Preckwinkle commits to debates, reforms

Toni Preckwinkle committed to debates against her opponents in the fall general election for president of the Cook County Board and laid out a pro-business agenda based on lower taxes and higher government efficiency in addressing the City Club of Chicago today.

The Chicago Democratic Hyde Park alderman said she would debate Republican Roger Keats and Tom Tresser of the Green Party in front of the City Club some time before the November election. She also promised a full rollback of the 1 percentage point increase in the county sales tax imposed in 2008 and scheduled to be cut in half in July.

Keats, who also wants to abolish the sales tax increase, is scheduled to speak to the City Club next Monday.

Preckwinkle pushed business and development in her administration if elected, saying, "We have a real opportunity to redefine Cook County as the economic hub of the Midwest."

Preckwinkle pointed to the federal and state plan to make Chicago the center of a high-speed rail system as one of the main initiatives to spur development. She also promised to make "county government more efficient from top to bottom."

She said one of her first acts if elected would be to appoint a chief operating officer to conduct a personnel audit of the county government.

She blamed lame-duck incumbent President Todd Stroger for "promises broken" on reform and a "cynical disregard" for the wishes of the voters, specifically his refusal to compromise on his unpopular hike in the sales tax.

Preckwinkle said when she launched her campaign last year, "The convention wisdom was that I was a longshot. But the conventional wisdom failed to measure the desperation in Cook County."

She applauded efficiency reforms already undertaken by the independent board overseeing the county's Health & Hospitals System and by Sheriff Tom Dart in his recent attempts to comply with the Duran and Harrington decrees, which deal with jail conditions.

"I want to leave a legacy of professionalism by attracting the best and the brighter from all corners of the county," Preckwinkle said.