Preckwinkle Breezes Through First Board Meeting
UPDATED 12/14/10 - 12:11 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Toni Preckwinkle breezed through her first meeting as Cook County Board President on Tuesday, wrapping up the meeting in less than 90 minutes, a rarity at the County Building.
Preckwinkle, who was sworn in as board president earlier this month, called it a "very cordial meeting" after she wrapped up her first meeting as board president Tuesday morning.
In the last several years under her predecessor, Todd Stroger, Cook County Board meetings were frequently marked by hostile and contentious debates between Stroger and his political opponents on the board.
Tuesday's meeting saw no such rancor and commissioners breezed through the agenda in less than 90 minutes, although that was also in part due to a lack of any major hot-button issues.
Afterward, Preckwinkle said, "I was pleased that the meeting went pretty well," although she noted that she made a few small rookie mistakes on procedural matters.
In one of her first priorities as board president, Preckwinkle is pushing to consolidate the county's vehicle purchases. Currently, such purchases are managed by several different elected county officials, including the Cook County Sheriff, Cook County State's Attorney and Cook County Treasurer's office.
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Preckwinkle said it "doesn't make sense for every individual elected official to purchase vehicles" independently. Instead, she wants the county to make such purchases through a single department of fleet management to save money.
She has also created a new Committee on Pensions in an effort to better manage the county's various retirement funds, which are currently funded at about 64 percent. She has tasked the committee with looking at ways to improve pension funding levels.
Preckwinkle, a former alderman of the South Side's 4th Ward, defeated Stroger in the Democratic primary this past February, and went on to top Republican Roger Keats and Green Party candidate Tom Tresser in the general election.
Already, Preckwinkle is pushing fiscal reforms. She is working on a major plan to cut what she calls the "wasteful spending that marked the previous administration."
On Monday, she issued an executive order, placing a moratorium on "non-essential capital and professional service contracts."
"This is the first step toward ending waste in Cook County and clearly demonstrates our commitment to fiscal responsibility. This is how we're going to institute a new era of accountability in county government," Preckwinkle said Monday.
Two projects now in jeopardy are the renovation of the Fantus Clinic, a community health clinic at 637 S. Winchester Ave., and the old Cook County Hospital Building at 1835 W. Harrison St., which was vacated for Stroger Hospital of Cook County a block to the west but was spared from demolition.
Canceling the plans would cut in half the $487 million deficit facing the county next year.
