Preckwinkle Assumes County Board Presidency Today
By Chuck Sudo in News on Dec 6, 2010 5:00PM
Toni Preckwinkle will be sworn in today as the new President of the Cook County Board and chances are that she won't be smiling like in the photo above for a while.
That's because she's got business to attend to, not the least of which is ridding Cook County government of all the patronage and nepotism hires of her predecessor, Todd Stroger. Stroger is leaving county government with, in his words, "a little bitterness." (But probably nowhere near as bitter as county commissioners who backed him four years ago and county residents fed up with his naked patronage and arrogance.)
Preckwinkle isn't going to make things easy on those who remain. Faced with a $487 million deficit and a County Budget that hasn't even been drafted yet, Preckwinkle wants county departments to cut their budgets by 21 percent between February and the end of 2011. She's vowed to take a ten percent pay cut herself.