{"id":228455,"date":"2010-01-25T20:13:29","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T01:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0128771124db970c"},"modified":"2010-01-25T20:37:32","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T01:37:32","slug":"obrien-hits-preckwinkle-tax-votes-in-county-president-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/228455","title":{"rendered":"O’Brien hits Preckwinkle tax votes in county president race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Robert Becker and Hal Dardick<\/em> at 7:10 p.m.<\/p>\n

Down in the polls, Democratic County Board presidential hopeful Terrence O\u2019Brien took aim today at his three rivals in the Feb. 2 primary, characterizing front-runner Ald. Toni Preckwinkle as an official who has\u00a0\u201cnever seen a tax that she doesn\u2019t like.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, who has been attacked during the campaign for raising property taxes by more than 30 percent during his tenure as president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, chastised the media for being too lenient on Preckwinkle. O\u2019Brien also contended that the media had not reported the millions in tax dollars that the MWRD had returned to taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t feel that there\u2019s been a fair shake as far as reporting the records of the candidates running against us,\u201d O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat am I suppose to say to that?\u201d Preckwinkle replied.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Tribune\/WGN poll results, released on Friday, showed Preckwinkle with a 12 point lead-\u201436 percent to 24 percent–over Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown and a greater than two-to-one margin over O\u2019Brien. Current Board President Todd Stroger was in last place with the support of 11 percent of Democratic voters polled. <\/p>\n

In unveiling a new television ad, O\u2019Brien said the public needed to know about Preckwinkle\u2019s votes that have raised fees and taxes during the course of her career as alderman. <\/p>\n

Of her various budget votes, O\u2019Brien notes Preckwinkle supported the revenue portion of the 2005 city budget which contained a dozen fee and tax increases, although she voted against passage of the overall $5.1 billion budget.<\/p>\n

Her voting record, said O\u2019Brien, shows that Preckwinkle is not the reformer she claims to be.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien also said Preckwinkle has promised to cut a pay cut if elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, she\u2019s voted for three pay raise increases for herself and a cost-of-living raise,\u201d said O\u2019Brien. \u201cSo are we talking out of both sides of our mouth, or what\u2019s the story.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Preckwinkle argues that she\u2019s voted against city\u00a0 budgets that contained increases in taxes, notably the 2008 city budget containing an $86 million property tax increase and the revenue portion of the 2009 budget, which contained $53 million in new taxes and fees. Preckwinkle notes that she opposed the controversial parking meter deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a legislator for 19 years and in that time you\u2019re going to vote for tax and fee increases,\u201d Preckwinkle said. <\/p>\n

Preckwinkle acknowledged voting for the pay increases.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy general philosophy is you ought to pay your elected officials adequately and expect them to work for you full time,\u201d said Preckwinkle. \u201cThat\u2019s a test he (O\u2019Brien) doesn\u2019t pass. I don\u2019t have any divided loyalties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preckwinkle received her biggest donation to date in the race last week, a $150,000 donation on Jan. 22 from the Illinois council of the Service Employees International Union.<\/p>\n

<\/br>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Robert Becker and Hal Dardick at 7:10 p.m. Down in the polls, Democratic County Board presidential hopeful Terrence O\u2019Brien took aim today at his three rivals in the Feb. 2 primary, characterizing front-runner Ald. Toni Preckwinkle as an official who has\u00a0\u201cnever seen a tax that she doesn\u2019t like.\u201d O\u2019Brien, who has been attacked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}