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Chris Kennedy admits error, but still blames Berrios

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Illinois

* As we discussed yesterday, Chris Kennedy erroneously claimed that the Cook County Assessor had valued the Hyatt Center at $160 million even though the building has a $385 million mortgage. The assessor’s office pointed out that Kennedy didn’t do his homework because the building is actually valued for tax purposes at $382 million, reduced on appeal by the Cook County Board of Review from the assessor’s initial $396 valuation.

Greg Hinz caught up with the gubernatorial candidate today…

Today, in a phone call, Kennedy admitted his error, agreeing with Berrios that he’d looked at only some and not all of the Property Index Numbers that cover the property and its assessment.

“I’m conceding that we are missing PIN numbers,” Kennedy told me in a phone call. “The error is on me,” and not the campaign worker—a former employee of the assessor’s office whom Kennedy declined to name—who researched the matter before yesterday’s news conference.

If Berrios ran a truly open and modern office, he wouldn’t rely on multiple PINs for the same property, some of them with different street addresses, Kennedy said.

“Why do we have five different PINs? Why can’t we collapse them into one. . . .That’s just one of the signs that (Berrios’) system lacks transparency.”

Berrios’ office denied that the system is complicated, particularly for someone such as Kennedy, who ran the Merchandise Mart for years and is developing high-end apartment towers at Wolf Point.

“He’s incompetent on this issue,” Shaer said. “His family has made billions of dollars on real estate.”

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jan 23, 18 @ 2:52 pm

Comments

Chris Kennedy never should’ve ran for Assessor if Cook County…

To the Post,

You wavtvti make a point of incompetence or worse, you can’t make gross fundamental errors in the understanding of what your accusing people or an office of doing.

Bruce Rauner’s candidate, Chris Kennedy, follows the Rauner thinking that you say something is true until you finally have to admit you’re wrong.

Facts don’t matter. All that matters is that Rauner’s candidate Chris Kennedy can say things, anything, until it’s shown to be wrong.

Congratulations.

Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jan 23, 18 @ 3:01 pm
No doubt, Kennedy screwed up. But if I worked for Berrios, I wouldn’t get to carried away doing a victory dance. Their standard push back to all criticism (“_________ doesn’t understand the complications of the assessment process”) kinda proves their critic’s point. The system is so complicated and opaque most regular folks think the fix is in. You have to hire one of Joe Berrios’ pals just to get a fair shake.

Comment by Roman Tuesday, Jan 23, 18 @ 3:03 pm
==If Berrios ran a truly open and modern office, he wouldn’t rely on multiple PINs for the same property, some of them with different street addresses, Kennedy said.==

That’s a pretty thorough misunderstanding of the concept. PINs aren’t used to identify individual buildings, but rather individual parcels of land. But look at something like the Hyatt Center- it’s huge! It sits on multiple parcels of land. It’s not a sign of corruption to acknowledge that large buildings take up more space than small ones.

Comment by Arsenal Tuesday, Jan 23, 18 @ 3:12 pm
BTW, did he ever admit the error in the whole, “JB gave money to Walker” thing?

Comment by Arsenal Tuesday, Jan 23, 18 @ 3:13 pm
But… but… but BERRIOS‼

– MrJM

Comment by @misterjayem Tuesday, Jan 23, 18 @ 3:13 pm
Rich guys for governor. Yea!

Comment by Touré's Latte Tuesday, Jan 23, 18 @ 3:36 pm
===That’s a pretty thorough misunderstanding of the concept. PINs aren’t used to identify individual buildings, but rather individual parcels of land. But look at something like the Hyatt Center- it’s huge! It sits on multiple parcels of land. It’s not a sign of corruption to acknowledge that large buildings take up more space than small ones.===

You’re absolutely right that this doesn’t fall on Berrios. But as someone who occasionally has to interpret a legal description to identify parcels, it would be much easier for everyone if parcels could be combined. The process now for combining/splitting parcels (in every county, not just Cook) is expensive and time consuming.

Comment by Sox Fan Tuesday, Jan 23, 18 @ 4:00 pm
35 ILCS 200/9-45: “The county clerk in counties of 3,000,000 or more inhabitants… may establish a property index number system under which property may be listed for purposes of assessment, collection of taxes or automation of the office of the recorder.”

Another swing and a miss for Kennedy.

Comment by Just Observing Tuesday, Jan 23, 18 @ 4:33 pm