Chicago Republicans

Today I am in better shape for this race than Scott Brown was in Massachusetts.

Remember, this summer and fall the insider’s pin up boy, Governor Rod Blagojevich, will be holding court down the street in front of a jury of his peers. 

…a dysfunctional, 19^th century relic, Cook County’s government is a big part of that problem. 

On Monday, December 6, 2010…after the Oath of Office...  Here are the first 5 things I will do on Day 1:

          #1.  The budget I introduce for 2011 will be smaller than 2010s.

          #2.  I will terminate 150 of Todd Stroger’s friends and relatives; Replace them with 25 new assistant Inspector Generals; and I’m going to turn them loose, no limits.  Everything and anything will be open to them.

          #3.  I will ask every media source for a FOIA and I’ll open every file, every E-mail and every contract to them…the UIC/BGA report on Cook county corruption.  I’ve read every word of it….. and I agree with them.  Our corruption tax is the highest in the nation and I intend to shine the light on these insider crooks. 

                   #4.  I will ask the top folks at 2 of the world’s finest business schools, U of C and Kellogg, located right here in Cook County as well as the other fine business schools, to lead a Private Sector Jobs Initiative.  We’ll also ask the major leaders of Chicago’s private sector.  I will carefully include private sector leaders from the South and West also.  A real private sector jobs summit. 

           #5.  I will replace numerous department directors…We will have a government that helps entrepreneurs and job producers to expand opportunities for our citizens and produce tax revenues to fund services for the less fortunate.  Remember our problem isn’t just our high taxes; we are also over regulated and shaken down by the corrupt insiders.  Remember, our corruption tax is the highest in the nation. 

I can do all of this without approval from anyone else, simply by using the existing powers of the President.  That will be day 1!

I pledge here, today, in front of the City Club as President of the Cook County Board I will do EVERYTHING I CAN to lower the county tax burden. 

 Remember former reform Commissioner Mike Quigley’s studies on how to restructure and streamline Cook County government.  I intend to do everything I can to implement it. 

 To assist our efforts, I’ll convene an advisory panel of private sector business efficiency consultants and academics to give us even more suggestions on how to implement Mike’s road map.  I’ll call it our Honest Government Commission.  These folks will all be volunteers.  No taxpayer funds will be used.  Remember, we have too many departments, agencies and elected officials;

we have 4 different officials and agencies dealing with property taxes alone. 

I’ll also have a resolution drafted to make the independent Cook County Health and Hospitals System Board permanent.

The volunteers on the Board, led by a wonderful, civic minded fellow named Warren Batts and the Director, Bill Foley have

done an excellent job and are giving us a realistic plan to work from.  

  So far I haven’t added one penny to the budget!

This is real reform from a real independent!! 

There is a real difference!  Now do you see why the Chicago Tribune, in endorsing me said, …”Some county Democrats privately say they fear that Keats, a businessman, has the

understanding of budgeting-and frankly, the outsized self confidence-to shake business as usual at the County Building.”

 The Chicago Sun Times in endorsing me said Keats…”comes with the background to make his reform proposals work.  Although a North Shore resident, he has kept up old ties with Chicago’s South and West Sides.”   

I know what to do and how to do it; and like the retired Army Lieutenant Colonel I am, I’m committed to the military credo, leave no one behind.  Areas like the South Side, Lawndale, Garfield Park and Pilsen, every neighborhood in the city and town in the county are a big part of this agenda.

Most voters don’t realize that 75% of what needs to be done to clean the Cook County cesspool can be done with the existing executive powers of the President without any votes by the

Board of Commissioners.  It really does make a difference if Roger Keats is the next President of the Cook County Board!

Let me put this campaign in perspective.  It will be an independent reformer taking on the insider profiteers who have run Illinois and Cook County into the ground:  A reformer

taking on the insiders who run the system that, according to the Tribune, has produced over 1000 criminal convictions: 

A reformer taking on the top insider, the epicenter of the Pay to Play culture of corruption in Illinois, Michael Madigan who, during his tenure has given us a $13 billion systemic budget deficit, second largest in the nation and the largest unfunded pension liability in the nation. 

According to the New York Times and Chicago News Cooperative, in the two year period of 2006-2008, Madigan shifted the taxes for $490 million of assessments from commercial property to residential property tax payers.  By the way, did I mention the story showed he was paid at least $25 million in fees in those 2 years to Bilk his own voters?  $25 million in fees!!!!!!!  He did it all with the help of his pal, Mr. Pay to Play Junior, Joe Berrios, their party’s Cook County Chairman. 

Against this backdrop, let us pause to note that my opponent , the insider Alderman nominated Mr. Junior Pay to Play, Joe Berrios, for another term as Cook County Chairman? 

A reformer as a key supporter for Mr. Pay to Play junior! 

…being allied with Joe Berrios and Mike Madigan isn’t being an independent reformer.

(The voters)…care about people in government, whatever their party, working with others, whatever their party, for the benefit of the taxpayers and not the insiders

I have done just that.  I truly have been a bipartisan coalition builder:  

Reforming the RTA with Harold Washington and a bipartisan and multiracial coalition;

Being sure Black contractors and not just the insiders, got a fair share on the McCormick Place work;

and the honor of a lifetime, holding together the bipartisan and multiracial coalition that cleaned up the Cook County Courts after Operation Greylord sent 100 judges and lawyers to jail.

…I was honored for Black History Month in 2009 and before Operation Push.  I’ve proven I know something about bipartisan and multiracial coalition building.

They know the Chicago Inspector General just found a carefully hidden, multi $million, stealth payroll, in the Chicago City Council: Full of ghost payrollers, double dippers and insider’s relatives.  Why didn’t the Alderman find this and reform it?

When I was a Senator in Springfield I discovered a huge bunch of ghost payrollers in the legislative commissions.  I thought the

taxpayers were being cheated so I went to the legislative leaders of both parties.  They had no interest in getting rid of

the ghost payrollers.  I then made the decision to go around them and worked closely with legendary newsman Dick Kay to expose the corruption.  Dick did a fantastic job.  In fact he won the Peabody Medallion, given to the top investigative reporter in the country for that story.  We got the ghost payrollers fired.  That is how a real independent reformer behaves. 

  I could go on, but I think you have the picture... simply shifting chairs from one political insider to another isn’t reform and isn’t going to work.  It is like taking the up elevator on the Titanic.  It will not do you any good.  Hoping an insider ally of the Pay to Play twins, Mike Madigan and Joe Berrios will put an end to the pay to play culture is not going to work. 

Hoping a 20 year incumbent Alderman and Ward Committeeman who has sponsored major special interest legislation at the behest of the very unions she will have to negotiate contracts with is not going to work.  

 Hoping an Alderman who aggressively opposed allowing Walmart to hire 400 unemployed, minority Chicago residents will know how to bring private sector jobs to Cook County is not going to work. 

Hoping an insider who, in the primary, took $187,500 from one union, the notoriously radical SEIU/ACORN and approximately 1/4rd of her entire campaign fund from just a couple of unions, all of whom represent county employees, will be willing to stand up to those unions at the bargaining table is not going to work. 

 Hoping an insider Alderman and Ward Committeeman who in

the primary, took $hundreds of thousands in contributions from insider consultants, insider political committees, county contractors and double dippers will turn around and end

double dipping and insider contracting is not going to work.  

Hoping an insider Alderman and Ward Committeeman who looked the other way at political insider’s relatives and friends who were ghost payrollers for the City Council is going to get rid of the relatives and precinct captains of insiders if she is in charge at the County Building is not going to work.

 There is a difference between a bipartisan, independent reformer with a long history of independently fighting the leadership of both parties…and someone who calls themselves an independent reformer but can’t seem to name what insider interest group she is independent of or what part of the City Council or what City agency she has reformed. 

Again, it makes a difference who serves as the President of the Cook.