On one point all sides agree: over 15 months ago a coalition of northwest- and southwest-side activists asked Cook County officials for computer tapes on which are recorded the tax assessments on every piece of property in the county.
But the institute, long past patience, has filed suit. “We have the right to this stuff,” says Jerry Brozek, the institute’s lawyer. “And since they won’t release it, we’re going to court.”
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Neither Griffin nor Brands nor anyone else in county government knows for certain how many tapes are sold each year. But on one thing everyone agrees: whoever owns them has access to valuable information. The tapes reveal the assessed value and recent sales price as well as up-to-date physical description of every piece of property in the county.
The institute first approached county officials in June 1994; in October they met with officials from Hynes’s office and others from the office of Richard Phelan, then president of the County Board. The officials were skeptical, wanting to know, among other things, whether the institute was not a front for developers who wanted the tapes cheap.
The county lawyer, however, says it was inappropriate for Stroger to make a unilateral decision once the request was being studied by the finance committee. “I told Mr. Brozek that it was up to the board, not President Stroger,” says the lawyer, who asked not to be identified. “President Stroger couldn’t act on their request until the finance committee had. That’s why I directed them to Gus.”
At a press conference to publicize the suit, Mayer blasted the County Board for “flouting the law.” She called commissioners “political mandarins” who represent a “petty aristocracy of elected officials . . .
