Preckwinkle and Burke
Then-Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, 4th, and Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, chat during a Chicago City Council meeting in 2007. Now a mayoral candidate, Preckwinkle has sought to minimize her ties to him. (Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune)
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle laid off hundreds of workers after her controversial pop tax was repealed in fall 2017, but one county employee who didn’t lose his job was Edward Burke Jr.
Burke had been hired at the county’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department a few years earlier after Preckwinkle met with Burke’s then-powerful alderman father about opportunities for his son. And when the layoffs came, two employees who were being paid partly with federal grant funds were let go, while Burke Jr.’s salary was moved off of county funding and onto the federal grant, the Tribune found.
This is a taste of the Chicago Tribune article that shows how Burke the briber gets his power and the Chicago taxpayers get the bill. Burke must go to jail and not get special treatment. More on the Chicago Department of Water Management, Committee on Finance, Department of Finance, and Prickwinkle ties soon. I am glad the Trib is taking off where the Sun-Times retired. Buy your tribune for the rest of the story.