Re-Elect Maureen Murphy

News Flash---Evanston Review endorses another Republican! Not only Tony Peraica for Cook County Board but now Maureen Murphy for the Cook County Board of Review:

Voters in District 1 of the Cook County Board of Review should re-elect Maureen Murphy to a third term on the board, which hears and rules on taxpayer complaints about their assessments of residential, condominium, commercial and industrial property.

During her second term on the board, Murphy, a Republican, has continued the outreach efforts she began after she was first elected in 1998. As of last month, Murphy's office has held 365 outreach seminars countywide to educate taxpayers on how to file successful assessment appeals. As a result, the Board of Review has seen the number of complaint filings by individual taxpayers increase, from 12,109 in 1998 to an all-time high of 36,870 in 2003.

If re-elected, she pledges to continue encouraging greater interaction among the Board of Review and local elected offices, by holding more outreach seminars and providing information about the assessment appeal process. Murphy also hopes to expand use of the board's satellite offices in five suburban courthouses, to permit oral tax appeal hearings in those locations. The move would save time and money for suburban taxpayers, who now must travel to the board's office in downtown Chicago to get a hearing.

Given there are more voters in suburban Cook County than in the city, suburban voters need to counter with a little clout of our own and get our tax appeals heard closer to home. And this is an especially important vote as her opponent is backed by the Cook County Assessor himself, whose assessments the board is elected to review.

VOTE Maureen Murphy