Raymond A. Figueroa

If ever you wanted a reformer in an office, it’s in the office of county assessor, considering how high our property taxes are.

The front runner, Joseph Berrios, is about as machine as one can be. Berrios, the Cook County Democratic Party chair and an ally of House Speaker Mike Madigan and Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, has been a member of the Cook County Board of Tax Review for decades as our taxes have gone up and up and school funding and county services have gone down. The Chicago Sun-Times has called Berrios “the poster child for conflicts of interest.”

He is opposed by former County Board of Tax Review member and Alderman Robert Shaw, whose family has its own political machine in Chicago and Dolton.

The best candidate, and the one getting the least media coverage, is Raymond A. Figueroa, former Cook County Circuit Court judge, former reform alderman allied with the late Mayor Harold Washington, and former civil rights officer for the Illinois Law Enforcement Commission.

Figueroa would create a citizens’ commission to review the practices of the assessor’s office. He would cap triennial reassessment increases, and enact campaign donation limits to the assessor. Raymond A. Figueroa is a better choice for this post than his opponents, and gets the Gazette’s endorsement.