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City RoomTM Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff

"Excellent, Excellent, Excellent"
Produced by Ben Calhoun on Thursday, February 28, 2008

Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Cook County budget negotiations melted down today. For more than four months county officials have been deadlocked over Board President Todd Stroger's budget proposal. With a legal deadline to pass a budget coming up tomorrow, that deadlock has become increasingly hostile-and today it boiled over.

As the county's struggled to balance its budget, the debate has broken down into two sides: raise taxes or cut spending. For a while there was talk of a compromise, but that's disappeared and the debate has become more polarized.

Today, Commissioner Mike Quigley and Board President Todd Stroger attacked each other.

At first, things were just a little pushy; when Stroger accused Quigley of sabotaging the county because Quigley won't support his proposed sales tax hikes.

STROGER: Undermining the government is what you're doing.

But then things escalated.

QUIGLEY: I'm just asking you what you meant.

And escalated.

STROGER: Stand up and vote that will keep the government running.

Eventually, they were yelling so loud, the mics couldn't handle it.

INAUDIBLE

The breakdown comes from the fact that Stroger and his allies think members of the board are trying to sabotage him by setting him up to raise taxes again next year.

Opponents of Stroger say the presidents allies are defeating reasonable budget cuts because they want to force people to choose between large tax hikes and huge cuts in service.

In that setting, trust, diplomacy and patience have disappeared.

Commissioner Larry Suffredin is usually mild-mannered but today he lost his temper too.

SUFFREDIN: You know we're playing with a lot of human beings lives right now. And we're playing it in a stupid game of paper.

Suffredin was talking about the on-going process of amending Stroger's budget.

Suffredin says he offered to vote for Stroger's tax hikes if the president made them smaller, but he says the president wouldn't compromise.

It was only a minute later that a Stroger ally called Suffredin a liar, and said he wished Suffredin was on the floor so that he could say it to his face.

As board members took a break, Stroger sat down to talk to reporters.

He said explicitly that he thinks people on the board are trying to sabotage him politically and he lashed out at his opponents and the media.

STROGER: My fault is actually running for office and being Todd Stroger. Being Todd Stroger.

As Stroger stood up after he slamming his opponents, Stroger's chief of staff could he heard saying, "Excellent, excellent, excellent."

Commissioners are expected to meet again at 4, when the budget deadline will be 32 hours away.