Preckwinkle backs off charging residents in unincorporated areas for sheriff’s policing

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Updated: November 9, 2011 4:01PM

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is backing off — at least for now — a controversial plan to charge residents living in unincorporated stretches for sheriff’s policing services.

On Friday, Preckwinkle will announce she is tabling the measure so a “task force” can study how to implement the proposed fee to cover the cost of policing the 100,000 residents — or about 2 percent of the 5 million countywide — in unincorporated Cook County, officials tell the Sun-Times.

A Preckwinkle spokeswoman said she is still committed to the plan and may even resurrect it next year sometime, but it requires more study.

In arguing for the fee, Preckwinkle said residents of unincorporated Cook County do not pay a fee for police services the way city residents, for instance, do. The measure would have generated about $5 million.

“We’re going to push people to choose — annexation or (become) a special service area so you pay for the services you get and stop mooching off the other 98 percent of us,” Preckwinkle told the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board last month.

But the measure drew fierce criticism from suburban commissioners, including Gregg Goslin, a northwest suburban Republican. He argued the policing services are covered in the tax bills for those residents but he agrees the county needs to look at ways to trim those costs. He said he has talked with mayors and city managers in his district who are amenable to contracting with the sheriff to take over policing duties — at a discount.

“I think we could save millions,” Goslin told the Sun-Times.

The measure was part of Preckwinkle’s $2.9 million 2012 spending plan.

Lisa Donovan