A Cook County elected official was arrested and charged with drunken driving in Chicago

A first-term Cook County elected official was arrested and charged with drunken driving Sunday on the North Side, according to Chicago Police records. Democrat Samantha Steele — one of three commissioners in the relatively obscure but powerful Cook County Board of Review — faces one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of alcohol. Police say they arrested Steele, 45, in the 5000 block of North Ashland Avenue at 8:49 p.

m. Sunday. Her court date was set for Dec.



27, according to the police report. Steele did not return messages seeking comment Monday. Police and political records show Steele lives in Evanston.

She represents the Board of Review’s District 2 , which includes much of the North Side of Chicago and the northern suburbs. Steele was first elected to the Board of Review — which has power to decide on property tax appeals — in 2022, defeating incumbent Michael Cabonargi in the Democratic primary after she had worked on Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s transition team. An aide to Steele, Frank Calabrese, recently filed a whistleblower lawsuit against her and her chief of staff in federal court.

Earlier in the year, Steele defended giving a county job to a former northwest Indiana politician who had pleaded guilty in a federal case. And Steele has found herself at the center of the dispute over the Chicago Bears’ property tax bill for the old Arlington Park racecourse property, where the football team has mulled building a new stadium. Dan Mihalopoulos is an investigative reporter on WBEZ’s Government & Politics Team.

Tom Schuba is a criminal justice editor for the Sun-Times..