$2.5 million "hurdle" to good government suddenly evaporates
A Cook County administrator was left standing alone Wednesday after a colleague publicly debunked her reasons for why Cook County couldn't implement a good-government ordinance.
Purchasing Agent Carmen Triche Colvin had risen at the Cook County Board meeting Wednesday to say that the proposed measure, which puts county vendor ownership information on the county's Web site, would cost $2.5 million to implement and require hiring five people. She had distributed a "fiscal note" before the meeting to that effect.
When Commissioner Forrest Claypool, the sponsor of the measure, found that contention too implausible to swallow, he balked.
"I have my own fiscal note from Office Depot, which is a $200 scanner," ridiculed Claypool, holding up an ad for a document scanner.
"We seem to become a team of fiscal watchdogs (for proposals) when we don't like them," said Chicago Democrat Mike Quigley, joining in the ridicule of what they see as the free-spending county board actually being concerned about fiscal constraints.
Quigley's implication was that some commissioners didn't want vendor ownership information public because it makes it easier to see which political supporters are getting county contracts.
As Colvin stuck to her guns about the cost forecast, County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado asked the county's Information Technology officer, Tony Hylton, if he agreed with Colvin's cost assessment.
"No, I do not think so," said Hylton. "I think we could accommodate that (ordinance.)"
He did add a caveat that it would take approximately six months, but said it ultimately would be feasible.
Colvin later downplayed the apparent conflict with Hylton, saying that, at least in her department, she had neither the equipment, room nor staff to scan all the contracts necessary and create a program for linking those contracts to separate programming fields. If Hylton, the IP expert, says it can be done, she said, she's more than willing to accept the help from him. Her goal has always been to open up the purchasing information to the public, and any inference otherwise is incorrect, she said.
The database and Web posting became a bone of contention after Cook County Commissioner Gregg Goslin, a Glenview Republican, submitted his own version of Claypool's proposal, but with the Web aspect absent. In floor debate, Claypool supporters said the lack of a Web component basically made the ordinance toothless.
Eventually, Goslin bowed to the support for Claypool's measure and voted for it, as did all but two commissioners present Thursday. Commissioner William Beavers, the de facto floor leader for President Todd H. Stroger, and Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno voted against the measure.
The inability of Stroger's administrators to get their public assessment of a proposal in sync seemed to irritate Cook County Finance Committee Chairman John Daley.
"I would hope that in the future, before a document like this is passed out, everyone would get together and talk this out," he said.