Dear Todd: A few words to the unwise

Dear Todd: A few words to the unwise
CAROL MARIN cmarin@suntimes.com
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
April 25, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/1543804,CST-EDT-Carol26.article


"Speak to me as to thy thinkings."

William Shakespeare, "Othello"

The crazy events in Cook County government last week coincided neatly with the celebration of Shakespeare's birthday. And in brushing up on my admittedly rusty remembrance of the great bard's words, every quote I came across seemed to have our beleaguered County Board president, Todd Stroger, written all over it.
Last Monday on WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" program, I asked Stroger to "speak to me as to thy thinkings."

What was he thinking when he made that odd 1:30 a.m. call nine days ago to the Chicago Tribune saying he had just accepted the resignation of his cousin, Donna Dunnings, the county's $175,000-a-year chief financial officer?

"As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts the worst of words." "Othello"

Stroger needed to set aside more rumination time before responding to questions Monday night. He claimed that Dunnings resigned because certain white Cook County commissioners, "hounds" in his words, would drag Dunnings through the mud after learning what Sun-Times reporter Mark Konkol had dug up. In short, that Dunnings had twice personally put up bail for a former steakhouse busboy whom Todd Stroger had hired six months earlier for a coveted $48,000-a-year county job, raised quickly to $58,000, and then again, five days after his second arrest, to $61,000.

The lucky hire's name is Anthony Cole. A former University of Georgia basketball player with a daunting arrest record, Cole appears to have a few anger-management issues, among other things. He lacks a college degree. But apparently he still played -- until his recent firing and current incarceration -- a great game of hoops with Stroger.

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go."

"Hamlet"

The problem with that Monday interview is that Stroger, who maintained this is much ado about nothing, made things a hundred times worse by not having his facts straight about Cole's recent arrests ("Maybe I have the dates wrong") or not having the facts at all when it came to Cole's background check. He claimed that Illinois State Police didn't provide a full report until just this month. Not true. The FBI and State Police had reported his rap sheet to the county months ago.

We also now know Dunnings didn't resign. She was dumped by her cousin. "I was shocked," Dunnings told Konkol. A single mother of two, one of whom has special needs, Dunnings has multiple sclerosis and needs her job and her insurance.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." "Hamlet"

At first, Stroger insisted his cousin had to go because Cole was about to make explosive allegations about her. Then he said her alleged resignation had nothing to do with Cole. Which is it?

For taxpayers, the most important part of this story is that in a crushing economy, when just about everyone is feeling strapped, we still have the willful hiring of unqualified patronage workers at excellent wages on the whim of a politician who can't be straight with us. Cole is hardly the only example of the Stroger "Friends and Family" employment plan. Remember Ronald Burleson, working at the East Bank Club, where the president plays basketball, who got a $99,000 health department job until the Trib reported it? Stroger was forced to demote him, but on "Chicago Tonight" he improbably added: "That doesn't mean he wasn't qualified."

President Stroger would do well to consider the words of Cassius in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar":

The fault, dear Todd, is not in our stars but in ourselves.