Cook County Board President-Elect Toni Preckwinkle announces Transition Team Leadership

Web traffic to transition site indicates overwhelming interest from across the county

 

 

 Following her election to office last week, Cook County Board President-elect Toni Preckwinkle has assembled a team of civic and business leaders to spearhead her transition from candidate to County Board President.

 

“We are bringing together leaders from both private and public sectors into our transition effort in order to address budget and policy priorities,” said Preckwinkle. “The transition team will work to build an action plan on the foundation created by the policy teams. This is the next step toward implementing a plan that will help guide my administration in the coming months.”

 

One of the failings of the current Administration has been the inability and unwillingness to build such coalitions. During the past four years there has been a lot of division in the County and almost no unity. Meeting the many difficult challenges facing Cook County will require a leader who can bring people together around common goals. 

 

Since first announcing her candidacy, Preckwinkle has worked to forge a broad, diverse coalition of support, crossing the racial, ethnic and geographic lines of the County. The transition chairs reflect Preckwinkle’s ongoing commitment.

 

The purpose of the transition effort will be supported by the work done by the policy teams during the primary. The team’s policy brief was released to the public last week and can be found at the transition website (www.CookCountyTransition.com) .

 

Preckwinkle’s transition effort has been unprecedented in reaching out to Cook County residents. To date, the Preckwinkle transition team garnered roughly 21,000 visitors and received 1,852 job applications.

 

“As Cook County Board President, I am committed to creating a culture of competence and dedication among the people that work for Cook County. I am committed to engaging and drawing on the talents from the diversity of Cook County in order to deliver a more efficient and effective County government.”

 

The transition team chairs are as follows:

 

HONORARY CO-CHAIRS:

 

Dawn Clark Netsch

Former State Comptroller

 

James Compton

Former CEO, Chicago Urban League

 

Jim Edgar

Former Governor of Illinois

 

Arthur Velasquez

Azteca Foods

 

CO-CHAIRS:

 

Norman Bobins

The Private Bank

 

John Rogers

Ariel Investments

 

Pat Ryan

Ryan Specialty Group

 

Betty Lu Saltzman

Civic Leader

 

Manny Sanchez

Sanchez Daniels Hoffman

 

Kevin Willer

Google

 

SUB-COMMITTEE CHAIRS:

 

Governance:

Michael Igoe

Vedder Price

 

Judy Rice

Harris Bank

 

Budget:

  

Health Care:

Rick Garcia

Equality Illinois

 

Ruth Rothstein

Cook County Bureau of Health Services

 

Criminal Justice:

Rebecca Janowitz

Cook County Sheriff’s Department

 

Anita Ponder

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

 

Economic Development:

Andrew Mooney

Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)

 

Andrea Zopp

Chicago Urban League

 

Forest Preserves:

Arnold Randall

University of Chicago

 

Mary Richardson Lowry