* Several members of the Cook County Board signed a letter yesterday asking Cook County Clerk David Orr to call a special meeting Thursday at 10 o’clock so they could look into circumstances surrounding the mysterious firing of President Todd Stroger’s chief of staff.
Fearing that the county’s funds may have been abused, Cook County Commissioner Lawrence Suffredin (D-13th District) called on the U.S. Attorney to investigate the circumstances surrounding the firing of Cook County Chief Financial Officer Donna Dunnings.
Dunnings was forced to resign late Thursday night last week from her position as Cook County’s CFO by her cousin, County Board President Todd Stroger. It came in the wake of questionable dealings Dunnings had with another fired county employee, Tony Cole. A busboy working at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in River North, Cole was hired by Stroger when Stroger met him while having dinner there. Cole had been arrested on domestic violence charges involving an ex-girl friend and was bailed out several times by Dunnings who used undisclosed credit cards to pay the court bails.
“I am concerned about how much money might be missing. I don’t know that there is any. I have discovered over the weekend that one of these PR people Stroger hired was with Ms. Dunnings when she bailed out this individual Cole from the County Jail. She used a credit card,” said Suffredin during an interview Monday on WJJG 1530 AM’s “Radio Chicagoland.”
* Stroger’s explanation for the firing has been widely ridiculed…
Cook County President Todd Stroger explained why he fired his cousin, Chief Financial Officer Donna Dunnings, from her $175,000 job last week: for her own good and the good of the county.
When Stroger fired her, he knew the Chicago Sun-Times was poised to reveal Dunnings twice bailed her secretary Tony Cole out of jail after being arrested for violating an order of protection, and some county commissioners were planning to take her to task for it.
“All I can tell you is that I know certain commissioners were determined to drag Miss Dunnings through the mud, and I thought it was undeserved and it would not serve her or the county for that to happen,” Stroger told the Sun-Times Monday night.
Last night, Stroger acknowledged for the first time in an interview with Carol Marin on WTTW-Channel 11’s “Chicago Tonight” program a few troubling facts.
Stroger said he knew about one of Cole’s two arrests as a county employee, although Stroger wasn’t clear on which one.
He knew that Dunnings bailed out Cole in one instance, but said he did not know about the other.
And he knew that, despite all that, Cole got promoted.
Stroger acknowledged that another of his top lieutenants, Eugene Mullins, accompanied Dunnings to bail Cole out of jail — confirming a fact first reported by Chicago Sun-Times reporter Mark Konkol on the newspaper’s Web site Monday night.
The paper went on to demand answers to seven questions. Go read them all.
“President Stroger, I do want to talk about a few other things, but not until we’re done with this,” Marin said.
“We’re done now,” Stroger shot back.
Later, Marin asked, “It’s not true that the 8th Ward, which is your home ward, has a disproportionately high number of people who have been hired by the county?”
“I don’t know where you get your information, but I [bet] you couldn’t even tell me where the boundaries of the 8th Ward are!” Stroger replied.
WTTW hasn’t yet posted last night’s show online, but check back later.
*** UPDATE *** The Chicago Tonight episode is now online, and Progress Illinois has a snippit…
In the above clip, Stroger blames the Illinois State Police backlog of background checks for not knowing about Cole’s recent arrest problems.
Stroger says the background check process takes “2-3 months.” Cole appeared on the county payroll on October 14, 2008 — about six months ago. But Stroger didn’t receive the report on Cole until two weeks ago? Huh?
