Stroger backs off pledge to dump clout boss

Chicago Sun-Times

November 21, 2006

By Steve Patterson

Cook County Board President-elect Todd Stroger now says he will not fire the county's controversial patronage chief right away, but will keep Gerald Nichols on the payroll into January despite a federal investigation into allegations that Nichols fixed jobs.

During the campaign, Stroger said he would fire Nichols after taking office and some expected that to happen on his first day, as a show of commitment to reform. Nichols is suspended from his $114,000-a-year job in the wake of the federal probe. The current board president, Bobbie Steele, has said she doesn't know what he did to deserve his salary.

'FIRST SIGN' OF DECEPTION

Now Stroger says he will lift the suspension so Nichols can advise him during Stroger's first month in office, providing insights no one else can.

"I'm going to bring Gerald on to help me figure out who's who and what's what," said Stroger, who takes office next week. "He obviously knows everybody in the county, I don't care what people say. Tell me somebody who doesn't know who Gerald Nichols is."

Stroger insists Nichols, a longtime boss in Stroger's 8th Ward political organization, will still be fired in January. But until then, "I don't see any reason not to find out what he knows about what's going on."

Steele earlier said Nichols, as special assistant to President John Stroger, would sort mail and similar duties, but "we were unable to verify a real job description" for him.

Commissioner Tony Peraica, who ran against Stroger, said bringing Nichols back, no matter how briefly, breaks a campaign promise.

"It's the first sign showing the deception played on the voters," he said. "Gerald Nichols knows how to take advantage of county government and its taxpayers to perpetuate the political machine."

Commissioner Mike Quigley, who backed Stroger, said "there are plenty of other folks who know how the county operates and could probably advise him for free."

Stroger is unwavered.

"Maybe they ought to be president," he said of critics.

Copyright 2006, Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.

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