Endorsement: Patlak for Cook Board of Review Dist. 1
It may be a bit extreme to say that Dan Patlak was born to serve on the Cook County Board of Review, but there is no question he is well suited to the job. He speaks with youthful energy and passion about the agency's mission of assuring fairness to all three interests served by the board - the homeowners and businesses seeking tax reductions, the government bodies that depend on tax money and the broad general population of taxpayers whose tax bills ultimately are affected by the decisions the three-member board makes. He's excited about technology advances the office has implemented in recent years enabling the board to handle thousands more cases in less time than ever. And he has thoughtful ideas about the board's next challenge - improving its ability to succeed when its decisions are appealed to the state. In addition to all this, he approaches the job not so much as a politician - he's the lone Republican on the three-member board - but as a commissioner whose responsibility is to rule the way the evidence and numbers tell him to rule. Patlak, a former township assessor who has been on the board since 2010, is challenged by Democrat Martin Stack, of Western Springs, an attorney and former information officer for the Cook County Sheriff's Office. Stack is a sincere candidate with a reasonable understanding of the Board of Review's responsibilities, but his calls for reform seem vague and not well founded. In any case, he can't match Patlak's clear enthusiasm and level of expertise. Patlak is endorsed.