About Trudy’s Opponent

Jim Steven Dasakis

The incumbent committeeman, Jim Steven Dasakis, was elected in the March 2006 primary. He resides in Hoffman Estates. In the 2006 general election, Dasakis also ran for Cook County Commissioner for the 15th District and was defeated by Republican Tim Schneider. Dasakis is running again for the County Board position in 2010.

Political Alliances: Todd Stroger

Dasakis has kept some notable company, starting with Cook County Board President Todd Stroger. President Stroger hand-picked Dasakis for a county job, as reported in the Chicago Sun-Times:

MORE ‘QUALITY HIRING’ BY COUNTY
STROGER | Job that’s been vacant for 4 years filled
October 31, 2007

BY STEVE PATTERSON
Staff Reporter spatterson@suntimes.com

Last year, Jim Dasakis campaigned for a Cook County Board seat on a promise to “eliminate do- nothing jobs” and “enforce quality hiring” in county government.
Now, the Hanover Township Democratic committeeman has been hired by board President Todd Stroger for a job that’s been vacant for four years.
Dasakis, who also runs a Barrington hot dog joint, makes $61,000 working in the county personnel office.
He’s among a few Democratic Party bosses who’ve been added to the county payroll in recent weeks — including Maywood Mayor Henderson Yarbrough, who’s now a supervisor for Clerk of the Circuit Court Dorothy Brown.

Other recent hires
Brown would not say what she’s paying Yarbrough, but said he oversees criminal records in an upper-management job that she personally filled and that she expects him to provide “great service” to her office.
Among other recent hires, Stroger also recommended the hiring of Barrington Township committeeman Bill Powers as an administrative assistant in the highway department. Powers was laid off as a laborer there this year and rehired in a desk job that’s been vacant for two years at a lower salary, making $50,544.

Hiring was ‘a red herring’
Stroger can fill about 500 jobs at will, and spokesman Ibis Antongiorgi said he’s left dozens vacant and can fire anyone from those jobs at any time.
He did that this month when the Sun-Times revealed he had hired Patty Young, girlfriend to his ally, Commissioner William Beavers. Stroger called that hiring “a red herring” that didn’t reflect actual hiring patterns.
But Commissioner Tim Schneider, who beat Dasakis last year, said “it’s a shame the only train running on time in Cook County is Todd Stroger’s gravy train,” adding Dasakis’ hiring “further creates distrust with this administration.”
Dasakis, a protege of political insider Victor Santana, said his job includes “a bunch of different tasks.”
“I met [Stroger] through the campaign, and he saw I was a hard worker,” Dasakis said. “He told me Cook County needed 1,000 guys like me and I called him on it. [Stroger] suggested I fill out an application, so I did.”
Yarbrough, husband of state Rep. Karen Yarbrough, did not return calls to his office or home.
Powers declined to comment.

In an article published September 11, 2009, the Sun-Times noted that of the 20 committeemen who voted for Stroger in his failed bid for the party’s endorsement in the 2010 primary, all had either received jobs from Stroger or had relatives who did. The committeemen’s slating sessions are not open to the public. (This is another aspect of county politics that Trudy will try to change if elected.) However, the Zaja campaign has learned from a witness who was present in the room that in the first round of the roll-call vote, Dasakis voted to endorse Stroger. None of the County Board President candidates received a majority of the committeemen’s votes, so a second round of slating was held; this time, Dasakis voted “present.” (In the end, no candidate received more than 50% of the vote and thus no endorsement was made.)

Click the links to read about Dasakis’s associations with convicted political aides Rod McCulloch and Victor Santana.

Financial Backers

Dasakis is chairman of two political committees registered with the Illinois State Board of Elections: Hanover Democratic Township Voters (HDTV) and Citizens for Dasakis (links to the latter committee’s disclosure forms in its various incarnations can be found here and here). Both committees have received four- and five-figure donations from businesses in the real estate and construction sectors, most of which are located outside Hanover Township and the 15th District of Cook County.

On January 29, 2010 (four days before the primary election), HDTV submitted a name-change form to the Board of Elections.