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DeKalb County, Illinois |
Minutes of the
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The
Executive Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 @
7:00 p.m. at the Administration Building=s
Conference Room East. Chairman
Robert Pritchard called the meeting to order.
Members present were Robert Hutcheson, Sue Leifheit, John Morreale, Tige
Hoffman as Vice–Chairman of the Public Infrastructure and Development
Committee, Pat LaVigne as Vice-Chairman of the Public Policy Committee and John
Wilson as the Vice-Chairman of the Administrative Services Committee. Roger
Steimel and Ruth Anne Tobias were absent. Others
present were Ray Bockman, Greg Millburg, Fred Blakely, Dennis Sands, Diane
Strand, James Barr, Jeffery Metzger, John Guehler, Veronica Casella, John
Dlabal, Michael Haines and Steve Kapitan.
Moved
by Mr. Hutcheson, seconded by Mr. Wilson, and it was carried unanimously to
accept the minutes of the last meeting.
Moved
by Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Mr. Morreale, and it was carried unanimously to
approve the amended agenda.
Chairman
Pritchard recommended the following appointments:
Metropolitan Exposition, Auditorium & Office Building Authority:
| Mayor Greg Sparrow, appointment for a term of 3 –years, until 7/01/2004. |
| Mr. Richard Hall Mr. James McInnes Both reappointments for a term of 3 years, until 7/01/2004. |
Moved
by Ms. LaVigne, seconded by Mr. Hutcheson, 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 followed-up on his letter that he sent out to all board members this last week. He said that he felt it was appropriate to him, in view of the strong feelings that a number of board members have after our last board meeting, that we should revisit the issue that seems to becoming more of a trend. He said that there continues to be discussion and input following committee meetings when there should be an open opportunity for input and ideas to be generated at those meetings to challenge status quo, if that seems appropriate, to come up with creative ideas. Then the rest of the board will have the benefit of participating at those meetings and/or viewing the minutes from those meetings as we go into our full county board meeting. As he indicated in that letter, the last four months we seem to have more and more discussion, changes in direction from where committees have acted, that he felt it appropriate to bring it open for discussion tonight to see if you had any ideas that would address some of the concerns that apparently some of our members have, be it a better way of operating or in some way foster better discussion, Chairman Pritchard said. He opened up the meeting to discussion to have members speak to this issue.
As Chairman
Pritchard has talked to some board members, there is a feeling that they would
like to have input in the discussions and yet they don’t feel they can make
the meetings of that committee. He
suggested to those board members to share their ideas and feelings with other
board members who they feel might have similar ideas or opinions.
Mr. Dlabal said that
he felt that the timing element of the last county board meeting was a problem.
If you don’t get much discussion at the general board meeting then it
should go back to committee. We
could not go back to committee, however, on the most recent issue because of the
deadline parameters. He felt that
it was handled as well as it could be under those circumstances.
Mr. Haines said that
when an item comes forward without unanimous approval from committee, he is
curious as to why. What he is
hearing is that if he has questions then he should call the committee chairman
or members of the committee prior to the board meeting because we don’t have a
system of recording opposition to an idea. Mr. Haines said that when there is an
issue that comes up where there is dissension and where there are multiple
people that have voted no, that there should be an opportunity for all of the
board to understand why there is opposition.
Chairman Pritchard
stated that we won’t have consensus on every issue.
We need to have healthy discussion, but he feels that one of the things
that he has heard over the years is that many board members don’t like
“fresh ideas” to be presented on the board floor.
That they should be presented at committee or somehow distributed to
board members ahead of time so that people have a chance to think about it or go
see whatever it is we will be discussing. That
is one of the things that he keeps encouraging people to do.
He thought that this most recent issue we had encouraged people to bring
forward ideas, we had an open Executive Committee Meeting a week ahead of time
that he was hoping that there was ample opportunity to put all of these issues
on the table. Granted this committee voted on one of those issues and the
board may have chosen to go a different direction, but hopefully those issues
were on the table before we go to the committee meeting. That is one of the biggest issues that troubles him, not that
everything is a rubberstamp at the committee, but the committees are the
workhorse of the board, they do explore the issues, they do surface the ideas,
and then the board simply reacts to things that are on the table.
Mr. Haines said that
what Mr. Dlabal commented on was if there was a need for more time, then the
easiest and most favorable thing to allow everyone to come forward would have
been to table the issue. Then it
can go back to committee and everyone can have their say on that issue. It may
slow down the process, but it is one of the characteristics of democracy.
Mr. Wilson said that
most chairmen try to identify that we are not dealing with a majority vote and
when that motion is made for that resolution and open to discussion, that seems
to him like the ideal time for those people that might be opposed to it to ask
for recognition, There’s no
reason why the chairman wouldn’t recognize them and let them get their story
told. But to bypass a committee’s
work and table an issue for another look, he feels that it is a problem. Mr.
Haines said he agrees, but he feels that there should be a free flowing
discussion. Chairman Pritchard
stated that generally all committee minutes have a fair sense of the discussion.
So if there is a minority viewpoint, it is represented or should be, in those
minutes.
Ms. Casella stated
that she feels that is the problem - it’s not.
Not all of the committee minutes are reflected with the names of the no
votes in their reports and they should be.
Chairman Pritchard said that if there is a roll call vote then he feels
you could tell who voted no. That
is something that we need to look at and that it should be reflected in the
minutes. Chairman Pritchard asked
if Ms. Casella felt that the minutes do not sometimes reflect the tenor of the
discussion? Ms. Casella said
sometimes they don’t. If she
would let him know where there are particular committees where that is a
problem, he would like to follow-up on that and see if we can do to improve the
quality of the minutes.
Ms. Leifheit
suggested to new board members to read the minutes, talk to the chairmen or
people from the committees regarding the issues they have questions on.
If the issue is in the southern part of the county or northern part of
the county, or whatever section of the county, then talk to county board members
that live there who are familiar with the issue.
Mr. Ray Bockman, County Administrator, encouraged the county board
members to call the staff members too. That
is what they are there for - don’t hesitate to call.
Mr. Morreale said
that sometimes we make mistakes. We
had board members who worked really hard on an issue. Mr. Wilson said earlier
this evening that there’s no reason that the chairman wouldn’t recognize
that minority vote and let them have their peace.
That’s not what happened. One
thing that he would like to say is that if someone at the last second raises
their hand we should just include
these people and let everyone talk. We
need to be a little more tolerant.
Chairman Pritchard said that as of the meeting last month that once a
motion has been questioned, the chairman has no other choice but to stop
discussion.
Chairman summarized
suggestions made this evening by stating that our minutes need to reflect the
vote, reflect all of the ideas that are presented and report any particular
views that should be flagged for the board members. So if there is something
controversial then as chairmen of the various committees, you need to find a way
of flagging it for the rest of the board members. He further stated that if any of the county board members
have ideas that should be discussed or if you have opinions about items on the
agenda of committee meetings, that you get those ideas into the committee
discussion. Personally, through
another board member, through a telephone call, letter or whatever, but let’s
try to get those ideas over, let’s try to give the courtesy of generating
those ideas more than necessarily before the night of the board meeting.
Though you can have new ideas generated on the floor of the discussion,
I’m not saying that, but for people who have been thinking about an issue and
have invested a lot of time on that issue, there is also the opposite side of
that and that’s the courtesy of getting them before the board members more
than five minutes before the meeting, Chairman Pritchard stated.
Mr. Bockman
suggested the 7th of August because this is one of those months that
start on a Wednesday. So it would fall on the first Tuesday of the month instead
of our normal date, he further stated. It
was agreed to schedule the next executive committee meeting for Tuesday, August
7, 2001 @7:00p.m.
Chairman Pritchard
said that this effort is to generate some ideas for the budget process.
If you have any opportunity at your next meetings to bring the issue of
priorities, the ways we are currently investing our dollars, if there are
questions, concerns or new ideas, let’s surface them as soon as possible.
He is encouraging all board members to contact Mr. Hanson or Mr. Bockman
with these ideas. At the various
committee meetings, he asked, if the chairmen could raise the issue as one of
the budget that impacts the areas of your responsibilities; are there things
that you feel you need that you will want to change the priorities of. If there are issues that are going to crop up in the next two
to three years that maybe we should start thinking about now, he would encourage
them to do that. Mr. Dlabal stated that we might want to look at the tax cap
issues and concerns from various departments and board members.
He feels that property taxes have reached saturation and that we need to
look at other options to provide the services that the county residents want.
Maybe Public Policy Committee should be looking at it, as a suggestion,
he further stated.
Chairman Pritchard
just briefly spoke on the exempt employee evaluation process.
He encouraged the chairmen to look at what we’ve done in the past and
what works and what doesn’t.
Mr.
Ray Bockman, County Administrator, reviewed the Board Agenda for the July 18,
2001 meeting. Moved by Mr. Wilson,
seconded by Ms. Leifheit, and it was carried unanimously to accept the county
board agenda as presented by Mr. Bockman.
Mr.
Hutcheson, Chairman of the Planning & Regulations Committee, said that on
the two issues (Bethke) that will be before the board next week reflects that
these two old lots of record will have to happen and that he just wanted to
bring that to their attention. He
also said that the new legislative center is coming along fine.
Mr.
Wilson, Chairman of the Public Infrastructure and Development Committee, said
that the letting bids have been done for the chipper and benching wing (for the
newest snow plow truck) that the county has purchased.
The letting on item #c. on the agenda will be done the evening of the
board meeting at 7:00p.m.
Mr.
Morreale, Chairman of the Forest Preserve Committee, informed the members about
the status on the Guardian Pipeline Issue.
He said that most of the landowners, he assumes, will say no.
Mr. Hannan is speaking to other forest preserves that have pipelines that
go through them and get their input. Chairman
Pritchard said that it is his understanding that the county does have some
jurisdiction over utilities that come through the county.
So if there are restrictions that we want to place on them we need to
act. Mr. Hutcheson said that the
jurisdiction would be on the depth issue. That the state requirement is 5 feet
deep, Guardian is looking at only going 4 feet deep.
Chairman Pritchard pointed out that since Guardian didn’t agree to the
state mitigation plan, they didn’t get the state to sign the mitigation plan,
this will be the first pipeline in the State of Illinois that doesn’t have the
state’s approval of the plan, so it’s setting a precedent.
Mr.
Morreale then updated the committee about the Boy Scout Camp issue.
He said that there has been a change whereby instead of having the forest
preserve district purchase all of the 850 acres, probably what will happen is
that we will “partner up” with the State of Illinois.
The State seems to be interested and would purchase everything south of
the river (about 550 acres) and we would purchase everything north of the river
(277 acres) which we would add on to McQueen.
We have been told that we are very eligible for the grant.
There is now a full blown granting process going on.
It’s been very encouraging. IDNR
has expressed extreme interest and they have written a very nice letter to the
Governor and many others pointing out that DeKalb is ranked 76 out of 102
counties for public land per capita. They
mention over and over about northern Illinois having a lack of space parks
available. It is a request on the Governor’s desk now and that with
IDNR’s request to make this a State Park.
Hopefully, in the next couple of months this will go before the board
again. Mr. Metzger stated that a couple of weeks ago he met with the Governor
and he mentioned this issue. He got
the feeling that he would be open to sitting down and discussing this issue.
So, if Mr. Morreale, Mr.
Hannan and himself and whoever else, would like to sit down with him, he has the
person’s name to call to do just that.
Ms.
LaVigne, Vice-Chairman of the Public Policy Committee, said that we are
beginning our legislative process and if anyone has anything to please bring it
to Ms. Tobias or herself. Also, she
thanked Mr. Metzger for coordinating the last committee meeting in Sandwich that
she felt went very well. She
mentioned that Mr. Bockman and Mr. Lorence also went with the committee to
answer any questions that the public may have.
She felt that we were very well received.
Chairman
Pritchard mentioned to the committee that he has received a letter from Judge
Engel that he has appointed Mr. Tim Johnson as the public defender conflict
counsel. He also stated that the
State Comptroller has sent us a letter of congratulations to our Finance
Department for the Achievement of Excellence once again.
He also mentioned that Mr. Bockman has sent a letter to the staff
regarding the U.S. Census Bureau undercounts that occurred in certain precincts
in the last census. He also wanted
to mention that at the board meeting next week he will be recognizing Pat
Knudson on her retirement and 30 plus years of service to the county and its
citizens.
Moved
by Ms. Leifheit, seconded by Mr. Hutcheson, and it was voted unanimously to
adjourn the meeting.
Respectfully
submitted,
_________________________________
Robert W. Pritchard, Chairman
_______________________________
Mary C. Supple, Secretary
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