Salaries, health advantages for members of Cicero advisory commissions hit
For years, an appointment to a house or elect in Cicero came with financial advantages not found in many other municipalities, including annual salaries as high as $10,000 and family health insurance, all in sell for operative on panels that typically accommodate once a month.
Though a city scaled behind on a advantages for new appointees dual years ago, a theme of perks many approaching will be an emanate when two-term Town President Larry Dominick seeks re-election early subsequent year, as he is approaching to do.
The advantages are partial of practices that “are mortgaging a destiny of a town,” pronounced Juan Ochoa, a former open central who pronounced he changed into Cicero from Berwyn 3 months ago with a goal of using for city president.
An bidding authorized in 2010 gave new appointees on many Cicero play a choice of receiving presumably a income or particular health insurance. Family coverage was eliminated. But members who during a time had been portion during slightest a year — some of them kin of Dominick — were grandfathered in and authorised to keep both a income and a family health word for as prolonged as they serve. About 70 percent of about 120 stream members still are authorised for both benefits, a city orator said.
Ochoa, a former conduct of a group that oversees McCormick Place and Navy Pier, who hasn’t strictly announced his candidacy in Cicero, pronounced a advantages that all allocated house members accept should be reviewed and presumably eliminated.
“It should be examined to see if it can be done,” pronounced Ochoa, 41, a domestic fan of U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, whose congressional district encompasses 90 percent of Cicero. “In many communities, these house members work as volunteers with a best seductiveness of a village in mind, though in Cicero things are different.”
Dominick declined to comment. Cicero orator Ray Hanania pronounced Dominick and a Town Board, as evidenced by a 2010 ordinance, have changed brazen to remodel a use of giving a income and health perks, that Dominick’s administration hereditary when it came into energy in 2005. But he pronounced some advantages are justified.
“They were betrothed a advantages when they primarily motionless to serve,” Hanania pronounced of a maestro house and elect members. “We don’t consider it’s vast to give incentives to people who advantage a town. We wish good people on those boards.”
Excluding inaugurated boards, a city has about 20 commissions and play that are allocated by a city president. A Tribune review in 2009 found that 121 allocated house and elect members were paid salaries — during a cost to taxpayers of about $1 million annually — and were offering health and dental word advantages for themselves and their families.
Records indicated that many of those on a play were Dominick’s family members, including his mother, brother, sister, son, nephew and even one of his former wives, among others. Some of a stream play embody a Board of Health, Mental Health Board, Housing Board, Zoning Board, Animal Welfare Board, President’s Office of Literacy house and even a Graffiti Task Force board.
The Board of Fire and Police Commissioners — done adult of allocated members who offer about 20 hours a week — is released from a new policy. All a members continue to accept salaries and family health benefits.
“I have a clever faith that a caring in a city is grossly amateurish and is usually endangered about appropriation a pocketbooks of family and friends,” Ochoa said.
Cicero’s Library Board is inaugurated and a apart entity from a town. Members who assimilated a house before 2010 get salaries as prolonged as they serve and family health word for life. But house members who came on in 2010 or after will get family health caring usually as prolonged as they serve, along with a salary.
Hanania pronounced a Library Board was a usually inaugurated house to accept health caring for life. Members of a inaugurated Cicero Town Board and other inaugurated play accept salaries and family health advantages for as prolonged as they serve.
Gutierrez pronounced he will inspire Ochoa to discharge some of a allocated boards. “These play should be staffed by volunteers; intelligent businessmen and women who caring about a town,” he said.
Gutierrez pronounced he supports Ochoa given a city needs a change though remarkable a debate could be a tough one.
“I consternation because he wants to do it,” pronounced Gutierrez, laughing. “I wrote him a $10,000 check to get him on his way, though he’s going to have to lift a lot some-more income than that. It’s not going to be easy.”
Ochoa, who headed a Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority from 2007 to 2010, runs his possess open family organisation and is active in immigration reform.
He once lived only blocks divided from Cicero in Chicago’s Little Village area and sees Cicero as partial of a incomparable Latino area that needs improved illustration and supervision reform. He also wants to concentration on bringing some-more attention to a suburb.
Hanania pronounced Dominick has a plain record given being elected. He forked out that there is reduction crime in a village and cited statistics that prove there were no gang-related slayings final year, compared with 17 a year before Dominick was elected.
Hanania combined that Cicero will have some-more than 1,000 new jobs during Wirtz Beverage Illinois and Wal-Mart, that are locating during a former Sportsman’s Park racetrack site.
“While a rest of a republic is confronting an mercantile downturn, a city of Cicero is attracting new businesses and new jobs,” he said. “While other communities are pleat services, Cicero is expanding services..”
