County making some costly mistakes

The practices instigated by our Cook County officials are increasingly derelict. To balance the budget, rather than cutting more of the huge existing waste, we have Preckwinkle and Co. imposing another new tax on businesses, as well as adopting a “cost-saving policy” in which criminals who are of interest to federal agents are instead released.

The new business tax in unincorporated areas puts another burden on people who are anything but getting rich, like the mom-and-pop shops and eateries, the Avon ladies, the other local small enterprises. The reason given was they needed to monitor those business and control their dealings.

That’s not even clever; there was absolutely no need for that. It’s a money grab from people who can’t afford it. There have been far more shenanigans that need monitoring within Cook County government than in all the county’s small businesses combined.

An even greater sin is the blatant withdrawal from good cooperative law enforcement. The county now releases people arrested for serious crimes, including those of interest to immigration officials as possible illegal aliens. This saves nothing. These are the criminals who are apt to skip out or go underground for a while. In a short time, they will be back here or perhaps somewhere else in the U.S. as illegals and as criminals.

These are perpetrators for which law enforcement has a second potential means to remove them from society. Cook County makes sure they will come back to haunt us again.

What a costly waste to our society and to the cost of law enforcement. It is suggested we eliminate levels of government. What a blessing it would be to cut out Cook County and move its functions to cities and townships. Now that is a cost savings.

Richard Cichanski

Palatine