The Associated Press
COOK COUNTY, Ill — The state labor department has agreed to withdraw all but one citation it issued against Cook County after a 2003 downtown office-building fire killed six people who became trapped in smoke-filled stairways.
According to the proposed deal, the county would pay $4,000 to dismiss a citation that accuses officials of not notifying the Illinois Department of Labor quickly enough after the blaze at the 37-story Cook County Administration Building.
Eight other citations, including one that accuses the county of ignoring earlier employee concerns about locked stairwell doors, would be withdrawn under the agreement.
Department spokeswoman Anjali Nayyar-Julka said officials agreed to drop the citations because they were satisfied with the county’s reaction to the state’s safety concerns.
Cook County commissioners are expected to give their final approval to the deal, which was hammered out in June, within the next several days.
County Commissioner Peter Silvestri said the agreement suggests the state could not prove wrongdoing on the county’s part.
“It seems to me that the settlement indicates that the state couldn’t establish that there was willful and wanton neglect,” said Silvestri, who is chairman of the commission’s litigation subcommittee.
The labor department hit the county and city with 16 citations for safety and fire code violations six months after the fire -- bewildering and angering municipal leaders.
Seven of the citations were issued against the Chicago Fire Department, which was accused of failing to provide proper disaster scene training and for communication failures during the fire.
In December, state officials withdrew those citations against the fire department when the city pledged to make training and workplace improvements.
Before the deals with the labor department, city and county officials had appealed the citations. Mayor Richard Daley last year questioned why the department became involved at all and the county filed a point-by-point rebuttal of the citations.