by Tony Peraica

As many of you who follow my “live tweets” of Cook County Board meetings know full well — I make it a practice at every County Board meeting to expose the nexus between contracts being awarded by the county (especially no-bid contracts) and political contributions given by those political contractors.

I not only share these concerns via Twitter, I also expose them verbally in front of the County Board.  It’s a practice that hasn’t won me many friends among my fellow commissioners, and even resulted in one commissioner shouting expletives at me last year.  (When the cussing begins, I can really tell I’m doing my job for the taxpayers!)

The exposure I provide to these political contracts is rarely, if ever reported.  That’s one reason I “live tweet” the meetings — because the newspapers have largely failed to report this important abuse of the taxpayers’ money.

That’s why I was so pleased this week to see Rob Olmstead’s two-part series in The Daily Herald exposing these “cash-in/contracts out” schemes.

Please read Part I and Part II of this series.

The introductory paragraphs to this series says it all:

Call it one heck of a coincidence.

Cook County officials do.

It’s complete coincidence, they say, that in 2008, all 11 contracts in certain specialty areas were in some way, large or small, tied to political donors.

A joint investigation by The Daily Herald and the Better Government Association has found that the companies that received the 11 contracts worth $11.8 million in all accounted for $208,178 in campaign contributions to county officials, their relatives or funds they control. Cook County Board President Todd Stroger alone got $47,920 of those donations.

The fact that this graft occurs in Cook County probably comes as no surprise to anyone who follows county government.

But it’s surprising how blatant the insiders are about doling out these political contracts.  In many cases, these contracts are approved at the County Board meetings.  I do my best to point out the political connections in these no-bid contracts, and I wish the traditional media would report more about it on an ongoing basis.

But even if the media won’t shine the spotlight — we will continue to do so at each and every County Board meeting.  Because, as I point out in this video clip, my job isn’t to be “Mr. Nice Guy” and please my fellow commissioners — my job is to do what’s best for the taxpayers.