Time for Todd Stroger to move on

It's certainly no secret that we have been unimpressed with Todd Stroger's reign as Cook County Board president. We said as much in January when we declined to endorse his bid for re-election.

Voters agreed, choosing Democrat Toni Preckwinkle to face Republican Roger Keats and Green Party candidate Tom Resser in the November general election.

But that left Stroger as a lame-duck board president, not an uncommon situation. But his free-spending ways and patronage moves since the primary are unconscionable.

Stroger raised eyebrows when it was clear he was spending county money to spruce up his offices. But when it was known he paid nearly $25,000 for "consulting services" to a public relations firm owned by his campaign spokeswoman who later was hired to a six-figure salary as his deputy chief of staff, the board reacted.

His actions have prompted Cook County commissioners to propose a measure requiring all county spending and hiring to be submitted to the board within 72 hours for inspection. They also propose a countywide hiring freeze until the end of November. Stroger is scheduled to leave office the first week of December.

We strongly support these measures. Stroger bypassed county approval of the public relations contract because it was $25 under the threshold requiring board approval. We don't think that was unintentional.

Neither was it unintentional that he has spent money on new furnishings and one-way reflecting glass doorways in his offices at the county building.

"It looks to me like we've opened up the bank and left the vault door open," said Bartlett Republican Commissioner Timothy Schneider in a Saturday article by staff writer Ted Cox.

But it's not just Republicans who are upset with Stroger. "He's making some moves over there that, had he won, I don't think he'd be doing," said Chicago Democratic Commissioner Edwin Reyes, also a co-sponsor of the proposals.

Indeed, what is clear is that the board doesn't trust Stroger. And neither should the public. Stroger is proving that he is unwilling to perform the duties of his job honorably for the remaining months of his term and we think it's time for him to go. Now.

A report released in February by the University of Illinois-Chicago and the Better Government Association said Stroger was just the latest "in a long line of county officials who weren't minding the store properly or well enough."

That line needs to end. Just as Stroger resigned as a Democratic committeeman following his primary defeat, we urge him to also resign as board president and move on. Surely, the Cook County Board can find better things to do than to have to watch its president "like a hawk" for the next seven months as one commissioner remarked.