Thursday morning, members of the Cook County Board have a chance to show whether they heard the loud demand for change that voters voiced in the March 19 Illinois primary election. That was the startling day when five of the nine county commissioners up for renomination got tossed out on their ears.
The issue now before the board, lame ducks included, is whether to privatize the county’s money-losing golf courses. That long overdue move is important to stop a gusher of red ink in the golf operation–and it’s even more important as a first step toward privatizing or downsizing much more of the county’s antiquated, hugely featherbedded government.
Technically this is a meeting of the Finance Committee of the Cook County Forest Preserve District. But it’s really just the County Board members wearing different hats, of which each member has several. If board members recommend privatizing their 10 golf courses today, they’ll meet Tuesday–this time as forest preserve commissioners–to accept their own recommendation to themselves. Only then would they actually get around to formally approving a contract with a private management company. (And you wonder why so little gets done.)
One danger is that commissioners who care more about county employees’ unions than their political futures will try to water down privatization. The point here is to give outside managers total authority, and then watch them like a hawk. The point isn’t to lard a contract with protections for commissioners’ pet patronage workers at the golf courses. This is an inefficient and overstaffed operation, and whoever manages it must have free rein to do the job without restrictions intended to perpetuate the status quo.
The shameful reluctance of some board members to privatize the courses already has cost taxpayers two years of continued steep subsidies to the county’s sloppy golf operation. Commissioners have had plenty of time to digest the proposal that will be discussed, so those who’ve been doing their jobs should have little trouble deciding to accept a privatization plan. Whether some board members search for ways to create roadblocks will make for interesting theater.
Approving a privatization plan should be the start of a complete overhaul of the forest preserves. The mismanagement of golf and other programs matches the district’s lousy record of balancing its budget, keeping up with land acquisition and maintaining the preserves.
One broader option is to kill off the independent forest preserve district and fold it into county government as a new department. That would require legal steps, but also would give the county’s talented financial management team more control over the rogue district’s operations.
But getting the golf courses privatized–without shenanigans to weaken the proposal–is the short-term goal. Voters have made it clear that they’ve had a bellyful of Cook County’s wasteful spending, protection of patronage hacks and chronic scorn for taxpayers. That primary election was an impressive start to reforming the Cook County Board. But it was only a start.
