DeKalb County, Illinois

Minutes of the
Public Policy Committee

February 25, 2002

The Public Policy Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, February 25, 2002 at 6:00p.m. at the DeKalb County Administration Building’s Conference Room East. Chairman Ruth Anne Tobias called the meeting to order. Members present were John Dlabal, Eileen Dubin, Jeff Metzger and Pat LaVigne. Mr. Brown and Mr. Barr were absent.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

Moved by Mr. Dlabal, seconded by Ms. Dubin, and it was voted unanimously to accept the minutes from the January 2002 meeting.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

Moved by Mr. Metzger, seconded by Ms. Dubin, and it was voted unanimously that the agenda be approved.

PUBLIC COMMENT

No one was present for public comment.

OLD BUSINESS – Legislative Agenda Follow-up:

Chairman Tobias has not spoken with Senator Bradley Burzynski yet on the legislative agenda issues, but hopes to do so soon. Representative Wirsing and she will be following up on the credit card issue, also. Mr. Bockman said that the committee can still speak with Senators yet about the legislation. He will supply the Metro Counties list of active files for the committee via email to those that have internet service. Others he will mail out the list to them.

OLD BUSINESS – Meetings in other areas -

Chairman Tobias said that she had had 3 responses from mayors so far with regards to holding our meetings in their towns. They were Sycamore, Genoa and one other town. Genoa has requested that if we could hold our next meeting in their town around May 2002 and have it scheduled for one (1) hour prior to their council meeting.

OLD BUSINESS – Update on Planning for County Government Week

Chairman Tobias introduced Ms. Joan Berkes-Hanson, Director of Information Management Office and Ms. Lisa Sanderson, who works for the IMO office. Ms. Berkes-Hanson said that her office has come up with some ideas for County Government Week. They came up with doing a contest with all 6^th, 7^th and 8^th graders in the DeKalb County to address “My Ideas for Improving the DeKalb County Government Website”. Ms. Sanderson has worked on an invitation for the kids to work off of for the contest. The prize is for $100.00. The entry can be no more than 250 words and it can be either emailed or written out. The invitation will appear on our website under “Hot topics” and will be ready to go to press and to the schools by March 1, 2002. The entries are to be in to her office by the end of March 2002. Mr. Bockman will be handling the check and that they will be relying on Tom Weber for help with passing out the forms to all the grades. They are not limiting entries and at our April Meeting we will announce the winner. The committee directed Ms. Berkes-Hanson to move forward on the project and to go with the plan.

The committee also discussed the various radio shows that different people will be appearing on to be broadcasted that week (week of April 8, 2002). They agreed that Mr. Paul Miller, DeKalb County Planning and Zoning Director and Chairman Tobias will appear on the “Spectrum Radio Show” on B95 which airs on Sunday, April 7, 2002. Their subject matter will be Regional Planning Commission. Ms. Eileen Dubin, County Board Member, Terry Hannan and John Dlabal will appear on the “Party Line” Radio Show on WLBK, which is a live broadcast that is to air on Tuesday, April 9, 2002 from 8:35a.m. to 9:00a.m. They will speak on New Forest Preserves. The last one to broadcast is Jeff Metzger and Dennis Miller. Jeff will get in touch with WSPY radio station to schedule a broadcast on their radio show to speak on the subject of Emergency Preparedness.

OLD BUSINESS – Public Transportation Follow-up

Ms. Eileen Dubin, County Board Member, said that she believes that V.A.C. has reached its limits and that they are caught between a rock and a hard place. They need money, she further stated. Fox Valley Older Adults and Open Door in the Sandwich area have started their own transportation, said Mr. Metzger. V.A.C. does less business down in the South end of the county, he said. Mr. Metzger suggested that we should have TransVac, Fox Valley, anyone, come in and we need to listen to what they need, not for us to decide what the public needs and perhaps we could steer them in the right direction. Ms. Dubin said that’s why I feel we need a study done on this issue. Ms. LaVigne said that her son runs the transportation department for Oakland, California and that she could ask him to make a copy of some information that might help us on transportation issues and bring it to the committee to review.

ADJOURNMENT

Moved by Mr. Dlabal, seconded by Mr. Metzger, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

Respectively submitted,

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Chairman Ruth Anne Tobias

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Mary C. Supple, Secretary