Cook County Board pays tribute to long-time member Carl Hansen

The Cook County Board paid tribute Tuesday to the late Carl Hansen, who died Feb. 2 after serving 32 years as a county commissioner from Mount Prospect.

"Carl represented what was best in representative government," said Commissioner Peter Silvestri of Elmwood Park.

"He was a voice for the suburbs at a time when the suburbs were developing," Evanston Democratic Commissioner Larry Suffredin said, "and without that voice the suburbs would have been very different."

"He was the glue that held the Northwest suburbs together," added Bartlett Republican Commissioner Timothy Schneider, who replaced Hansen as 15th District commissioner.

He called Hansen "a fiscal conservative" and "a taxpayer watchdog" and announced that he'll present a proposal at the Forest Preserve Board meeting Wednesday to dedicate a portion of the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve near Hoffman Estates to Hansen, after Hansen had worked to prevent that area from being used as a landfill during his term in office.

Hansen, a commissioner from 1974 to 2006, was the second-longest serving county board member after the late board President John Stroger.