Moved by Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Mr. Morreale, and it was carried unanimously to approve the appointments as presented by Chairman Pritchard, and to forward them onto the full board for approval. Chairman Pritchard also thanked Ms. Casella for her many years of service on both the Health Department and Mental Health Board.

Chairman Pritchard stated that this issue is being brought forward from last month’s meeting. The first issue is dealing with our policy that states that we can serve unlimited number of years on one committee and only 6 consecutive years on a second committee. The discussion at our last meeting brought forth that the Executive Committee would be covered under that and he is now opening it up for discussion with the committee.

Mr. Morreale suggested that we rename the Executive Committee as an Ad Hoc Committee and remove it from the list of standing committees. Ms. Conway suggested that all that we needed to do is say "with the exception of the Executive Committee."

Mr. Hutcheson said that there is another issue that we need to talk about also which involves the change of the committee focuses and what they are responsible for. He feels that we need to discuss that too. Chairman Pritchard said that it is a different issue and that we would discuss that as a separate issue.

Moved by Mr. Steimel, seconded by Mr. Morreale, and it was carried unanimously to modify our policy to add "with the exception of the Executive Committee" to the county board’s rules.

The second issue is, "have the committees changed in more ways than just a name change?" Chairman Pritchard said that there was some discussion over this issue last month and Mr. Hanson had shared with him a further comparison of the changes in particular with regards to the administrative services committee. Mr. Hanson stated that the finance office was the only department that reported to the old finance committee. The new administrative services committee has four departments, the Treasurer’s, Central Plant, Finance and IMO. Ms. Leifheit stated that the public services committee is a combination of the old government operations committee and safety and law committee so now we have about 20 departments that report to the public services committee. Mr. Morreale said that every time a responsibility changes for a committee it is not the intent of this rule that it is sort of a new "clock" each time. Mr. Hutcheson submitted a comparison page of the old finance committee and the new administrative services committee for the members to review and stated that it does show that it has changed tremendously.

Mr. Morreale than suggested another change for housekeeping is that is says in our rules that there are "6 commissioners for the forest preserve"..... and then it would read " the President appoints commissioners to serve ........" Mr. Bockman said that that is out of the Year Book and the problem here is that we have two different things going on here, while I am looking at the county code for our rules and it is the law. Mr. Bockman further explained that in the Year Book it is the County Clerk’s summary of the county board rules. He will check on it and bring it back to this committee next month.

Mr. Morreale also questioned that the administrative services committee picked a vice-chairman and as he reviews the rules, he is concerned on how this committee could be represented on the executive committee. An example would be the landfill expansion came to the executive committee to vote for and he was newly elected as vice-chairman of the forest preserve committee. It was a pretty significant vote for the executive committee. He brings up a point with administrative services as, "what are we going to do if that same occassion would come up again and if you look at our rules, basically states that there is no rule and we look then to robert’s rules and that clearly says that it allows the vice chairman to serve or chairman." The problem that he sees is that we are consolidating everything and not incorporating enough people. What would we do? Mr. Hutcheson said that in the past if he and his vice-chairman were both going to be gone for a meeting at the same time that he would appoint someone to attend in his place from his committee. Ms. Conway said that we need to get people involved in a leadership role where it might be good where people who are chairman of one committee would not be the vice-chairman of another committee. In that way other people will gain experience in a leadership role. Ms. Leifheit stated that she doesn’t see anywhere in our rules that it states to spread the leadership role around? Ms. Conway that if most of the people are the chairman of one committee and the vice-chairman of another committee then how are other people going to gain experience in a leadership role? I am just making a suggestion, she further commented. Mr. Sands stated that he agreed with Ms. Conway and that we need diversity and include as many people as we can. Mr. Steimel suggested that the chairman of the committee could designate a person to represent them at the executive committee if the vice-chairman is not there. Mr. Bockman stated that he would need to research this further and would bring back recommended language to the committee for next month.

Mr. Ray Bockman, County Administrator, reviewed the Board Agenda for the January 17, 2001 meeting. Moved by Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Mr. Steimel, and it was carried unanimously accept the county board agenda as presented by Mr. Bockman.

Mr. Wilson, Chairman of the Public Infrastructure & Development Committee, stated that item #E. - no parking on Shabbona Road - on the board agenda was recommended by the County Sheriff and the County Engineer and is only in town. The garage portion of the new highway building is being used and in March/April they hope the be moving the office over.

Mr. Steimel, Chairman of the Administrative Services Committee, stated that their date is the same but their meeting time has been moved up to 7:00p.m. They also had four orientations from the Treasurer, Mr. Hanson, Ms. Berkes and Mr. Campbell. He was very impressed by our new facilities manager, Mr. Campbell and his presentation.

Mr. Morreale, Chairman of the Forest Preserve Committee, stated that their meeting is the same day and time and that they had an orientation by Mr. Hannan for all committee members.

Ms. Leifheit, Chairman of the Public Services Committee, said that their time and date was the same and that they had introductions from Margaret Whitwell, Ken Johnson, Margi Gilmour, Mary Olson and Jill Olson from CASA.

Chairman Pritchard stated that our county is a member of three different organizations and one of them is the Metro Counties consisting of eight different counties. Some of those being, Tazewell, Madison, St. Clair, ourselves, and Winnebago. We have been members for a number of years with them and that they are very good at keeping us informed about legislation. They highlighted 5 legislative agenda priorities that they would be backing to push for consideration as follows: 1.) The Treasurer’s reform of the mobile home tax issue; 2.) Internet Accessibility and charge for services; 3.) Storm water management and regulations; 4.) Nursing home support for Medicaid; and 5.) Increasing Law Libraries fees. They are limiting the legislative agenda to about 5 items because it was reported that the leadership of the House and the Senate has put a limit of 2-3 bills per legislators in the attempt to keep the business manageable and have all accomplished by May 21, 2001. He’ll have some things to share with the public policy committee in terms of what the legislative agenda of some of the others counties were.

Chairman Pritchard then informed the committee about our workshop in February and hopes to get send out a memo this Friday as to what date and place it will be held. He has also asked for input from department heads especially if they have some long-range issues that they would like the board to think about.

He also reminded the members to think about ways to ask their various committees to look at goals that you hope to accomplish over the next two years as a committee. Challenge the committee to look forward and not just deal with the housekeeping issues.

Mr. Morreale asked Chairman Pritchard if this committee would discuss the redistricting issue? Chairman Pritchard stated that we had an intern last time to help us and he has spoken to IMO to look at census numbers, layering of population, voters, etc. The thought is that the census numbers have to be available by April, but may be available in February. When we get those numbers we will be better able to see what kind of modifications we may need to make. He also said that in conversations with Ms. Holmes, County Clerk and Recorder, she has identified three areas of growth as Cortland, Sycamore and DeKalb. She is proposing and will bring to this committee recommendations on realigning a couple of precincts and also creating, I believe, two new precincts.

Moved by Mr. Wilson, seconded by Mr. Steimel, and it was voted unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

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Robert W. Pritchard, Chairman

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Mary C. Supple, Secretary