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DeKalb County, Illinois |
Minutes of the
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The
Public Policy Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, November 19,
2001 at 6:30p.m. at the DeKalb County Administration Building’s Conference
Room East. Chairman Ruth Anne Tobias called the meeting to order.
Members present were James Barr, John Dlabal, Eileen Dubin and Pat LaVigne.
Mr. Metzger and Mr. Brown were absent.
Moved
by Mr. Dlabal, seconded by Ms. LaVigne, and it was voted unanimously to accept
the minutes from the October 15, 2001 meeting.
Moved
by Mr. Barr, seconded by Mr. Dlabal, and it was voted unanimously that the
agenda be approved.
No one was present for public comment.
Mr. Metzger could not make the meeting this evening and said that he would be bringing the materials to the county board meeting to disperse to the committee members.
OLD BUSINESS – Legislative
Agenda Follow-up Activity:
Chairman Tobias said that she was
suggesting that the committee pick 1 activity that they feel might have a chance
of passing. She said that the
credit card legislation was the one that she was thinking of. We would need to find someone to sponsor it.
The committee suggested that Chairman Tobias speak with the Treasurer and
the Circuit Clerk about the issue and see if they have any information that they
could share. Ms. LaVigne said
that if no one is willing to find information out on the topic then she
would do it.
Ms. Dubin said that she didn’t really know where we stand on the
Metropolitan Planning Organization? Chairman Tobias said that the decision
hasn’t been made on what the MPO will cover.
It’s required to cover Cortland, DeKalb, Sycamore and Malta, but it’s
allowed to cover the whole county. She
doesn’t know if that has been decided yet.
It was agreed that Ms. Dubin would update the committee on this topic
monthly.
Next Meeting Area Selection:
The committee discussed where they should hold their next off-site
meeting. It was agreed to send out
a letter to all communities, including those that they had already visited and
get feedback from them as to whether or not they want the committee to visit
them, and what are hot topics that they would want them to discuss?
The letters would be sent to all mayors and village presidents.
Then off of the response the committee receives they will be better able
to plan their agenda items for the year 2002.
Regional Planning Commission
Promotion:
Chairman Tobias said that she felt that everyone present feels that
regional planning is a good idea. Some
of you may feel that we should go slowly, but as a public policy committee she
feels that the committee should be involved in promoting the concepts of
regional planning. Ms. LaVigne said
that she felt that Mr. Bockman did an excellent job of explaining the
commission, that is, when he said the when a contractor comes to you and says we
would like to put this development in a certain place in your town, you can then
say, “No, you may come here and you may offer us something, but you’re going
to put it where we want you to develop it not where you want it,” that says it
all.
Mr.
Barr said that he felt the proposal we presented is far too much in the interest
of the smaller communities against the larger communities.
What town that has 40,000 people would have the same representation as a
town that has 1,200 people? Chairman Tobias asked, “is that something that we
should be looking at?” “Is
it such a bad thing that the City of DeKalb would have only one
representative?” she further asked. Chairman
Tobias said that at her workplace they are working a lot on regional cooperation
and planning commissions, etc., and she will try to get other information on how
other commissions are structured and proportional representation.
She also encouraged the committee to think of ways that the committee
could get people to support the Regional Planning Commission proposal.
Ms.
Dubin stated that for the Government Week in April of 2002, she would like to
suggest that the County work with Ms. Joan Berkes-Hanson to maybe set up some
type of panel discussion with demonstrations on what the Information Management
Office has done working with a variety of the different offices within the
County to make it easier for the user to find a permit form or whatever.
Ms. LaVigne said that we should invite Ms. Berkes-Hanson to report to our
committee on which departments are involved.
The committee agreed to invite Ms. Berkes-Hanson to one of our meetings
to discuss this further.
Moved
by Mr. Dlabal, seconded by Mr. Barr, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn
the meeting.
Respectively
submitted,
______________________________
Chairman
Ruth Anne Tobias
__________________________
Mary C. Supple, Secretary
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