Stroger-Preckwinkle Feud Goes Public
By Kevin Robinson in News on Nov 17, 2010 3:00PM
The feud between Cook County Board President-elect Toni Preckwinkle and outgoing board president Todd Stroger took an ugly turn during Tuesday's board meeting, as Cook County Commissioner Bill Beavers lashed out at Preckwinkle. “If she’d quit playing politics and threatening everybody about how many people she’s gonna fire — she’s gonna get rid of this and gonna get rid of that. And then she expects somebody to bend over backwards to help her? People are not crazy. They’re not going to help her if she’s going to fire them the next day.” Beavers added: “Listen, shut up and get over here and try to do some work.”
Beavers was referring to recent news reports that a sit-down between Preckwinkle and Stroger ended after only ten minutes, after Stroger pressed Preckwinkle to retain some of his political appointments in the administration. How exactly that conversation happened is a matter of dispute. Preckwinkle said the day after the election that “my inclination is to clean house.” She told the Tribune that “he said that things have been difficult, and he thought that there were some people who deserved to be in their positions, and I said, ‘I can’t promise that,’ “ Preckwinkle said. “And he said, ‘You’re president of the board. You can do what you wish.’ And I said, ‘OK, I won’t promise that.’ And that was it.” Stroger, however, contends that he merely was preparing to share his thoughts on which appointees were worth holding on to, and which should be let go. “I said, ‘I’d like to talk to you about some people in the administration,’" Stroger explained to the Tribune on Monday. “She said, ‘No, I refuse to, and won’t talk about anybody in the administration.'" He added “the truth is we have to have some competent people in jobs to make sure the job is done.... And yeah, I was going to talk about the ones who I thought were competent and talk about the ones who I thought were shaky.”
Preckwinkle will be sworn in on December 6.