Chicago Tribune - 24.02.2020

Chicago Tribune|Section 1|Monday, February 24, 2020 17

WALT HANDELSMAN/NEW ORLEANS ADVOCATE

Founded June 10, 1847

R. Bruce Dold

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief

John P. McCormick, Editorial Page Editor

Margaret Holt, Standards Editor

Peter Kendall, Managing Editor

Christine W. Taylor, Managing Editor

directors of content

Jonathon Berlin, Amy Carr, Phil Jurik,

Amanda Kaschube, Todd Panagopoulos,

George Papajohn, Mary Ellen Podmolik,

Elizabeth Wolfe

EDITORIALS

The good news is that, in November,
voters will elect a new clerk of Cook County
Circuit Court. The bad news is that the new
clerk inherits county government’s most
toxic Superfund site — a mismanaged
wasteland of obsolete practices and occa-
sional scandals. One failure among many in
this office: current Clerk Dorothy Brown’s
20-year inability to do what she pledged in
her Chicago Tribune candidate question-
naire for the March 21, 2000,Illinois pri-
mary: “I will make certain that the Clerk’s
office keeps pace with upgrades in technical
equipment and I will make certain that the
employees of the Clerk’s office receive
continuing education in operating and
maintaining the office’s information man-
agement system.” Ask any attorney who
practices in the county courts how badly the
clerk’s little house of recordkeeping horrors
cripples the flow of cases.
We cite the extent of this wreckage to
demonstrate how crucial it is that Demo-
cratic voters in the March 17 primary look
past tribal politics and nominate a change
agent. Four Democrats are running. Any of
them would bring improvement.
That said, we can’t endorse Michael
Cabonargi, the preferred candidate of a
Democratic Party establishment run by
Cook County Board President Toni Preck-
winkle. Cabonargi’s name will be on Demo-
cratic palm cards, so he’s likely to win if
voters don’t think for themselves.
Cabonargi holds one of three seats on the
county’s crucial if obscure Board of Review.
On Cabonargi’s watch, the Board of Review
members joined then-county Assessor Joe
Berrios in refusing to cooperate with inves-
tigations by county Inspector General Pat-
rick Blanchard’s office. We wrote in 2016
that this brushoff of inquiries by Cabonargi
& Co. essentially froze, for several years,
Blanchard’s ability to follow up on com-
plaints aimed at these officials and offices.
Maddening.

The Democrat best equippedto fix the
clerk’s office and energize its more than

1,400 employees is Richard Boykin.He’s

an attorney who, during a term on the Cook

County Board, displayed an independent

streak that annoyed several other Dems. We

lauded his vocal opposition in 2017 to the

notorious soda tax that Preckwinkle cham-

pioned and that — after a tax revolt by citi-

zens — Boykin and other commissioners

repealed.

One moment we won’t forget: Boykin’s

taxpayers-first comment as the County

Board weighed a budget balanced not with

the soda tax, but with spending cuts: “At the

end of the day, what you have here is, I

think, a realization that ... we didn’t need the

sweetened beverage tax revenue. What you

have here is a tightening of the belt and a

scalpel approach that doesn’t devastate our

operations of county government, but in-

stead allows us to maintain high-quality

services as it relates to public health and

public safety. And that’s the mission of the

county.”

Another moment we won’t forget:

Boykin’s cheeky suggestion in 2015 that

Preckwinkle reduce her claimed need for

more tax revenue by cutting employee

raises in her office.

These moments of defiancehelp ex-

plain why Boykin no longer is on the

County Board.

Last month, while debating his oppo-

nents before the Tribune Editorial Board,

Boykin said he expects that modernizing

the clerk’s office will reduce the vast head

count. That would be bad news for some

precinct captains, good news for taxpayers.

The other two candidates in this race,

state Sen. Iris Martinez and attorney Jacob

Meister, impressed us with their passion for

bringing the clerk’s office into the 21st cen-

tury.

We admire Martinez for taking on Illi-

nois House Speaker Michael Madigan; she

says Democratic representatives need “pro-

tection” from Madigan, whose control of

campaign coffers flush with donations gives

him the power to end lawmakers’ careers.

We endorsed Meister for court clerk four

years ago; his three decades of practicing

law in Cook County have taught him how

broken the clerk’s office is.

But our endorsement this year goes to the

candidate who has a proven record of buck-

ing the County Building establishment on

behalf of taxpayers. Boykin not only calls

himself “unbossed and unafraid,” he’s lived

those words. Boykin is endorsed.

For clerk of Cook courts:

Boykin to replace Brown

Vote for the candidate who helped

repeal the notorious soda tax

ABEL URIBE/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Even the name — Cook County Board of
Review — is opaque. Review what? The
quick answer: Review appeals of property
assessments so that local property taxes are
levied fairly.
But for attorneys who know how to
game the county’s system for valuing real
estate, the Board of Review can be a valu-
able ally. When the three-member board
reduces a property’s assessed valuation,
that reduction in one owner’s tax burden
gets redistributed via higher taxes on ev-
eryone else’s properties. Too often, lawyers
who contribute to the campaigns of these
board members have won big assessment
reductions for their clients. What a coinci-
dence.

In the March 17 primary election, two
Democratsare competing for the chance
to challenge Board of Review incumbent
Republican Dan Patlak in November’s

general election. Whom to endorse? The

best reason for us to support Abdelnasser

Rashidfor this nomination also is the

reason that gives us pause. Here’s how we

puzzled out our decision:

Voters in 2018 installed a new county

assessor, Fritz Kaegi, to begin overhauling

Cook County’s grievously unfair system for

valuing properties. Among the injustices

exposed by a Chicago Tribune investiga-

tion: Assessment breaks for affluent home-

owners long had shifted an inordinate

share of the tax burden to poorer commu-

nities.

And Rashid, who now seeks to adjudi-

cate appeals of Kaegi’s assessments, previ-

ously worked as Kaegi’s chief policy officer.

Rashid says he resigned from Kaegi’s office

to run for Board of Review. Rashid previ-

ously had served as policy director and

deputy chief of staff for former county

clerk David Orr.

So we can endorse the candidate who

has helped shape reforms of a broken as-

sessment system, or we can reject him

because he’d be evaluating his previous

boss’ work.

Rashid is open about, and proud of,his

leadership posts in two county offices. We

concluded that if he winds up on the Board

of Review and blindly rubber-stamps what-

ever assessments Kaegi’s office calculates,

Rashid will squander his good reputation.

That seems unlikely. No one would be

more conscious than Rashid that he’d be

scrutinized.

His opponent, Tammy Wendt, is an

attorney who says she has extensive expe-

rience handling property tax appeals.

Wendt opened her response to the Tribune

Editorial Board’s candidate questionnaire

by highlighting Rashid’s potential conflict

of interest. Fair enough. But her claim that

Rashid’s employment history is “the most

glaring reason” for nominating her, not

him, doesn’t persuade us.

We’ll go with the candidate who is likeli-

er to be most current with efforts to fix

Cook County’s assessment system. Rashid

is endorsed.

Rashid for Cook Board of Review

CAMPAIGN PHOTO

For most of the century since Ireland gained

independence from Britain, control of the country

has alternated between two parties. On Feb. 8 that

duopoly was smashed apart, when Sinn Fein got

the largest share of first-preference votes in the

republic’s general election. The party, with links to

the Irish Republican Army, which bombed and

shot its way through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s,

won with a left-wing platform that included prom-

ises to spend more on health and housing. Yet it did

not hide its desire for something a lot more ambi-

tious. “Our core political objective,” its manifesto

read, “is to achieve Irish Unity and the referendum

on Unity which is the means to secure this.” ...

Sinn Fein’s success at the election is just the

latest reason to think that a united Ireland within a

decade or so is a real — and growing — possibility.

That prospect means something far beyond the

island of Ireland. The Irish diaspora includes more

than 20 million Americans. Parties to ethnic con-

flicts across the world have long found common

cause with Northern Ireland’s Roman Catholics,

who contend that the separation from the south is

an illegitimate vestige of 500 years of incompetent

and often callous domination from London.

Ireland, source of pubs, poets, playwrights and

too many Eurovision songs for anyone’s good, has

soft power to rival a country many times its size.

Until today, however, unification has never been

more than a Republican fantasy.

The Economist

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING