Preckwinkle Takes Hot Seat In Palatine
PALATINE, Ill. (WBBM/CBS) -- Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle was on the hot seat in Palatine Monday night.
As WBBM Newsradio 780's Lisa Fielding reports, Preckwinkle reassured village residents that she is committed to cleaning up county government, and improving services.
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"I'm hopeful that over the next four years, we'll persuade people that it's possible to manage government well, and that we're doing it," she said.
Palatine village council members still wanted to know what benefits the village receives from the $20 million in taxes it pays to the county every year.
Preckwinkle says the county provides three major services to the suburbs – forest preserves, health clinics and criminal justice.
Serious discussion of secession by Palatine dates back to January 2008, when then-County Board President Todd Stroger passed a 1 percent hike in the county sales tax to balance the budget. The hike brought the sales tax in Chicago to the highest level in the country.
Illinois Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine) recently proposed a state constitutional amendment that would have allowed two or more contiguous townships to withdraw from Cook County and form a new county.
But the amendment was sent to the senate Executive Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, which doesn't have any members or scheduled meetings, in what experts say is a common move to sweep away a piece of proposed legislation.
