Two Cook County property tax appeal commissioners face strong challengers in March 17 primary

Despite wielding enormous power — to change the tax bills of any property owner — the Cook County Board of Review long has been treated as a relatively obscure backwater of local government.

That has not been the case, though, in the past few years, with the three-member Board of Review becoming the subject of plenty of headlines.

There was the viral Chicago police body-camera video of Board of Review Commissioner Samantha Steele, who’s been charged with drunk driving in a crash on the North Side — and repeatedly told arresting officers that she was a county elected official.

There also was the divisive issue of how much in property taxes the Chicago Bears should pay for the former Arlington Park racecourse site, which the team bought in hopes of building a new stadium in the northwest suburbs.

And then there are the ever-rising tax bills for homeowners and businesses with pockets not nearly as deep as an NFL franchise. The Board of Review has openly feuded with Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi over who’s to blame for the situation.

Now, two of the three commissioners — Steele and George Cardenas, a veteran Chicago politician — are facing strong challengers in the March Democratic primary.

Steele faces career Democratic operative Liz Nicholson, while Cardenas is opposed by Juanita Irizarry, a longtime community activist from the Humboldt Park neighborhood who once led the influential Friends of the Parks in Chicago.

In her first term in office, Steele gained the widest notoriety after she smashed a vehicle she was driving while allegedly drunk, and defiantly told the cops, “I’m an elected official,” according to the body-cam video recording of the incident. The case against Steele is pending in Cook County Circuit Court, but she’s fighting the charge.

Also in 2024, Steele fired an aide after WBEZ reported that the employee had pleaded guilty in federal court and testified in a corruption trial in northwest Indiana against his brother.

Last year, the county paid a $180,000 settlement to another former Steele aide at the Board of Review who sued her, the agency and her chief of staff in a federal whistleblower lawsuit.

Nicholson accused Steele of “horrific leadership.”

“I’m the solution,” said Nicholson, a South Side native. “She's the problem, and calls a lot of undue attention to elected officials. It’s so bad.”

The challenger said this was the right time for her to step forward after three decades as a top adviser to former Illinois Senate President John Cullerton.

Steele, who lives in Evanston, is in her first term, having been elected in 2022 to represent the board district covering the North Side and northern suburbs. She said she was not surprised to encounter a strong backlash after she unseated an incumbent Board of Review commissioner.

“I'm not surprised that the Democratic Party didn't endorse me because in Cook County politics, you know the saying is who brought you here, and nobody brought me there,” Steele said.

She said her frequent clashes with the other two board members — and ethics accusations from the county’s inspector general — distracted from a record of serving with technocratic skill, parlaying her experience in the tax appeals industry. Before moving to the Chicago area and running for office, Steele was the assessor of Indiana’s Tippecanoe County for one term.

Steele said she intends to fight the DUI charge in Cook County court aggressively but added, “I regret the whole thing. Absolutely. It just was not handled well, but I can't talk about it because it is still a pending legal matter, and once it's been resolved, I'm happy to discuss at great lengths with you.

“But I can tell you that it has been very traumatic. I received death threats.”

Cardenas has endorsed Nicholson. The former Chicago alderman — a Navy veteran who served five terms in the City Council — said Nicholson is “more mature” than Steele.

“I don't see eye-to-eye with Commissioner Steele, by any means,” Cardenas said. Cardenas has his own challenger with many powerful allies. Irizarry’s backers include U.S. Reps. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Delia Ramirez and Danny Davis and nine Chicago City Council members.

Irizarry is best known for successfully opposing “Star Wars” creator George Lucas’ plan for a museum near the lakefront a decade ago. But she said she also has vast experience trying to stop rising property taxes and zoning changes in gentrified, historically Hispanic neighborhoods such as Wicker Park.

Irizarry said Cardenas entered politics through the scandal-plagued political machine of then-Mayor Richard M. Daley.

“George Cardenas himself came up in the Hispanic Democratic Organization, HDO, and has been very proximate to, if not directly involved in, a lot of scandals along the way,” she said.

But Cardenas said he was proud to enjoy the endorsements of Democratic Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and the county’s Democratic organization. Cardenas also said he had done much in office to help homeowners in minority communities fight property tax increases.

Dan Mihalopoulos is a reporter for WBEZ.