Cook Co. board limits Stroger power

In a surprisingly lopsided vote, the Cook County Board voted Tuesday to curtail President Todd Stroger's discretionary spending ability, restoring his unsupervised contracting ability to the previous level of $25,000 for professional service contracts.

That had been the limit for years before commissioners agreed to raise it to $100,000 last year in exchange for a quarterly report detailing where the money was going.

The change means that, once again, Stroger can only authorize contracts up to $24,999.99. For everything above that, he must seek board approval.

Sponsors were quiet about the reason for the change, apparently not wanting to upset the delicate political alliance they had constructed to get the ordinance changed back to its prior incarnation.

Among those endorsing the change was Finance Committee Chairman John Daley. Daley is normally a Stroger ally, but has lately traded tense words with Stroger's main ally, Commissioner William Beavers, and did so again Tuesday when Daley accidentally called for a voice vote on the matter after Beavers demanded a roll call.

Beavers waved a rule book at Daley, shouting that a roll call must be held to document individual commissioners' votes.

"I guess you're perfect," shot back Daley.

Beavers was the only dissenting vote.

Stroger was sanguine about the change when asked about it after the meeting.

"It doesn't bother me one way or another," said Stroger. "It's not worth fighting over."

In other business Tuesday, the board approved a $425,000 settlement of a lawsuit brought by Augustin Sotomayor, a 75-year-old man who alleged he was roughed up by Stroger Hospital police while he waited for his wife, a county employee, to get off work. He alleged the officers asked him, a U.S. citizen, for proof of citizenship and insulted him before dragging him from his car and beating him.

Beavers voted no on the settlement, noting the officer in question, who is no longer employed by the county, has filed his own defamation suit against Sotomayor and should be allowed to be heard before the county votes on Sotomayor's suit.