Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has fired a top county ethics official who was trying to punish Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios for putting relatives on his payroll. ... Berrios, who also chairs the Cook County Democratic Party, has ignored ethics board rulings against him. He maintains that the county’s ethics rules apply only to the Cook County Board, not to the assessor or other countywide officials whose positions were established by the state of Illinois. Foster said top aides to Preckwinkle didn’t give her a reason for removing her from the post she’s held since 2008 — a job that’s exempt from rules that ban political considerations from influencing county hiring or firing decisions. “I was advised that the president wanted to go in a different direction,” Foster said. ... Foster and the ethics board had found Berrios violated the county ethics ordinance’s ban on nepotism, fined him $10,000 and called on him to fire his son, daughter and sister, who have been working for him since he was sworn in as assessor in 2010. ... County officials recently agreed to pay a total of $529,000 to 11 people Berrios was found to have fired wrongly after he became assessor nearly three years ago. Berrios is also fighting county Inspector General Patrick Blanchard’s efforts to investigate allegations of wrongdoing in his office. Blanchard is suing to assert his authority over the assessor. ... Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office is trying to get Blanchard’s case against Berrios thrown out. At the time Foster was booted from the ethics post, she also was investigating allegations of wrongdoing by county Treasurer Maria Pappas, prompted by a 2011 report by WBBM-Channel 2 and the Better Government Association that two treasurer’s office employees ran personal errands for Pappas. Pappas said she has done nothing wrong and that the state’s attorney office has told her “don’t answer anything” from the ethics board or inspector general.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 05:25:53 +0000
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