Posted by John Byrne at 6:05 p.m.
A plan to eliminate the rest of Cook County’s sales tax increase didn’t get a vote at today’s County Board meeting, but it draw plenty of vitriolic debate.
The board voted 11-6 to send Commissioner Tony Peraica’s proposal to cut the sales tax by a half-penny to the board’s Finance Committee for more consideration. That move avoided an up-or-down vote.
Commissioner Larry Suffredin, D-Evanston, accused Peraica of introducing the ordinance in the hopes of scoring political points with voters angry about the tax hike in the days before the Feb. 2 primary election. "It is really a stunt before the election rather than a serious attempt," Suffredin said.
Peraica, R-Riverside, said he hoped to help African-Americans in the county, whom he argued have been hit particularly hard by the economic downturn, avoid paying more taxes. "The way to help those folks is to let them keep their money in their pocket," he said.
That prompted Commissioner Deborah Sims, D-Chicago, to accuse Peraica of having made a racist comment.
"’Those folks?’ That is just the most racist statement that has ever been made in this board," Sims said.
"To say on this board ‘Those people, those folks’? What ‘those folks’ are you referring to?" Sims asked. "You owe the community and the people of Cook County an apology for that one."
Sims also called Peraica out for "twittering" messages on his Twitter account during the meeting.
Peraica insisted he was simply trying to enact the will of county residents fed up with the higher sales tax Board President Todd Stroger has endorsed.
"I think the voters of Cook County, a week hence, are going to look at us and say ‘What did you do for me?’ And we haven’t done enough," said Peraica, who lost to Stroger for board president in 2006.
Commissioners voted in December to cut in half the penny-on-the-dollar sales tax increase, which it adopted in 2008 with Stroger’s strong support. That half-cent cut is set to take effect July 1, reducing Cook County’s overall sales tax to 9.75 percent.
The sales tax issue has become a central debate in the Democratic primary race for county board president, in which Stroger faces three challengers who all have pledged to get rid of the remaining half-cent increase. Metropolitan Water Reclamation District President Terrence O’Brien has said he would end it immediately, while Cook County Clerk Dorothy Brown and Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, 4th, have promised to phase it out.