ENDORSEMENTS: Fritz Kaegi for Cook County assessor and 8 more for county board

Today, the Sun-Times Editorial Board offers its endorsements in the race for Cook County assessor and eight competitive county board races.

You can read our previous endorsements in the races for governor, Congress, Illinois comptroller, Illinois attorney general, Illinois secretary of state and Illinois treasurer on the Sun-Times 2018 Illinois Voting Guide.

You will also find Sun-Times candidate questionnaires, video introductions, news stories, information about candidates’ campaign finances, and links to their campaign websites and Facebook pages.

As always, we welcome your letters at letters@suntimes.com, and urge you to join the conversation on the Sun-Times Facebook page.

Democrat Frederick “Fritz” Kaegi of Oak Park would have been a strong candidate for our endorsement even if his Republican opponent Joseph Paglia of Chicago had not virtually disappeared from public view in this race.

Kaegi has promised to do away with an unfair property tax system in which working-class people pay higher rates than wealthy people do, and he has the background and skills to deliver. He holds an MBA from Stanford, he has spent a career valuing assets as a financial analyst. He is a certified Illinois assessment officer.

Earlier this year, the Civic Consulting Alliance released a study saying the Cook County property tax system is so skewed that, for example, the average owner of a $600,000 Chicago home pays an effective tax rate that is 24 percent lower than the owner of a $300,000 house.

We need to end this long-running and regrettable practice. Kaegi is endorsed.

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Bill Lowry for county board in the 3rd District

Bill Lowry is about as qualified a newcomer as you will find running for the county board this time around. Count on him moving up.

Lowry is a lawyer and a community leader, and he has served on the boards of more than dozen prominent Chicago-area organizations and institutions, including Lake Forest College, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, and Loyola University Law School.

His priorities are job skills training and modernizing the county’s business infrastructure. He is endorsed over former teacher and Maxwell Street vendor George Blakemore.

Luis Arroyo Jr. for county board in the 8th District

Sun-Times file photo

Neither candidate in the Cook County Board’s 8th District has made an effort to tell voters what he plans to do over the next four years.

Republican challenger Walter Zarnecki, the 35th Ward Republican committeeman, declined to fill out a questionnaire or sit with the Sun-Times Editorial Board for an interview either for the March 20 primary or the Nov. 6 general election.

Incumbent Democrat Luis Arroyo Jr. of Chicago, son of state Rep. Luis Arroyo, didn’t have a primary opponent, but, like Zarnecki, he did not return a questionnaire for the general election. We endorse him without enthusiasm, with the hope he will make an effort to engage the public in his next term.

Peter N. Silvestri for county board in the 9th District

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file

We meet a lot of candidates who say they have ideas about how to generate revenue without raising taxes or how to cut budgets without feeling squeezed. When pressed, most of them can’t clearly define those ideas.

Peter N. Silvestri of Elmwood Park, the Republican incumbent for the Cook County Board of Commissioners in the 9th District, is an exception in that way. For example, he wants the county’s revenue department to explore more sponsorships for some agencies.

“Some agencies, such as the hospital, could benefit from, say, the sponsorship of a waiting room,” he wrote in his questionnaire.

Currently, county workers get 13 paid holidays. The county could save millions if that were trimmed back by one, he said. “The county needs the cooperation of the unions for some changes, and for others, such as pension reform, it needs the cooperation of the state. I am committed to working with both,” Silvestri wrote.

Silvestri, the former mayor of Elmwood Park, says he is fiscally conservative and socially moderate. He is endorsed over Democrat Frank L. McPartlin of Elmwood Park.

John P. Daley for county board in the 11th District

In 2016, Cook County Commissioner John P. Daley voted for the soda tax that went into effect last year and raised the price of sweetened beverages by a penny an ounce.

The people who live in his district let him know how unhappy they were about it. “I heard from the people in my district, and I responded,” Daley, a Democrat, said in an interview with the Sun-Times Editorial Board.

Against the wishes of County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Daley reversed himself and voted to repeal the tax. His vote gave cover to a few other Democrats to follow suit and kill the tax.

Daley’s opponent for county board commissioner in the 11th District, Republican Steven S. Graves, gives the incumbent credit for listening to the people and reacting accordingly. So do we. It’s no small thing to say no to Preckwinkle, although probably easier for anybody named Daley.

We endorse Daley for re-election. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t bring up an important concern his challenger has raised: If elected, will Daley, who is 71, complete his new four-year term? Or will he step away before the term is up to let party leaders hand-pick his successor? That would be the Chicago way.

Daley himself was appointed to the county board in 1992. But he says that as long as he’s healthy, he’ll see the job through.

Larry Suffredin for county board in the 13th District

Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun Times file

In the course of meeting with candidates for Cook County Board, we heard how people in other districts go to Democrat Larry Suffredin of Evanston when they want to get something done.

Suffredin is a thoughtful, active and sensible commissioner who always seems to be be at the heart of important county initiatives, from creating an independent Cook County Health and Hospitals System board to increasing the minimum wage to $13 by 2020.

He also is a strong voice for protecting the county’s forest preserves. He receives our endorsement over Republican Chris J. Hanusiak, a Niles village trustee.

Scott R. Britton for county board in the 14th District

Rich Hein/Sun-Times file

Scott R. Britton, who describes himself as a progressive Democrat, has been a respected Glenview trustee for 12 years. Now he’s looking for a bigger stage, where he vows to be beholden to nobody but the voters.

“I’m not interested in sticking around forever in Cook County government,” he told the Sun-Times Editorial Board. “To a certain extent, that gives me the ability to be independent whenever I want to be. When it’s time for me to be my own man, I will be.”

Britton, a lawyer, wants to raise the minimum age to buy tobacco products to 21 and expand substance abuse treatment programs.

We were disappointed that the incumbent, Republican Gregg Goslin, also of Glenview, has accused undocumented immigrants of being a strain on Cook County health system, though he has no numbers to support his claim.

Timothy O. Schneider for county board in the 15th District

Rich Hein/Sun-Times file

Republican incumbent Timothy O. Schneider of Bartlett has a particularly solid grasp on how to use tax-break incentives to attract and keep businesses in the district. That’s a big deal in a district that is home to Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg.

In an endorsement interview, Schneider schooled his opponent, Democrat Kevin B. Morrison of Elk Grove Village, on business development. When it comes to taxes, residents and businesses would be better served by Schneider’s 12 years of experience as a sitting commissioner.

Sean M. Morrison for county board in the 17th District

Two disappointing candidates.

Republican incumbent Sean M. Morrison of Palos Park is out of touch with the needs of the working class when it comes to wage issues and paid sick days. In Chicago alone in an average year, the pay of some 460,000 private-sector employees was being docked when they called in sick until the City Council in 2016 required that all employers provide a minimum number of paid sick days.

But Morrison’s Democratic challenger, Abdelnasser Rashid, who lives in southwest suburban Justice, doesn’t seem to grasp just how pinched taxpayers are feeling because of tax increases in recent years. We asked for his thoughts on the $165 million in revenue lost over three years by the Cook County health system — money lost because of clerical errors and lax procedures. He acknowledged there is room for improvement but brushed off the loss as “somewhat comparable to other systems of this size.”

How does that sit with you, taxpayers?

That leaves us looking at the balance of power on the county board, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 13-4. A little more balance couldn’t hurt, each side serving as a check on the other.

Our pick is Morrison. We’re counting on him to continue scrutinizing taxation and spending, as he did when he opposed Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s ill-conceived and since repealed soda tax.

SUN-TIMES 2018 ILLINOIS VOTING GUIDE

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