Think it's important who voters pick to represent 1.7 million Illinoisans? Twelve states have less people than Cook County's Third Board of Review District. Republican Dan Patlak now represents the district to Cook County's Board of Review. He is one of three commissioners that hear from residents and businessmen concerning their Cook County property assessments. With a team of analysts, the board of commissioners determines whether an appeal is warranted and exactly how much a property assessment can be lowered or raised to be in line with neighbors. Those numbers determine just how much each owner pays in property taxes each year.
Patlak was elected in November of 2010, and in a 2-4-4 election cycle, he's up for re-election again in 2012. Palos Park businessman Sean Morrison challenged fellow Republican Patlak in 2010, and has launched another campaign to challenge Patlak in the March 2012 primary. The winner of the 2012 Republican primary will be facing Democrat heavyweight Jeremiah Joyce's nephew from Bremen Township. Both Patlak and Morrison have conducted interviews with Illinois Review, and on Monday Part 1 of each candidates' interview will be released.
In the interview with Morrison, we discuss a controversy that broke out Thursday night at the Bremen Township GOP Forum in Oak Forest. Morrison challenged Patlak concerning campaign contributions from attorneys that practice before the Board of Review. Morrison criticizes Patlak for asking for $5000 sponsorships at his recent fundraiser and when Patlak said Morrison had a similar ask on his own fundraiser event <Download MorrisonFundraisingInvite120311>, things heated up:
The issue of rejecting large contributions from attorneys that practice before the Board of Review will be a theme of Morrison's primary campaign. However, Morrison failed to provide the promised evidence on his website the next morning that his own event invite did not specify event sponsorships that could have risen to the large amounts similar to Patlak's. Morrison, instead, challenged Patlak to limit contributions from lawyers to $250.
More of each interview will be released on Illinois Review Monday morning during the 9:00 AM hour. You must not miss it.
