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CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) ― A government watchdog group is suing Cook County Board President Todd Stroger for failing to turn over staff cell phone records that might shed light on the ouster from county jobs of Stroger's cousin and a busboy turned-county highway administrator.

The Better Government Association filed suit Wednesday morning in Cook County Circuit Court, saying the Stroger administration is in violation of the state's freedom of information law for "stonewalling" the organization's cellphone records request.

For two months, the BGA has requested the cellphone records of Stroger; his communications director, Eugene Mullins; former chief financial officer Donna Dunnings and a former county employee, Tony Cole, during the period from Nov. 30, 2008 to April 30, 2009.

But those requests have been denied, the BGA says. The Sun-Times has made similar requests but the Stroger administration denied them, citing a pending criminal investigation. Mullins, Stroger's chief spokesman, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Cole was a busboy at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse when Stroger met him and personally hired him. Cole was fired in early April for allegedly failing to disclose his criminal history on a job application.

Weeks later, Stroger ousted his cousin Dunnings after it came to light that she had twice bailed Cole out of jail during the six months he was employed by the county, including in his $61,000-a-year highway department position. On one occasion, Mullins accompanied Dunnings.

Andy Shaw, the BGA's executive director, said questions about the scandal have largely gone unanswered, making him question whether the Cole scandal unfolded during business hours and at taxpayers expense. The cellphone records could be a window in to that.

"This was one of the most tawdry embarrassing and scandalous episodes of the Stroger administration — the hiring of an ex-convict, promotions twice to different jobs in the county — even after he's bailed out of jail by the CFO," Shaw said.

But those requests have been denied by the Stroger administration.

"We asked the Stroger administration to give us the cell phone numbers, just to see how much taxpayer time is being spent on this embarrassment. We don't know what we're going to find. We're not a judge and jury. But we wanted to find out what's going on," Shaw said. "Transparency demands we have access to the activity of government," he said.

"Cook County for too long has operated behind closed doors, in the dark, in the fog."

The county has argued against releasing the documents saying it would be "burdensome" and interfere with an ongoing criminal investigations related to the cases, Shaw says.

"If we were asking for records for the 1920s, I could see that" it would be burdensome, Shaw said. "But this is 2009, the computer age, and it's easy to access the records."

And since the BGA is asking for phone records with the times, dates and length of calls — not conversations — it shouldn't interfere with any criminal investigations, Shaw says.

Stroger's administration has 30 days to respond to the lawsuit.

"Todd Stroger could settle this for 45 cents by licking a stamp and sending us the records," Shaw said. "Now he's about to spend thousands of dollars in taxpayer money fighting a freedom of information lawsuit."

Stroger's office has yet to see the BGA suit and couldn't comment Wednesday night, said James Ramos, a Stroger spokesman.

(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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