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Pappas, 76, a baton-twirling grandmother known for her flamboyant wardrobe and sharp wit, has flirted with running for mayor for decades. This time, Pappas says she’s in it for real, no matter how crowded the field of challengers becomes.
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Everybody needs a side hustle these days, and mine is Ukraine, where I am now.
Summary and audio linked here.
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Audio and summary
She will be rebuffed by voters just as Willie Wilson is. She may make sense and be knowledgeable as all get out, but like Willie, she doesn’t fit the model.
Surprisingly I like Willie he’s a smart guy but he also has some crazy ideas.
Just don’t need yet another old liberal hag.
Another useless, incompetent old hag who won’t go away.
I completely disagree. Here office is a model of transparency and she has been one of the very few officeholders warning about the property tax crisis for a very long time. When I have spoken to her there is no holding back.
Well, we can agree to disagree. Tyler Technologies has publically gone on record saying that her office did not do what they were supposed to do to make sure their new software implementation was completed as timely as possible and that the second installment of tax bills were sent out late because of this. This ties in to the level of arrogance that other government employees at the county and local levels have experienced with her.
So you trust Tyler Technologies?
I don’t think they would have made such a bold public statement if it weren’t true. Furthermore, she should have kept the old mainframe system running parallel just in case something happened. Lots of school districts and municipalities had to issue Tax Anticipation Warrants because they weren’t able to meet their cash flow needs.
And she’s done what?
She has made the best of what is really just a clerical job with no power by using her office to issue warnings that should have been heard, and being more transparent than any unit of government in Cook County.
Here’s a helpful refresher course on Ms Pappas from 2012.
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/bga-cook-county-treasurer-received-improper-property-tax-exemptions/
Let me be clear that I was not endorsing her and I have no idea whether she has many other faults. My sole point is that she has been a straight shooter about property taxes and that I have found her office to be commendably transparent.
According to her official bio, she has degrees in law and counseling psychology, and made the Treasurer’s office much more efficient. She issued numerous important analyses. She may be old, but not “useless” nor “incompetent.” As Mayor, I’m unsure whether she could get us out of the current hole, but at least would stop digging.
As she sorta/ kinda reminds me of Cher/ Olympia Dukakis, she could channel a line from “ Moonstruck “ as her champaign slogan- “Chicago! Snap out of it!”. It might work.
Mike Madigan has a law degree from Notre Dame. How did that work out for us? If she was really making the Treasurer’s Office so efficient why did it take until the recent few years to replace the old IBM mainframe system, literally 1980 technology.