Politics

  Things are getting ugly at the Cook County Board. Name-calling and accusations of racial bias threaten to derail the board's struggle to agree upon a new budget.

As CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reports, Comm. William Beavers, a powerful figure on the board, is at the center of the storm.

"It's about who's gonna run the county. It's about jobs, contracts, and power," Beavers said. "That's what it's about. Are black folks gonna run it, or are white folks gonna run it?"

The always blunt-spoken Beavers hardly backed down from Tuesday's controversial comments that opposition to board President Todd Stroger is based purely on race.

"If Todd was white, he wouldn't have half the problems he's got now, let's face it," Beavers said Tuesday.

But Comm. Anthony Peraica, the man Stroger defeated in the election, said he's opposing Stroger's billion dollar tax hike to protect taxpayers.

"They're being taxed to death, and that's what it's about," Peraica said. "It has nothing to do with color."

But Beavers isn't buying that. During a break in Tuesday's finance hearings, he lashed out at Peraica.

"He don't have no love for black people," Beavers said. "I told you he has a history of fighting black folks when he lived in Bridgeport as a young man."

Peraica responded, "I respect everyone in our society. I give them credit and respect they deserve. And those comments are really an affront, not just to me but to every thinking human being in the county."

Even Commissioner John Daley, a Stroger ally, was surprised by Beavers' words, defending Peraica. "It's wrong for anyone to play the race card," he added.

Peraica and others say the comments are born of a desperate frustration that Stroger can't pass a 2 percentage-point sales tax hike or other increases.

"Todd Stroger's credibility -- which has nothing to do with race -- is at a low ebb," Peraica said. "He needs to build up that credibility."

Prompted by a reporter's question, Beavers yelled not to forget that he's "the hog with the big nuts and I'm gonna tell you what it is."

Beavers accused the wider board of racism, too, saying they cut the budgets of two black county officials – Court Clerk Dorothy Brown and Recorder Eugene Moore – while leaving white office-holders untouched.

"If you're going to cut, cut across the board," Beavers said.

When commissioners voted to make cuts to county Moore's office, cuts Moore said he supports, Beavers implied Moore wasn't smart enough to understand the cuts and Republican commissioners must have used racial intimidation to get him to agree.

Peraica says he offered an amendment to do just that, cut the budget by 2 percent across the board; it did not pass.

Beavers insists the board's racial divide is as bad as it was on the city council under Harold Washington. As he put it: "The blacks are with Todd; the whites are against him."

Race continued to come up throughout an otherwise uneventful budget hearing, setting an ugly and uncomfortable tone that hasn't been seen in previous budget battles.

Name-calling continued as Commissioner Liz Gorman, county Republican Party chairman, ripped into fellow Republican Peraica unprovoked, reading from a list of insults, calling him a "loser," "pathetic, pathological liar," an "abusive weasel" who is "no man," and an "ineffective leader" who has "no substance."

A shocked Peraica said Gorman has "no self-respect" and her attack was "abominable" and "despicable."

But then, even Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno called Peraica "a jerk."

The attacks were the most noteworthy thing to come from a nine-hour meeting designed to help fill a $239 million budget deficit. About $1 million was cut Tuesday.

Though Stroger wants to pass his $3 billion budget by Friday, even he conceded that's not likely. He said commissioners are "afraid" and need to show "common sense" in approaching the budget.

Commissioners will meet again Friday to try to plug the budget hole.

CBS 2's Derrick Blakley contributed to this report.

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