
Pat Hynes Wins Democratic Primary for Cook County Assessor
Clip: 3/18/2026 | 6m 32sVideo has Closed Captions
Pat Hynes will face Libertarian candidate Nico Tsatsoulis in the Nov. 3 general election.
Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi conceded defeat to Pat Hynes, a one-time employee of the two-term incumbent’s office.
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Pat Hynes Wins Democratic Primary for Cook County Assessor
Clip: 3/18/2026 | 6m 32sVideo has Closed Captions
Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi conceded defeat to Pat Hynes, a one-time employee of the two-term incumbent’s office.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship>> Lyons Township Assessor, Pat Hynes Reign victorious.
This primary election cycle beating out incumbent Fritz KD for the Democratic seat for Cook County Assessor with just over 52% of the vote.
Heinz goes on to run in November's general election.
He ran his campaign on improving accuracy to property assessments, restoring trust and building economic development.
And here to reflect on last night's winning layup, the future of his campaign.
It's Democratic candidate, the Cook County for Cook County Assessor.
Pat Hynes.
Welcome.
Congrats on your win last night.
Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be So what do you think it was about your campaign that resonated with voters?
You know, I think that there's an abject frustration with the way property taxes are going right now in Cook County.
Couple up with our authenticity.
>> You know, we we work very hard to communicate with as many voters as possible.
And I think the fact that I've had 30 years of experience, I could speak to what we plan to do.
And I think that that authenticity really resonated with the voters.
We talked >> For those who may not understand not everybody gets the ins and outs of what the assessor does.
They just know they've got to some tax give us the simple explanation of that office.
Please.
in the city of Chicago, we've got about 8.9 billion dollars property tax suburbs, a little over 9 billion that we have to divide among the property tax payers.
And so the role of the county assessor is too.
>> Have a fair and equitable distribution of that pardon.
The burden remains relatively fixed.
And so our job is to value every property in the district and figure out the way divvy up that burden.
According to the market value of every property.
>> So briefly, if you kind of help us understand how you us through how assessments for property taxes are made.
And I should reference, you know, that you work with several other ordered.
The assessor's office works with several other elected bodies, treasure aboard a review.
Of course, the county board and Cook County Board president.
So you campaigned on the argument that the current assessor, Fritz Kagy was incompetent for the job that his office's data was old and riddled with errors resulting in skyrocketing bills for homeowners.
One of the fixes that you plan to implement.
Well, number one is cleaning up that data.
So you have to have a good handle on what the built environment is in this county.
If you're gonna produce inaccurate assessment.
>> And we just don't have that right now.
So he took a random sample of 100 residential property descriptions in your community walked the neighborhood and actually looked at what was built on each of those parcels.
The data firm up, many of them simply wouldn't match.
And you can't have that kind of error rate in your underlying data.
If you plan to produce an assessment that's credible.
>> What your property owners, both residential and commercial, what you'd expect they should expect an awful lot less volatility.
And so when you have the data, that's that's not accurate.
You change bricks.
You get a result.
That's all over the board.
And that's the experience the tax payers have had the last 8 years.
Is that?
They have wild swings in their assessment.
Wild swings in the result and property tax burden yet they haven't had wild swings in appreciation of their property to match the wild swings in the value.
And that's that's why tax payers are really frustrated for check what's happening right now and as boring as it is, it's really important to get the data right to get the assessment, right?
Because we do have an outsize influence on our local economy.
Absolutely.
so for keiki, he says that he hopes that you will protect some of the reforms that he says he implemented during his 2 terms.
>> He says he fought to ensure bigger commercial properties and luxury homes were assessed at what they're worth.
He says cleaned up, pay to play corruption and expanded property tax relief programs as well as increasing the number of homeowners who are receiving exemptions.
Is there anything that you would keep from his term going into yours if elected?
Sure.
I mean, we would we would keep our outreach.
We keep making sure that people get the exemptions that they're entitled >> We're gonna make sure that we assess all the properties that are built.
You know, he claims that made sure that mentions pay their fair share.
It's kind of hard to make that claim.
If you have mansions that are built that are still being assessed as vacant.
Lots.
The errors that correct.
We have we have lists of of hundreds of properties that have been built.
So for a million dollars and then we're taxed as if there was a vacant lot.
So missing the House entirely.
So we're gonna make sure that we capture the change in the built environment here in Cook County, using the permit data that we get using the aerial photographs that we get to make sure that all new property is added to the tax rolls and contributes to the to the burden that we all have to share.
How should the county and all of these bodies that we mentioned earlier, sort of balance that tax burden.
>> Across commercial properties and residential owners wind, you know, commercial properties maybe aren't all worth what they used to be if they're not being used quite as Well, I think we should follow the law.
You right now and in the county ordinance, commercial tax payers pay 2 and a half times the amount that residential taxpayer will pay and the law says that were supposed to assess it according to its market value as of January.
First of the tax year in question.
And while it may be inconvenient, if a commercial property has lost its value, is it is what it is.
You have to assess it accordingly.
The same goes for residential.
So, you know, we have to capture value.
According to the law.
We have to do the the property tax burden according to the law and we need do it in a way that's predictable so that our tax payers are finding surprises there.
That.
Having problems bearing that burden because, you know, frankly, in Illinois, the property tax burden is robust.
And we do have to make sure that we are.
Putting our homeowners out of their homes.
We're not pushing our small business owners out of their businesses and, you know, volatility does that people What's next?
got little bit of a break before or are you taking a little bit of a break?
Obviously November is some months away.
You'll be running against Libertarian opponent, Nico stats, Willis.
>> No Republican has filed to run for the seat.
So what's next for you in these few months will take a little bit of a break and reset, but we'll be back out.
There will be communicating with the taxpayers with the voters.
we're gonna make sure that we're successful November.
>> So that we're well positioned in December to bring justice to our taxpayers to bring some sanity back and remove a lot of that volatility that's been
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