Rep. Froehlich Questioned

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Froehlich QuestionedOver Tax Appeals
CHICAGO - Imagine a state representative knocking on your door, offering to lower your property taxes. That’s exactly what some people who spoke to Fox Chicago News say happened to them.
“[He was] just knocking on the door, introducing himself…and he said would you like my help with your property taxes,” explains Renee and Tom Walsh
Another person, Alan Szczeblowski, recalls, “He had us sign a thing that said he would get our taxes lowered.”
They’re talking about State Representative Paul Froehlich.
“He had forms and I said sure. I signed it and we wound up getting a reduction," says Tom Walsh
They also say that Froehlich asked if he could you put a campaign sign in their yard.
"I said that would be fine. I mean he did me a favor," explains Renee Walsh.
But that leads to the question, was it a savvy political move, a way to win votes, or something else?
Froehlich offered hundreds of taxpayers in Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village and Hoffman Estates a chance to reduce their taxes. Fox Chicago News obtained the names of 175 residents and businesses. Nearly everyone, 94%, won their appeal, from as little as a couple hundred bucks to six figures. How Froehlich did it is now the subject of a Cook County State's Attorney's investigation.
Judy McCurdy was Froehlich’s district office supervisor until he fired her last November. Now, she’s blowing the whistle, providing us with internal documents like a walk sheet he used to visit registered voters. There are notes connecting the tax appeals and campaign signs in his own handwriting
“What he said was these tax savings would translate to votes," says McCurdy.
When we asked Froehlich about the campaign signs he said, “Every elected official that I know of does constituent service, tries to help constituents in a variety of ways."
Those constituents included two of his major campaign contributors. Froehlich helped the owners of the Schaumburg Comfort Inn Suites and Wingate Hotel win big tax reductions. On one internal document, Froehlich does the math, calculating a third of the savings, what a tax attorney would take. Underneath he wrote, "I asked the owner of the hotel and he agreed to cover my sign bill - twelve thousand -- and provide rooms for workers in '08 and '10.
When asked about the note Froehlich replied, “I’ve never had the authority to lower anybody's assessment never. Now if I would have I’d understand your point."
But when we looked at his campaign contributions we found a payment for campaign signs.
Another handwritten note shows Froehlich calculating his own cut from the Wingate tax appeal, more than $14,000. Three weeks later, the Wingate owners began sending checks to pay for his campaign office.
They also picked up the tab for more than $8000 in hotel rooms for campaign workers in last year's election. It was Froehlich's first election after jumping to the Democratic Party and he had the Democratic power brokers behind him, including Joseph Berrios, head of the Cook County Democratic Party and head of the tax board of review. Freohlich and Berrios ran an outreach program to teach residents how to appeal their taxes.
Brendan Houlihan also sits on the tax board. He says he was excluded from the event and all of the appeals generated by Froehlich went to Berrios's staff even though Houlihan's district covers that area. Now the board has launched an investigation of hundreds of appeals filed by Froehlich and whether he was getting inside help.
"Soon we'll have some results to report but meanwhile we're under investigation there'll be more to follow soon," says Houlihan:
And the people whose taxes were reduced got a friendly letter in the mail, not from the tax board, but from Froehlich's office saying, “I'm happy to inform you the assessment appeal I worked out for you was successful