VOTE IN THE GREEN PARTY PRIMARY AND BRING AN END TO MACHINE STYLE POLITICS

BRIEF PLATFORM

A county website with the following goals will be developed to facilitate voter participation and monitoring of county government.

Open Accountable Government

Voter Participation in Budgeting

Elimination of Government Waste

MY CURRENT PLATFORM: VOTER DRIVEN CHANGE

Open Accountable Government

Each employee would have an online profile that is similar to those found on social networking websites, starting with the 10% highest paid county employees. Employee responsibilities would be posted online. Voters could comment on and rate employee performance based on the fulfillment of their responsibilities. Feedback could be submitted for personal experiences.

Participatory Budgeting

5% of the county budget will be equally distributed to each district. Voters will be able to go online and develop programs that they think are needed by district. Voters will then decide which of these programs to allocate funds to by district. If this goes well then more of the budget can be turned over to the voters.

Alderman Joe Moore of Chicago is planning on using his discretionary funds in a similar fashion. I applaud his efforts in this area and if you live in any of the other wards you should ask your alderman why he doesn't think you should have a say in budgeting. If you live in the suburbs ask your mayor. Why can't voters decide how to use a percentage of the funds that were derived from their tax dollars?

County Contractors

All county contracts will be posted online. All county contractors will have online profiles. Voters will be able to go online and comment on the performance of contractors.

Starting with small contracts bidding will move to an open online format where voters will decide who receives the contract. Contractors will have profiles that they can build up by performing their contracts faithfully. Voters will then feel comfortable to entrust them with larger contracts.

A More Perfect County

The concept of lean manufacturing has been around since the end of world war 2. Our government, however, has not taken notice of the concept of eliminating waste to improve quality of service. I personally advocate the adoption of this philosophy. Everyday, everyone tries to make work more efficient by making small changes that eliminate waste and over time these changes add up to much more efficient systems for delivery of county services. Changes are not made from the top down. Ideas for change come from the bottom up. In this case the ideas would come from the employees doing the work and the voters receiving services. Not from the county board down. The voter is the customer. If voters feel a service is not giving them the right value for their tax dollar, then that service must be eliminated, cut or reworked to voter satisfaction.

Employees are cross trained to perform many different jobs within the county so that workers are not afraid to speak up about ways to make government more efficient in fear of making themselves obsolete. They also should be rewarded for ideas that lead to savings. County employees are not the enemy of the voter. Many county employees are honest hard working people who are just as fed up with the corruption that allows other employees to sit around doing nothing because they are politically connected. Unfortunately under our current administration hard working employees are passed over for promotions because they aren't as connected to the elite political class.

LARGE CHANGES ARE NOT MADE ALL AT ONCE.

Everyday we work towards creating a more perfect county. A philosophy of continuous improvement must be instilled at all levels county government.

Cycle of improvement

DEFINE PROBLEMS -> PLAN SOLUTIONS -> TEST SOLUTIONS -> IMPLEMENT INNOVATIONS

Cook County voters and workers participate in and drive each step of the cycle. The pre-improvement state is measured to check against during the testing and implementing phases to ensure voters are getting value for their tax dollar.

County President Salary

In these hard times and with my lack of political experience I pledge to cut my salary by 50%. Cuts should come from the top first.

Fundraising

I will not raise any funds for this local campaign. I do not believe it is necessary. I will not owe anyone any favors. I do not need commercials that repeat platitudes or denigrate my opponents. I do not need to send out mailers that will only find their way into your trash. In these hard times I will not take your hard earned dollars to promote myself. I will not waste my time raising funds for a personal slush fund when I should be spending time coming up with solutions to the problems the voters want solved.

I stand by my idea that VOTER DRIVEN CHANGE IS THE CHANGE WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR. The only promotional material I will provide is this website which I paid for. For this to work you have to sign up for the site. You have to contribute to it. You have to promote it. You have to tell your friend about it. THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT FROM THE MACHINE. If you want the opportunity to decide your own fate rather than having the elite political class decide it for you then you have to step up to the plate. In the near future I will post promotional material and signs which you can print out and distribute yourself. You still have the freedom of speech and while I won't ask for your money I do ask that you speak up. NOT FOR ME BUT FOR YOURSELVES.

If something here is confusing, let me know. These are just my opinions on how county government should be run. Your thoughts on how county government should be run are really all that matters. There are points of view I have not taken into account but I am trying and I am willing to listen and change my opinions.

More to come later. I apologize that the site is not perfect yet but neither is Cook County. I'll be improving it everyday and I hope you do to!. Thanks for stopping by!

If you don't like me or the Green party for any reason but you like some of these ideas, ask the candidate that you support to support the idea you like or at least ask them to look into it. REMEMBER ELECTED OFFICIALS ARE THERE TO REPRESENT YOUR INTERESTS, NOT THEIR INTERESTS AND THEIR DECISIONS REFLECT ON YOUR JUDGMENT.

THIS FEBRUARY ASK FOR THE GREEN PARTY BALLOT AND VOTE FOR VOTER DRIVEN CHANGE.

VOTE FOR SEAN BURKE.