Pimping the Prince

Dave Fagus is standing by his Prince, God love him. But he does give us the URL for Todd's campaign. So of course I toddled on over to have a look. He has all of 3 issues that concern him, which is pretty amazing since this is the County Board and not a ward that he is leading.

Juvenile Temporary Detention Center -
An interesting read and says all the right things, but can he do it in an atmosphere as politically charged as the county is? If Bobbi Steele is unable/unwilling to outright fire people, why should I believe Todd will do any better? Bobbi may be the caretaker du jour, but she has an opportunity to start the process.

Todd is unwilling to accept outside help:

Some in Cook County believe that we should remove the senior administration at the JTDC, and hire an outside organization to oversee the management of the facility. However, I am not ready to give up on the JTDC – we owe it to our youth to fix this mess in the best way we can find, and that means owning up to our own mistakes and fixing them ourselves. I don’t believe abdicating our responsibility to the children of Cook County is the right answer to these problems. I will focus my full attention on cleaning up the detention center myself, with the cooperation of the County Board.

I am not happy with this. Bureaucracies engage in self preservation above all other tasks. That includes the management. When you have a culture that does not reward competence, innovation, or just simply doing the job right, you often need the influence of outside agents of change to jumpstart the process. This statement offers up opportunity for Todd to be sabotaged, whether he realizes it or not.

Office of the Independent Inspector General.

Interesting that the title needs the word 'independent' in it. Kinda makes you wonder. Todd would benefit by examining the process and procedures used by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). They investigate waste, fraud, abuse, corrupt Treasury Dept. employees, and taxpayers attempting to corrupt or threaten those employees. The IRS is the 800 pound bureau in that department and gets the lion's share of attention. Issues that TIGTA raises must be addressed by the responsible management team and resolved. God help the manager who ignores that particular task.

Overall, what he proposes sounds good on its face, and the 6 year term is a good idea. However, it has at least one serious flaw;

The OIIG will conduct training sessions with County employees, vendors or others doing business with the County at its discretion. Such training sessions will focus on compliance with the OIIG’s mandates and compliance with ethical requirements in general.

Any training should be scheduled, mandatory, documented and the basis for firing corrupt employees or canceling contracts with corrupt businesses. The focus should not be on OIIG mandates, but the law, rule, and regulations governing ethical business practices with the county. Again, the IRS (responsible for collecting and accounting for the country's tax revenues) may offer a process worth looking into.

On top of that, he isn't looking for outside help, which Dave Fagus is only too happy to justify:

While there may be a need for the FBI and the US Attorney in some cases, the long-term solution is to cure the problem from within. This initiative will provide a long-term solution.

Dave doesn't want to admit to what bureaucrats overall know instinctively - change upsets the comfortable status quo, and you merely need to follow the latest investigations to realize just how comfortable that status quo has become. Radical, transformative change seldom arises from within without a crisis to spur it. The FBI and the US Attorney need to keep at it until the county is swept as clean as possible.

Cook County Forest Preserve District.

Todd wants the county to go green. He also sees opportunity for land acquisition and has this to say about the funding need for the District:

The FPD is one of the few areas that I believe has received insufficient funding of late, as opposed to the many areas of the County that have simply been poorly fiscally managed. Increased County funding is required, as are solicitations of State and Federal funds.

He acknowledges the fiscal mismanagement that has occurred in the County, but I notice he has nothing on his site addressing the budget issues that should be first and foremost on his plate.

It is that glaring omission, covered by the smokescreen of pro-choice, pro-gay, anti-assault weapon rhetoric (no I am not channeling Eric Zorn of the Tribune, I saw this at Todd's site), which I find astounding. And that's without even getting to the report on the County Health System. Whatever good Todd may be able to do will be undone in a New York minute if the budget issues are not addressed. Right now, Todd isn't addressing them, and that is one sleeping dog Dave Fagus will not disturb.

And Dave wonders how we could question Todd's fitness for office.