signatories on OpenIllinois.org because he wrote the word “responsible” two times into the pledge, leaving him to decide what was “responsible” transparency and therefore worthwhile transparency. Stroger is the only person who reworked the Transparency Pledge this way.

For more from the Daily Herald and Todd Stroger’s actions “in the interest of transparency,” click here.